I knew someone that had gotten a letter from the US customs regarding undeclared items (one of them was exotic Birkin). She told me it was a hell of a ride. So it is really not worth it ladies...
Last edited:
US Customs discussion - airports, importing
- Thread starter esyee
- Start date
TPF may earn a commission from merchant affiliate
links, including eBay, Amazon, and others
I always provide a detailed declaration and am prepared to pay what I owe. It’s always such a pleasant surprise when I hand them the declaration form and they just wave my through. That’s what happened to me last week at JFK. Returned from a trip to Japan and Hong Kong with my itemized list in hand. Customs officer looked at it and said to just go on through. I would rather be honest and pay then face consequences of getting caught (besides I have way too much anxiety to even try.) I remember my father telling me about a client he had years ago who bought his wife a very expensive strand of pearls in Hong Kong. He had the store make a receipt with a lower amount so while he was going to pay duty on it he was trying to get away with paying less. When he declared the item, the customs officers flagged him and his wife and brought over an expert who appraised the pearls at higher than the value on the receipt. Both he and his wife were subjected to internal searches. While this happened years ago and I don’t know if it would happen now, it’s not something I would want to risk!
One time I was going through customs in St. Thomas and was declaring a Cartier watch I had purchased. I happened to be wearing a Rolex that I had purchased on the island a couple of months before (and had paid duty on.) The customs officer asked if the watch I was wearing was the watch I was declaring and I told her that it was one I had previously purchased on my last visit. She asked to see my passport again and ran it through the computer. It must have showed that I had payed duty on the Rolex because she handed my passport back to me with a smile and then personally escorted us to the area where we had to pay the duty and could not have been nicer.
One time I was going through customs in St. Thomas and was declaring a Cartier watch I had purchased. I happened to be wearing a Rolex that I had purchased on the island a couple of months before (and had paid duty on.) The customs officer asked if the watch I was wearing was the watch I was declaring and I told her that it was one I had previously purchased on my last visit. She asked to see my passport again and ran it through the computer. It must have showed that I had payed duty on the Rolex because she handed my passport back to me with a smile and then personally escorted us to the area where we had to pay the duty and could not have been nicer.
I just flew back from Paris through JFK Terminal 1. I claimed all my purchases on the customs form and handed it over to the agent going through mobile entry. The process was relatively easy enough and I was guided to a room to wait my turn to be seen by a Customs Agent. I was seen after 10 minutes of waiting so not too bad because there were a number of people. The Customs Agent thanked me for my honesty because it was a large dollar amount and was surprised I wasn't flagged prior to landing. I came back with H bags and shoes so it added up quickly. I hope this story is helpful to TPFers because the whole process took me over an hour with the Customs Agent! The problem wasn't my purchases or how I claimed it, it was paying the duty in CASH. Has anyone else had this experience? Last year at Customs I was able to charge the duty on a credit card at a cashier's desk. In JFK Terminal 1 they don't have a cashier and apparently only Terminal 4 has a cashier's desk. So I had to pay what I owed in cash (customs agent charged me a flat 9% on all the purchases after all my deductions which worked out to my benefit; instead of 14% or whatever it is on shoes etc). Between my mother and I, we had half of what we owed in cash and it was a whole ordeal to find an ATM etc to pay the rest. First I had to wait for a female agent (could only be a female agent for security purposes which was fine by me) to escort me to an ATM that took about 10-15 minutes. Then we had to walk through the terminal to find an ATM. I took out the max I could get but left me $100 short. I tried calling my bank and going to another ATM which took another 15 minutes but couldn't get anymore cash. Walked all the way back to the Customs office to see if they were ok with me being slightly short of what I owed. Customs agent approved it so I paid and they have a whole process to count and give me a receipt. It only took forever because I didn't have the cash and they don't have a cashier's desk to pay with a credit/debit card. I kept asking what other alternatives options I had to pay and even offered to go to another terminal etc. but he said no that would take even longer and was a bigger hassle. The agent was trying to be as helpful as possible and I don't fault him but they need to fix the issue of payment. Who knew you would ever have to be prepared to pay cash? I certainly wasn't.
omg you poor thing!!! Who even has cash at the end of a trip!?!?!
Right? Especially US cash.
Glad you reported on this. It would never occur to me that cash would be only acceptable payment.
I really hope paying cash only isn’t the norm going through customs and more of a one off scenario at this terminal. It was inefficient and time consuming. The agent wasn’t happy about it either because it holds everything up.
While I never done it, I think they can also do this at JFK. I also had to pay cash once last April (terminal 8) due to credit card machine being out of order. Cashier said they can also bill me if I had an ID with address.
Same. The cashier was closed for the night, so they just took down my address and sent me a bill. Took a couple months before it showed up in the mail though.