Customs

[TropicalBob]

I found two posts elsewhere on the Web today that are most troubling. The first came from the a U.S. forum on e-smoking, but was posted by a user in the Netherlands. It concerned Customs problems with e-liquid:

In europe we have the same problem.

E-cig near Shanghai, ships all there goods as "piece of plastic pipe" and in an illegal way they can ship Liquid out of China.
All other factory's ship from another part of China (Shenzhen near HongKong) with more custom checks and cannot ship Liquid in bottles.

It is even illigal for them to ship a bottle of water.

Is this true? Anyone know. China can't ship liquids legally?

Then there's this, from a company that wholesales e-items. Ever wonder where the nicotine comes from? Next to a photo of E-Cig's cartridge box is this:

Product Name: Cigarette Case
Listing Date:
Origin of Product : Cuba
Delivery Time: 3-10 days

Product Description(Specifications) :
The e-cig cartridge is composed of inhaler and e-smoking liquid container. E-smoking liquid is the diluted nicotine fluid ready for atomizing in the inhaler container. The cartridge contains about 1ml e-smoking liquid and 15mg nicotine.

When the smoking liquid in the container of the cartridge is less so that there is less smoke coming out, you can either change the cartridge or just add two or three drops of the smoking liquid on the container, and then you will enjoy the same feeling as a tobacco smoking again.

Model/Article No.: E-CIG
Supply Ability / Month: 100,000pcs/month
Minimum Order: 100pcs
Payment Terms: T/T

Note the country of origin. Ouch. If an American agency learns of this, it's taboo. I use Swedish snus much of the time, but Swedish companies cannot sell me Montecristo or Romeo y Julieta snus. Why? Each contains Cuban tobacco. The U.S. has an embargo on Cuban tobacco, so it's not legal to import any product containing Cuban tobacco.

I'm a bit worried about future orders.

[RatInDaHat]

Odd thing about cuba. We had an embargo because castro was in power. At least that is what the public was told. Now that castro is no longer in power, shouldn't the embargo be lifted? Just food for thought.. Hopefully you get you stuff sorted.

-Dusty-

[TropicalBob]

My shipment was released by Customs in Alaska and sent to New York, where it promptly had an indefinite hold placed on it. No word yet what they expect from me as a next move.

Maybe this is The Eve Incident, the one event that changes things. Will Customs ever look favorably on an E-Cig shipment again? They now know The Big Lie of "pipe" and "sample". And I now know where the tobacco comes from! And why The Big Lie was used in the first place.

I ordered more liquids two days ago -- to be sent by land post.

[TropicalBob]

BULLETIN: My shipment was just delivered by FedX. Or, I should say, part of my shipment. I had ordered the sample pack of all flavors and a 50ml bottle of chocolate e-liquid. There was no bottle. Just flavor cartridges rolling around to show that Customs had opened my package.

Now I must begin to track down my missing 50ml bottle. That costs too much money for me to just let it slide.

[RatInDaHat]

That's odd, but maybe they are trying to figure out what the liquid is.. well, if the package was marked "sample" then the sample pack would fit into the description. Hope it all gets sorted.. Glad we are all not totally screwed..

-Dusty-

[TropicalBob]

Dusty, this particular one was marked "plastic pipe" and was actually delivered to me with those words on the invoice despite my having to fill out a new invoice detailing what was really in the package. The word "sample" seems to be used for land post deliveries; "pipe" is for express delivery. Both are fraudulent. This was an "express" delivery that took a month to get to me - for $26 in shipping.

[RatInDaHat]

my order today will go china air or whatever, not express

[EricD]

TB, are you seriously trying to tell me customs gaffled your 50ml bottle of liquid and let you have cartridges? That's messed up. So, I guess liquid in a cartridge is ok, but not liquid that goes in a cartridge. I'll have to think really hard on the distinction. They're probably puffing on the liquid as we speak. :x Well, at least we know that cartridges are ok. I'm really glad you got some of it through customs ok. We were all getting worried here. Keep us updated on the liquid. I"m watching this post like a hawk, checking a few times a day to see where you're at with this ordeal. Still waiting on my 50, 30, and 2 8 ml bottles. Still just left china. Wondering if maybe i should have just ordered 100 cartridges instead of 100 ml. I suppose your explanation was satisfactory; kudos to you for that. You should hop on the chat sessions with us at night. Its 12:00 p.m. right now where i'm at and a few of us are usually chatting at 7 or 8 p.m. Hope to see you there to regail us with your tales of customs horror....... I know... I'm lame. :mrgreen:


"...she just wouldn't shut up enough for me to listen" (meltrex 2008)

[TropicalBob]

FedX answered the "where do I go now?" question by telling me the shipment contained only one item -- the sample cartridges. So ... E-Cig bungled the shipment by not including the 50ml bottle. I sent E-Cig an email but you know how long that might take to be answered -- if ever. And there's some kind of Chinese holiday starting in May that means they'll be shut down for 3 days. I'll post updates here as I learn more. Apparently, the liquid was never shipped, even though I was charged for it and my emailed invoice from E-Cig shows it was ordered.

FYI: I ordered a bunch more small liquid bottles the day before yesterday so I could test the good doctor's recipes. Plus, the DIY nicotine liquid I made from nasal snuff is quite good! I've been adding vanila extract as flavoring.

[RatInDaHat]

what does the commercial invoice on the box say? or maybe the packing list?

-Dusty-