Tuesday is the big day!!!!

[Deleted]

Ladies ... this coming Tuesday (20th September) my two boxes filled with goodies from the USA will be delivered to my house! Yippeeee! :-)

That is, of course, that nothing goes wrong with the paperwork. It should be 100% correct because I checked all the import codes and had the shipping agents correct everything that was wrong ... which was basically everything! You should have seen how they coded the items! Sheep locks were classified as either artificial wigs or human hair wigs and eyelashes! <LOL>  Roving was always coded as textile fabric or knitting wool <roll eyes>  I bought some organza drawstring gift bags to store my roving in and they were coded as handbags! <LOL>

Luckily for me I have a direct line to the manager and all of these errors were correctly immediately without any delay. From their side, to say Thank You for my hard work, they upgraded my shipping preparation to urgent which saved me a whole $76 !!!!! Happiness is! :-)

Also very nice is that almost everything I bought is duty free and all I have to pay is the VAT when it lands and before I get my boxes.

I will definitely take some pics once I unpack the boxes.  Will also take a pic of Robert lying on the floor because he will definitely have a heart attack or faint when he sees the mountain of roving that I bought! <LOL>

So you will all be able to take a breather from my never-ending questions to learn more and more ... and wait to see images of my felted "creations" ... and I use that term very tongue-in-cheek :-)

Thanks once again to all of you that responded to my questions and who helped to the best of your abilities.

Regards

Linn

[MTRuth]

Glad you're getting your supplies, how exciting. Do take photos for us to see and we look forward to seeing your creations. I think you will learn so much by doing. You can read or ask questions and learn but the doing is where you will learn the most. Have fun with your felting journey!

[halay]

I understand your excitement. Opening a box of supplies is the same as opening Christmas gifts. Have lots of fun!

[Shepherdess]

Very exiting. Unpacking long awaited boxes is so much fun. I am looking forward to lots
of pictures.

[Deleted]

Hi Ann .... seems that the cargo only landed today (Monday) and it was too late to clear my boxes <sigh> so now I will only get it on Wednesday. Such a disappointment but nothing I can do about it. Already called everybody I could at FedEx but it's out of their control :-(

So wait we will have to wait ...

Regards
Linn

[zed]

Yeah, it never gets old opening boxes or packages. I still get excited when it's only 2 weeks since I last ordered!
Have fun unpacking and playing with it all

[Deleted]

Tuesday (today) turned out to be a huge disappointment because my boxes were stopped by customs :-( It will now be physically inspected by their official tomorrow (Wednesday) and then he has the luxury of two days to prepare his report before it can be released to me!

I am floored by the disappointment, shed loads of tears of frustration but there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. Called all my contacts and they all tried to help me out but we are now "stuck in the system and red tape".

I think they were caught out not knowing what roving and a felting board and a carding cloth and batts were and thought "Hey ...what is she trying to smuggle into our country?!" and now the big inspection is going to happen.

Such frustration! I have been SO looking forward to receiving my boxes today, unpacking it, repacking into beautiful organza bags, labelling it, etc. And then starting my first Nuno felting attempt tomorrow. Now none of that is going to happen till (hopefully!!!) this weekend.

Till then .. it is back to Google and looking at tutorials <LOL>

Regards
Linn

[Shepherdess]

It's not just your country. I had to go the airport customs to pick up some boxes. I warned the agent that is she opened it she would not get it closed again. She x-rayed it instead. I have also had boxes arrive that were obviously opened. they come with the top open and lots or sticky caution tape over them to keep it all together.

[Deleted]

Ann, my fear is how they are going toss and throw everything back into the boxes :-( At least nothing can break but I bought bits and pieces from 38 sellers and I really didn't want things mixed up as I need to check that everything bought and paid for, were in fact sent and that the correct things were sent!

Putting into words how incredibly frustrated and dispirited I am is difficult. For over a month I so carefully selected what I wanted and needed, who I wanted to buy from and then got it shipped via express to cut down on the waiting period.

And now this completely unnecessary additional days of frustrating waiting :-((

Regards
Linn

[Deleted]

Ann ... have to share this with you. In 2002 I went on a 5 week trip to the USA. I went to tour a bit of the country with some Ragdoll cat breeding friends as well as attend a 3 day huge cat show. I sponsored the trophies for our Ragdoll cat club and also had to take a huge amount of little gifts for my online friends.

I was allowed 40kg of baggage!!! and obviously took complete advantage of it <LOL> Robert packed my two large suitcases, carefully weighing each and every item that went into it. On top of each bag he packed an empty large garbage bag because he said that if customs decides to stop me anywhere, they would never get it all back into my suitcases.

Luckily I was not stopped when I arrived in the USA, but as I walked towards the exit doors of the arrival hall, an officer said to me "Oh you are from Africa! Those two men would like to speak to you!" and he pointed to two burly men standing a distance away. My heart sank! He then walked away and I waited ... and waited ... and those two men also walked away. And then I sprinted with trolley and suitcases through the doors ... to freedom! <LOL>

Regards
Linn

[MTRuth]

Have had stuff from the US sent to Canada for my customers get stuck in customs for weeks. Hope that's not the case for you.

[Deleted]

Hello Ruth. I was assured by a lady at the FedEx clearance department that I WILL get my boxes, it is just a matter of time waiting for the inspector to complete his "duties" :-(

I think the worst that can happen is that they disagree with the customs codes that we used (as agreed upon with the FedEx clearance agents) and change it to something else and I have to pay duties on it. Which of course I will have to ... grudgingly. Most of the items I imported are raw materials which are duty free.

I do think the whole problem originated because the customs officers don't have a clue what I imported because I doubt whether a lot of people import roving, batts, locks and wet/dry felting items to South Africa.

Nothing I can do but wait it out.

In the meanwhile my appetite has diminished even more than usual. I take morphine based pain killers which of course kills any regualr appetite and now with all this stress I don't even want to think about food, never mind even see it! :-( Robert is becoming upset with me because he knows how serious stress is for my overall health and system.

I just wish I could sleep away the next couple of days! <LOL>

Regards
Linn

[elizabeth]

Sept 20, 2016 14:08:51 GMT Shepherdess said:

It's not just your country. I had to go the airport customs to pick up some boxes. I warned the agent that is she opened it she would not get it closed again. She x-rayed it instead. I have also had boxes arrive that were obviously opened. they come with the top open and lots or sticky caution tape over them to keep it all together.

Serves them right to have to try to fit it all back in!!!
Of course, I'm sure you were steamed about it.

All that silly red tape is so frustrating! I hope you have loads of fun this weekend, Linn!

It will truly be opening 'Pandora's Box' 

[Pandagirl]

Hang in there Linn!

[Shepherdess]

Elizabeth. It doesn't bother me if they deliver it. It would if I had to deal with getting it home.