OK...I confess
 

I was just thinking the other day about things that I have done in the past that I would have to admit that in retrospect seem pretty dumb and risky...with regards to US Customs....
I was 19 and spent the summer in England. I lived with a family whose father was in the Wines and Spirits business. They had a basement filled with hard liquor...it looked much like a Liquor Store..no joke. Besides being in the wines and spirits business the husband and wife did not drink....Anyway they loaded me down with about 20 bottles of booze which I carefully wrapped in my duffle bag. With full knowledge that I was under age and trying to smuggle this booze back into the US you can imagine my flight home. Well I got very nervous upon landing. When I reached US Customs I did the unthinkable...I Lied!
They grilled me and I pretended like I had spent the entire summer in England to learn more about great literary figures...big fat lie again...I thought if I presented myself as a nerdy person they would just overlook me...They did...Well I have never forgotten this...now every time I go through Customs I list everything I buy down to bubble gum!!! Yes at 19 that was a dumb thing to do...as I have gotten older I have realized how stupid that was...Does anyone have any similiar confessions?

Returning to San Diego from Tiajuana we stuffed illegal firecrackers in my friend's ample bra. When we got to customs the officer was smoking a cigar, so we got a little nervous (well, my friend got a little more nervous) when he leaned towards her to ask quesions.

OK, Once I brough back 2 bottles of wine from France and didn't declare a pair of pants I bought!

richard..I read your trip report on Vienna...welcome home...

Thanks you, and I will say I declared everything I bought in Vienna and Europe. I am thrilled that the customs office has raised the exemption from $400 to $800.

By the way, I NEVER list all the items I buy on the customs form. You don't have to, read the fine print. You only need to list if it is over the exempted amount. I simple write "Items for Personal Use" and the total value. I never had a problem.

I know Richard...it is out of pure guilt that I do so...lol

When I was 17 I spent the summer in Europe. I bought 3 watches in Switzerland and did not declare it on the form. Never did I think I would be stopped asking for the receipts - well, I ended up in JFK being bodysearched by a guard (male)and I just started crying and telling them how my parents would kill me. I think I made them feel so bad for me that they let me go. What a relief.

Do I declare eveything now? Hell, no. I write souvenirs and have not been stopped. I guess I look more tradional now. I am not saying to lie, but if it is a few dollars over the limit it is no big deal.

My husband fusses at me for writing in the declaration form "book mark 2 euro" etc, haha...
What I feel bad about is sneaking a picture of some street performers in Amsterdam without tossing any coins their way. Somebody near me chastised me for it - I don't know why I didn't, I like the entertainment and haven't stiffed anyone before or since, certainly not if taking a picture of them. (and I'm the one who accuses my hubby for wrong-doing if he sneaks a new Coke can into the minibar to replace one he took out - they don't look the same, you know...)!

I feel compelled to relate a US Customs story of my onw on this thread. Several years ago we were returning to the US from Italy via JFK. I had purchased a rather expensive (at the time) men's gold chain link bracelet in Venice and I declared it on the Customs form since it was many times beyond the then $400 duty-free exemption.
Unfortunately, I got into a hassle with one of the agents about the "actual worth" of the item even though I had a receipt with me. Finally, the agent declared, "Well, I've decided not to charge you any additional duty [beyond what I was already going to have to pay] but normally I would..." or words to that effect. What was infuriating to me was the implication that he could charge whatever or how much ever he wanted regardless of the regulations.
I was willing to pay, and did pay, the extra duty but after that I have, frankly, been reluctant to declare things at times, pareticularly since when you ship things back they often skate into the country duty-free despite the overall value.
On the other hand, the replaced can of coke in the mini-bar is interesting and I suppose that is why many hotels now have the minibars that charge you the instant something is removed.
Ah, the joys of foreign travel.

When I was in m y late teens, I went on a "date" to London with my Dad. I bought a great pair of knee-high boots from some fancy-schmancy store and had them in their big bag as I returned to the US.

I was in front of my dad when we passed through customs and the agent asked me how much the boots were. Well, my dad really hadn't noticed the bag until the agent saw me. I was so worried about the $$$ I had spent, that I told the elderly male agent, "I'll whisper the price in your ear, because if my dad hears, he is going to kill me!"

