UK based?

[Rsmacker]

I used to go to LA, spend the Summer with friends, getting pissed and fucking their sisters (and the odd girlfriend, he he), scan all the ads in the Recycler (an Exchange and Mart sort of paper) and bring home all sorts of goodies.

I did get fucked at Customs though, and I mean PROPERLY fucked, arrested, put in the little cell with all the furniture chained to the floor, quite a pant-pooing experience, especially fearing The Glove was going to appear (or disappear, as the case may be) at any moment. My heinous crime? "Evading Import Duty". No, correction, "Attempting to Evade Import Duty."

Remember C&E have more power than the Police when it comes to detaining you (or they did back then, might well have changed just recently), and they can do pretty much anything they like if you piss them off or try to be a smart-arse. I was told in no uncertain terms that they had the power to go and turn my place upside down looking for evidence that I had brought in previous equipment without paying the duties. If they decided I HAD been comitting further offences, they would decide what I owed, and then I could pay up or lose the guitars, all of them that didn't show up on their system as duty paid. Trust me, you do not need these bottom feeders going through your life to see if you are a crook!!

Ignorance is absolutely no excuse, as far as they are concerned, tough shit. You owe, you pay. I "escaped" after putting my hands up to trying to evade paying a whopping £72 worth of duty, and ended up paying £400 odd quid after fines (no court appearance, just levied by them on the spot), plus a serious bollocking. The cunts even added VAT to the lot!!! Oh, and they told me my card was marked so if I tried it again, I would be really properly fucked. True to their word, every time since I returned through the green channel (or the red channel if I DID have anything over the £32 allowance) they pulled me and asked if I had any guitars with me!!! Ha fucking ha.

Last guitar I imported, my Flying V, my friend stuck it on the plane at LAX, and I picked it up at Gatwick. Haven't got a fucking clue how they worked out the figures, but I do know I paid VAT on top of fuel tax levied in LA!!!! WTF????? Like most people, I just threw the money at them, got my baby and got out of there PDQ. No chance I'm going to let them hold onto it while they "investigate", meaning another trip down there, more scope for it to be damaged or "mislaid" etc.

Moral of the story - DO NOT fuck with Customs and Excise, you may get away with it for a while, but when they do bite, they bite hard. And they have plenty of ferrets sniffing round places like E-bay, making sure everyone is paying their bit. £72 sounds like a dick dribble compared to multi-million pound frauds going on all the time, but it soon adds up, and HM Govt wants it's pound of flesh.

Of course, if you think I'm being over-dramatic, ignore me, but as I say, I have been there, and my arse was puckering like a trumpeter's lips. One day you may just come up against someone who really doesn't like your face, as I did with Mr O****, and he will take great pleasure in brightening up his shitty existence by making your life an expensive misery!

Pay the duty, it still worked out waaaaaaay cheaper (even with fines etc!!!)

[neilli]

Yeah, I got a more gentle version of that treatment as well, and yup, it was pretty scary, so basically, don't fuck around with Customs and Excise.....

[JACKSONWOLF]

Steve at PJs is a great guy, and they do actually have some Jacksons in stock...

Cheers Ian.......your are top chap aswell mate!!!

Wilkinsi.....6-8 hours on the coach...bloody hell, I don't blame you not wanting to travel to Portsmouth!!!

Back on the subject of Charvel/Jackson distribution in the UK (and Europe as all guitars are warehoused in Holland), they are a complete nightmare. As I've moaned to Ian before, I'm still waiting for a quote on a KE2 in Crimson Swirl from October 2005. Yes, that's 2005. I've got a lot of guitars on backorder (including 5 USA's) but they just never seem to arrive. I did have a DK2L delivered a few months ago but it was damaged in transit....I'm still waiting for it's replacement.
I also wish that we could compete with the US stores on price, considering the exchange rate but for some reason, we have to pay so much more, it just doesn't make sense to me. Anyway, that's the retailers side put across!!!

Steve (PJ's Guitar Centre)

[TheUntalentedOne]

I live in Northern Ireland . I fly from Dublin in the Republic Of Ireland . Customs in Dublin can't touch me as I'm only passing through on my way home and there are no customs officers at the border ;-)

[hawkerbc2]

I was thinking of evasion tactics such as 'gift' etc.... but that makes me think twice..........just the thought of getting any guitar confiscated!

but in all seriousness, you go the US buy a beaten up second hand Jackson and head back over the channel that could be yours bought legally in the UK previously with no receipt to prove it......they must have made people pay import duty on guitars they already own if they use such a heavy handed approach?

also, just a thought but if they really are opening so many boxes a day to check- they must go through a lot of gaffer tape or maybe thats why we need insurance...?

[neilli]

I think the onus is on the individual to 'prove' that they took the guitar away with them, so they're just bringing it back. Baggage receipts etc....

I'm not sure what happens if someone ships a guitar to you - as a reciever, I can't see how they can make you legally liable for the sender 'mis-labling' the goods. I guess if they catch you, you'd still have to pay the tax, but I can't see how they can accuse you of anything much....

[Rsmacker]

but in all seriousness, you go the US buy a beaten up second hand Jackson and head back over the channel that could be yours bought legally in the UK previously with no receipt to prove it......they must have made people pay import duty on guitars they already own if they use such a heavy handed approach?

