Tuesday, Jan 13, 2015 at 18:18
I might add, the attractive shipping figures quoted in the links above are only half the story.
You are likely to be hit with a raft of additional charges, as
well as the actual shipping costs.
Typically, these extra charges are likely to be;
1. Customs Import duties or GST
2. Port service charge
3. Sea cargo automation fee
4. CMR (Cargo Management Re-engineering) cost recovery fee
5. Terminal handling fee
6. Terminal (Marine) Security fee
7. Administration fee/s
8. Customs recording fee
9. Customs clearance fee
10. Compile fee (don't even ask me what this is!)
11. Quarantine inspection charges
12. Shipping agent/Brokers fee/s
All these fees and charges have been taken from my last importation bill, from the U.S. in 2009.
Some of the charges may have altered, some may have been dropped - but they will still have hidden "extra" charges.
Customs and Quarantine do not work cheap, they charge by the half-hour, they charge call-out fees for weekend jobs, and they make car dealership workshop charges look positively cheap.
And don't even ask what demurrage costs if there's a stuff-up or argument, and your item sits on
the wharf for a few days while it's sorted.
I imported a big forklift from a U.S. military base in Japan in 1999, and ended up having a huge "barney" over final shipping costs, that were ramped up 150% over the original quote.
Original shipping quote was $US6000, the final bill presented was $US15,000!
At that time, the demurrage cost was $500 a day, for anything that sat on
the wharf, that wasn't immediately removed, while a dispute was settled!
Cheers, Ron.
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