Needless to say, the agent practically fell out of his chair with laughter and let me go. I was very young and was more afraid of my dad than any ol' customs agent :)

Two years ago and during the 'mad cow' scare, my wife and I were returning from Amsterdam with quite a few tulip bulbs. When we arrived in Philadelphia, a sign in customs explained that there would be a $1,000 fine for any undeclared agricultural items. Although nervous, we didn't declare the bulbs and made it through without incident.

The bulbs were planted and not one ever bloomed.

My friend returned from France and got caught witrh a sausage. $100 fine.

PCircles...that is priceless....lol

Here is another customs agent story. By the way, they all seem like very nice people :)

Before my wedding, I went to India to get my trousseau ready. My grandma had already been in India for about 5 months buying stuff for my wedding. So, I got back with 2 HUGE suitcases full of $$$ shawls, saris, and other essentials for a traditional Indian wedding.

Of course, I got picked "randomly" to have my bags inspected. The customs agent opens my suitcases and sees all these fancy things. Rather than nail me for duty, he is so enthralled with my wedding plans and clothes, that, after chatting with me for a good 20 minutes, he wished me all the best and sent me on my way.

I still don't know if I was supposed to pay duty or not?

Customs agents aren't really looking for people doing excessive shopping while in Europe. They are really looking for drugs, money, agriculture, antiques and precious gems brought back in excess to be resold.

Last month I was returning to Los Angeles from Rome on Swiss where they had served me a banana with lunch, I tucked it into my purse thinking I might want it later in the flight.
When I got to baggage claim, the cute little drug sniffing dog came up to me and sat down. I knew this was a signal to it's trainer, I was really tired so I blurted out, I don't have any drugs! The girl was very stern and said do you have food? I said no. She said go stand in that line over there (with all the shady looking people).
When I got to the customs agent, I suddenly remembered the banana and meekly took it out of my purse. He gave me a lecture about sneaking in fruit and said he would let me go that time, but in the future I would have to pay $500 for a concealed banana.
Yikes.

Myself and my friend took her parents off for a nice day trip to Calais. I did the unthinkable. I forgot my passport. I only realised this when we got to the Channel tunnel. As I live about 45 miles away, I didnt fancy either getting the train back or waiting around the terminal!

I confessed to the rest of the party what had happened, then we cooked the plan. I purchased a leather cover for my (non existent) passport. I tried to relax and look as if all was ok :-" On the way over to France, we were just 'waved' through - phew! I spent the whole day sweating and thinking I would be arrested as an illegal immigrant ;)

HOWEVER, things were different on the way back. I put my casual face on, and even carried on eating my sandwich when the immigration guy asked us for the passports to scrutinise. When he got to mine, it, of course, was empty! oh hell! He said very sharply, 'where is it then?!!' We just all looked at each other in feigned surprise, then my friends parents had a fake arguement that deserved an Oscar, blaming each other. The customs/imm. guy got so exasperated with the 'family arguement' he just waved us through!! It was very embarrassing, never to be done again. :"> but I am glad I got away with it!!

Another story - this time from the US to Delhi.

In the early 90's customs in Delhi were very strict and you were not allowed to bring in any electrnics without paying a 300% (no, that is not a typo) tax.

One of my cousins ran a software business in India and needed a replacement piece for some hardware. rather than wait a few months for the customs clearance to come through, my cousin asked me to bring (read: smuggle) the hardware in on my next visit.

Of course, when I landed in Delhi, my bags were selected for inspection. The male customs agent opened my suitcase and put his hand into my bag to start inspecting. The problem was that the first thing he grabbed was my lacy undies. To me this was immensely embarrasing and I burst into tears! Again, I was pretty young!

The poor customs guy dropped my undies like hot potatoes, other airline officials saw me crying and rushed to my aid. My bags were closed and I was sent on my way with profuse apologies.

When I opened the suitcase at home, I saw that the smuggled piece of hardware was directly under my undies and would have been the next thing the agent found if I had not turned on the waterworks! So, I caught a break!

