Rant | Dealing with Customs Authorities

I like to try new stuff. It's part of who I am. I love to get new products and shopping and new stores! And I am always so happy when any store or company contacts me and say "hey we want to sent you some things for you to try out for free!". I get so existing when I get these offers. But I hate having to deal with customs and with the post office to get my stuff.

Most of these stuff comes from China. And now portuguese customs authorities are really freaky about big packages arriving from China. If it is a small thing, like if it comes in an envelope, they always let it through. But if it is a package,  like if it needs to be delivered, they hold it. They hold it and they send me a letter asking for my personal information and for me to send them an invoice or a receipt for the payment with the price and description of the items. Well, if it's a gift I don't have any of that! I din't pay. But trying to explain this to the guys in costumes is really hard. So they told me to write a statement where I explained this, gave the prices and description and this work fine a few times. But last time, when I was trying to get my package from Gamiss, they did not accept this document. I called. They told me that the items contained tags and that the tags didn't match what I was stating -- that the values were higher. And they also told me that they had opened the packaging. I didn't knew what to do. They wanted an invoice. And couldn't give them that! So I had to talk with the person that contacted me. I asked the girl if she could help, if she could send me a statement with the prices and saying that i din't pay for anything. She sent me a document in really bad English, with prices waaaaaay under the prices that I'd sent before ( really, like 1 USD for each product -- it was just absurd and ridiculous). I sent that to the customs office,  and guess what? I got the exact same answer... the values don't mach, bla bla bla. At this point I didn't knew what to do. Then I had the brilliant idea of sending them the statement I created initially and a print screen of my order on the website. This had pictures, prices and everything they wanted to know. I wrote a small text on the email saying that this is what they told me the price was, and again,  it was a gift, because I have a blog... and it finally worked! This took me more than 3 months! It's so crazy. And when I finally got.the package I understood why they were all relutante and not believing what I was saying: one of the product had a 70€ tag (I posted the picture on the other post, you can check it out!) ! And I was saying that it costed 7 or 8€ ! I mean, it's logical that they would believe.

Now I know how to deal with this situation, and I wanted to share with you in case this ever happens to you! If you need/want the template for the statement I used, send me an email and I'll be happy to give it you! And don't forget, always attach a print-screen of your order!!