[AusNOG] Sensitive Freight Shipping

[Matt Richards]

Even the Courier companies have trouble with that.

We shipped a NAS and a couple of routers to India via DHL in August 2013 
so that they'd be there when I was there in December. They got stuck in 
customs. I ended up taking a new router with me as checked baggage.

Fast forward to November 2014, we get a call from some scrap metal guy 
in Delhi asking if we wanted to buy our equipment from him.

Matt.

On 15/01/2015 3:47 p.m., John Edwards wrote:
> "Uni student with a suitcase" is not really an apples-for-apples
> comparison for "40 years experience as the benchmark for international
> shipping".
>
> Shipping internationally may require knowledge of laws, tariffs,
> taxes, insurance, politics and commercial environments in at least two
> jurisdictions. Who even knows what terms like Carnet or Cabotage mean,
> without running to wikipedia. Do you know if a router vendor in a
> destination country is lobbying against "grey market" imports?
>
> Even when you painstakingly research all the laws and prepare all of
> the paperwork, you're still at the mercy of a customs agent who might
> be having a bad day at the front of a long queue, or who voted for the
> guy who got prime-time screening by insisting that
> routers-in-suitcases are a threat to a country's way of life. There
> will not be anyone at the passenger airport terminal who is qualified
> to approve the importation of a piece of high-tech kit. Best case
> scenario in that event is that your equipment is seized and you need
> to find a freight-forwarder who will vouch for you (hope you bought
> your student a flexible return ticket).
>
> International freight companies de-risk this operation, and keep you
> from appearing on episodes of "border security".
>
> Plan B - tell them it's old desktop computer parts for a relative of a friend ;)
>
> John
>
>
> On 15 January 2015 at 11:11, Mark Newton <newton at atdot.dotat.org> wrote:
>> On Jan 14, 2015, at 6:27 PM, Damian Guppy <the.damo at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> FedEx like to promote how they have a 'sensitive freight' division and cite them sending a whale or something internationally to prove their credentials.
>>
>> Fedex is too expensive. I used them to send an ASR1006 to Japan years ago; The Fedex price was more expensive than a return airfare with the ASR in checked baggage.
>>
>> If you’re a freight company billing so expensively that it’s cheaper to hire a uni student for a few days to courier your equipment, you’re doing it wrong.
>>
>>    -  mark
>>
>>
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