I think agents around the world have been alerted about me :)

This guy I got to know at DFW in Customs (because I traveled a lot)...once told me they caught a lady trying to smuggle in a cockatoo (spelling?). She had given the bird some tranquilizer and it apparantly woke up when the lady was in the Customs area. She hid the bird in her bra and you can imagine when that bird started to move around...

Did they frisk her for the bird?

LOL!

I dont remember how it ended although he said the fine was high because she was trying to smuggled an endangered species...I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall watching that one!

I altered the birth date on my passport to get student rates. Nobody caught it. Beat that!

Bet now you'd want to alter your birthdate so you'd get senior rates! =;

richardab=
Antiques are not charged duty--
I have delcared all antiques I have ever carried thru and been told this by all the customs agents....

But I am one of those people that declares everything...and it really pays off..When Hubs got me this expensive bracelet in Florence, I wrote the correct price down..The customs agent took a look at it and said what else did you get? I showed him everything and he said he was only going to charge me duty on the cheap stuff!! He saved me a ton in duty--SO YES, it does PAY to be honest!!

Does anyone know the purpose behind the customs laws? Are they just a result of bureaucracy, or do they serve a legitimate purpose that we should respect? I thought the importation of plants and/or produce had caused serious problems in parts of the States, but maybe that is only if you import a ton of material.

Bitter

There is a serious problem with insect stowaways on contraband plant products (fruit, seeds, and occasionally wood if it is from the tropics.) Local crops could be seriously damaged by a non-indigenous insect being introduced. This in turn could result in the livelihood of a great many people being jeopardized, even to the point of the economy of one's country being seriously damaged. And possibly your own paycheque along with it.

Duty on other goods is more controversial, since some people are in favour of totally open trade policies. However, if you are employed in the clothing industry, say, your industry has doubtless put pressure on government to impose a duty on imported clothing items beyond a certain value.

Postscript - it doesn't take a ton of material to cause a problem. One breeding pair of insects is all it takes. If you wish to experiment, you can always plant a breeding pair of termites or carpenter ants in the foundation of your house.

When I was 15,16 and 17 years old I brought back liquor into the US. I guess because I was part of a school group the customs officials didn't bother checking any of our luggage. I was well within the alcohol allowance but since the drinking age is 21, it could have been confiscated. Unfortunately the highlight of a school trip to Europe for most teens is the ability to purchase and consume alcohol :-!.

Sue xx: Thanks for the info. I kind of thought that there may be some good (objective?) reasons not to evade the customs people, at least regarding plants.

My Mother was the culprit on our trip to England a few years ago.
After having to buy a whole new bag to pack all the t-shirts and souveniers she bought for the other kids/grandkids, she had the gall to fill out her customs form to be less than mine. Mind you - she was probably $200+ over the $400 limit. Didn't bother her a bit - I was a wreck about it though.

We got to Minneapolis, after a very long 8 hr flight and were totally confused - one line said "Nothing to declare" the other said " Over $400 to declare" -- we had Under $400, which line is that? So I wandered up to a Customs agent, and asked just that question. He took pity on me - seeing all our bags, and Mom a bit haggard from the flight - took our customs forms, glanced at our mountain of bags, signed off on them, and waived us on.

You should have seen me trying to scoot Mom out the door, before he changed his mind ;)

Debbie

Married Fodorites will appreciate this :)

Coming back from ??? with husband who is a UK, not US, citizen. We got 4 bottles of alcohol, because I know I am allowed two, so I figured hubby was allowed two, as well. Turns out he is allowed only 1.

The Customs agent was ready to take away one of hubby's bottles. I stopped the agent by saying, "The poor guy's married to me - he needs all the liquor he can his hands on!"

The (married) agent let us through with a knowing laugh!

Sue_xx_yy, you are so right about the insect thing. Hundred of millions of Elm trees have died as a result of the Dutch Beetle which was introduced in America in the early 70's. I personally have lost about 35 Elm trees, and my town has lost thousands of blvd. Elms.

This isn't exactly a confession of misdeeds - but it is a US Customs story...