Which is precisely what I did. I said it was bought used here, and I had taken it out with me.
The Customs man said "OK, fine, but it's got 'Made in USA' on it, somewhere along the line it has been imported to the UK and the duty paid on it. We'll just hold on to it till you can produce a receipt from the person you bought it from in the UK, or we can find it in our records."

My friendly-neighbourhood guitar shop would have written me a bogus receipt to say they had sold it to me used, but once they heard C&E were involved, wanted nothing to do with it! NO-ONE in their right mind wants them sniffing around, even if they have nothing to hide.

What happened if I couldn't find a receipt, or trace the people it was bought from? No problem, says the Customs guy, they look at it,put a price on it, and then you pay the duty.
Years ago that wouldn't be too bad, because if it didn't have Gibson or Fender on it, it wouldn't be considered to be anything special. Unfortunately now, they have teams of experts who seriously know their shit, and know exactly how much an early 80's San Dimas is worth. (note WORTH, not 'how much you might have been able to blag it for from someone who didn't know what they had under their dead husband's bed') Don't/can't pay the valuation fee (plus fines etc) ? Well they told me that contrary to popular belief, they don't auction them off cheap, they actually destroy them, as they do with all tobacco and alcohol that has been brought in evading duty (because people would go abroad, buy stuff, get it confiscated, then go and buy it back at auction, which would have to be at seriously bargain prices to attract interest. The object is to punish importers, and to ensure people using the correct channels and paying the duties don't find themselves being undercut by people buying from a Customs auction. They don't want to be accused of flooding markets with goods they have confiscated and flogged off cheap, that would not encourage people to be honest! )

When you take instruments and audio gear abroad, as I now do regularly, you fill out a Customs Carne Form which lists everything and prevents you being stopped and harassed (well, for import duties anyway. They still stop you and turn everything upside down looking for drugs and illegal immigrants hidden in flight cases!) They are written in Double Dutch BTW!

Neilli, they can accuse you of anything, and contrary to the accepted way of things, it is up to you to prove you are innocent, they only need to have suspicion, not proof. Which is one of the reasons people need to be so wary round them. They have vast warehouses where your goods can sit for years until the necessary hoops have been jumped through if they feel like it. It is no skin off their nose.
Also bear in mind that a guitar is an attractive item, it would certainly be more interesting and brighten up a boring day in Customs than, say, a box of ball bearings. Which one would you choose to look at if you had to open a box? And don't forget, the guitar may belong to some dumb-ass rocker who has filled the cavities with Charlie, or plainly forgot to remove his stash from the case. Worth a look? I should co-co! Certainly the officer who copped me thought so, he was looking for just such stuff, even scraping crud out of the bottom of the case "for analysis". Tosser!!

It might seem like I'm being dramatic, but I can tell you it is no joke. Perhaps if it is a purely business thing, you go and buy some guitars to sell over here, it is an inconvenience, and will cost you a few bob. You might catch a cold, such is life in business, you may gamble and lose.
If, however, it is because you love guitars and WANT a particular one, you may go and find The One, which beckons you and whispers to you to take it home. It is not easy to think of your new baby being slung in some unknown warehouse for an undefined time. You just want it back, NOW!!

[wilkinsi]

very good points there. hmm, I got a nice surprise recently. I got a Jackson gig bag for my warrior from my local retailer. It's the weak version - 35.00 + 10.00 carriage. Took 1-2 weeks. Had I ordered a Jackson GUITAR, it might've been a different story. I've decided that if I want a guitar, it will always be an import, because I have a social life that keeps me going through life.

[Carbophos]

European distributors/dealers receive J/C products from FMIC European stock.
If something is not on the stock, then it all depends on production/shipment schedule. Take it or leave it.

[Zerberus]

European distributors/dealers receive J/C products from FMIC European stock.
If something is not on the stock, then it all depends on production/shipment schedule. Take it or leave it.

THe way it is now is significantly worse than under Akai, and I preferred to "Leave it" back then already.

Seriously, if Jackson wants to gain any foothold in markets outside the US, they need to get the distribution to at LEAST where it was before the takeover... Becasue for 1000$ more in my pocket and 10 months less in my calendar I´ll gladly buy it in the US instead and take the minimal hit on shipping for warranty work

[demeyes]

I've had 3 Jacksons brought over to me from the states and I've not had any problems yet. I've had no real trouble with anyone in getting them brought over and I'll do it again in the future. I've been to guitar shops in the UK and I was not impressed at all by the Jackson stocks over there. In Ireland I've only been to 2 shops that have any Jacksons and I've never seen a US model here for sale.

[Carbophos]

THe way it is now is significantly worse than under Akai, and I preferred to "Leave it" back then already.

Seriously, if Jackson wants to gain any foothold in markets outside the US, they need to get the distribution to at LEAST where it was before the takeover... Becasue for 1000$ more in my pocket and 10 months less in my calendar I´ll gladly buy it in the US instead and take the minimal hit on shipping for warranty work

I feel that Jackson just does not produce enough guitars to be much concernded about overseas markets. I don't know the figuers, but I estimate that US dealers buy 95% of all US/CS Jacksons and 80% of imports (not couting those that stay in Japan)