Shoutbox

Hey all

Hoping some with experience posting to Canada, especially from the UK can help me out here.

End of January I shipped a cd off to a friend in Canada via the good old Royal Mail's International Signed For (just incase it got lost) only to find that the good old custom people in Canada decided to hold it. Why? Because apparently I didn't put the right thing on the customs label and I was trying to mask it's true value... My friend has since decided to have it returned to me and I'm now waiting, but obviously I will be wanting to try again at sending it. So my question is:

How do I get it past customs?

I bought the item from Japan so does that mean that for the country of origin I should put Japan and fill the details out according to price in Yen? I don't understand why this should be considering that Im posting it from the UK......

Thanks in advance

umm, i can go up to the post office and ask i guess. I have no experience, but there is a post office just up the road that I can go to find some help for you. 

you should definitely say its from UK, and put in an approximate price for a new CD (10-15 pounds maybe? i don't really know) only items of more than $150 are charged for customs or thereabouts. shouldn't be too hard to get past

On your custom's declaration write "Gift - CD", with an approximate value and usually the parcel will pass the border without any charges applied.

I did mark it as a gift and did give it as rough an estimate of how much it was worth in GBP but still they refused...I can see me having to try various methods to get this through

Marking it as a gift shouldn't be refused and they do not take customs on gifts.

well, my friend has said that he's bought cds from abroad before and that sometimes he can be charged a maximum of 10$ to get it out of customs.

In a way, I've now been put off offering items worldwide on eBay because of this, although I know that not all customs are like this. I thought if I could at least crack Canada (which many eBayers say is the hardest to crack) then the world would basically be my oyster. *sigh*

Oh well, there's nothing else for it then. I'll just have to keep trying