Years ago my boyfriend and I were returning from four months traveling in the South Pacific. We had tons of stuff with us (fishing gear, inflatable kayaks, backpacking and camping equipment, etc.) My boyfriend had a beard and semi-long hair and when we got to customs in Honolulu they evidently took one look at our mountain of stuff and our, uh, casual appearance (hey, four months of backpacking is not a beauty/fashion course), and immediately routed us to the "hippie, Communist, drug-dealer" line and went EXHAUSTIVELY through every single item we had. With a microscope. It took ages. And ages. (I think some of the agents reached retirement age and were replaced with new-hires while they were searching our stuff.) They were pretty rude and impatient with everything we said, interrogating us over and over about exactly where we'd been and what we'd been doing for four months, and it made me really nervous, which probably just convinced them even more that we were up to no good.

Finally they snottily asked my boyfriend if he ever had a job, and when he said why yes, he was a professor at the University of Oregon and showed his faculty ID, they suddenly did a major 180. It was pretty funny how we went from probable anarchist drug-dealers to respectable middle-class citizens in about 3 seconds. They gave us nothing but polite treatment from then on and we were out of there five minutes later.

Perception IS reality.

My dad was a custom house broker, and he used to tell me horror stories about guys who would try to hide things when they came back to the U.S. The fines for some of these misdeeds climbed into the thousands (whereas the duty would have been miniscule). I have not always walked the straight and narrow about everything in life, but when it comes to lying or trying to deceive customs, I have drawn the line.
((H))

i'll openly admit to smuggling as many cuban cigars as i feel i can smoke in between trips to europe or the carribean.

i think the US embargo and visitation policy about cuba has become more absurd by the decade.

are (or were, other than 1963) these people any real threat?

i will continue to "import" cuban cigars (for my personal use) as long as this ridiculous policy stays in effect.

I was feeling all virtuous about never having pulled a fast one in customs until this last post. Cigars!! Best friend asked for Cuban cigars and even gave directions about how you're supposed to ask for a non-Cuban box to put them in, etc. etc. He wanted a humidor's worth, but we bargained him down to just a few, and best friend is still best friend, and I didn't have too much Catholic guilt on my conscience.

Subcon:
After 1963 the Cuban government under Castro attempted to export communism --via terror and revolution, not a competition of ideas-- to South America, Central America, West Africa, and the Caribbean, furnishing arms and men in every one of those areas.

In 1983 US troops faced in combat Cuban troops who supported a Marxist coup in Granada. If memory serves, Castro reprimanded the returned Cuban commander for not fighting to the last man.

At present, Cuba imprisons hundreds of individuals whose only offence is to discuss ideas which differ from the Cuban government's.
The most recent round of these imprisonments took place not a month ago.

Whether or not the US government forbids the import of Cuban cigars, and whether or not Cuba is a direct threat to the US, smoking a Cuban cigar is one pleasure I can certainly forgo in order to avoid supporting a government like Cuba's and a man like Castro.

Thanks, Sue xx yy, for reminding people that plants and animals can wreak havoc on economies and individual lives. The last foot & mouth outbreak in Canada was traced to a sausage brought in by an overseas traveler. And people in England lost their family farms, livelihood - and even some lives - at the last outbreak there, also traced to an imported meat item. I work with PPQ and can confirm that we really can trace the item to the flight, the neighborhood and finally to the individual (done all the time with fruit flies). Now that agricultural inspection is part of Homeland Security, the easy-going attitude of ag inspectors may be over. But on the subject of Castro, Cuba, and cigars, let's remind ourselves how useful the Eastern European embargo was to the downfall of communism there. So the same thing will happen in Cuba soon. Oh, wait, there wasn't an embargo in Eastern Europe - never mind.

On a train trip from amsterdam - where i loaded my aviators bag with more porn than you can shake a stick at...(17 yrs old) .the customs officials from germany and holland converged on my compartment.and found my not-so-secret stash!...one of the dutch guards in a pathetic attempt at humor, pulled out the magazines and started waving them at his colleague.."is this allowed...these magasines and things here in Germany?" He had voice resembling a fog horn - enough at least, for the pretty girls in the other compartments to hear. Well, he did have such fun! nice gentleman - such a pity they have long gone now! - git!