I wanted to ask what are he downsides of under declaring value for a package besides obviously insurance. I have had a few different sellers now tell me they won’t under declare for customs even if paying them friends and family but ask for payments to be made FF.
I fully understand if I paid goods and services them not wanting to since the risk it could be a pain if something got damaged and buyer disputing it.
However can’t understand why not if it was paid with friends and family payment since they have nothing to lose and only a sale to gain?
I’ve heard that now from 3 sellers of items online. I feel like I must be missing something obvious. So I hope to learn from anyone’s experiences here.
The FF absolves them from risk if the card ends up going missing from country A to country B so the pain of potential loss is mitigated drastically. The issue lies in how much the truth is bent in declaration. If you’re asking people to mark a $10,000 item as $20, and that hits customs on their side of the pond, they can get buttfucked pretty raw, no lube. Why? the customs declaration form is signed under oath so false statements are criminal on the federal level. At it’s most base level, it’s likely a pergury charge.
Here are some tiers of pergury punishments:
Perjury in the third degree is a class A misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in prison and up to a $1,000 fine
Perjury in the second degree is a class E felony punishable by up to 4 years in prison.
Perjury in the first degree is a class D felony punishable by one to 7 years in prison.
So, again, if it’s a $500 item and you’re asking it to be declared at like $100, people probably aren’t going to bat an eye. But their risk increases dramatically when it becomes blatant bullshit vs a slight bending of value in a volatile market.
This is for Americans by the way. It might not even be a big deal elsewhere. I know that you can request whatever value you want from Zenmarket, and you can’t get in trouble for RECEIVING an item underdeclared, though you could be hit with a tax prior to receipt of item in some countries if they find the value to be higher than what is declared.
Legality asside, there are more and more cases of people opening dispute cases with their credit cards, banks, paypals to reverse FF payments, so it’s not a gaurantee that they won’t still lose out on the transaction.
FF isn’t automatically safe for the seller. They can still lose out. It is possible to open up a paypal case and get your money back. I have seen posts on here by people saying that they have done that. You can also still charge back a credit card used for FF.
Besides under-declaring being illegal, why should the seller take on extra risk especially when an alarming amount of packages are going missing these days due to COVID? If the item is expensive enough that you have to declare it, there is no reason to not insure it for the full amount.
That was my line of thinking if I’m open to taking the responsibility for any issues with it and pay them FF. But thank you to everyone that replied. I assumed the it’s illegal would be mentioned but figured it’s the same to ask for a ff payment to try and get around the system on there end. Apperciate all the advise.
My main concern is that a foreign country has the right to open anything entering it. So they can open up my so called $20 package and find a $400 item in there. And then I’ll be the one who starts sweating. Just my thoughts.
Yeah as ChrisB pointed out, it’s more so the legality side. I don’t fancy getting shafted with criminal charges if declare my £2000 card as being worth £50.
What is the likelihood of that happening? Probably pretty damn slim given the niche nature of the item and sheer volume of items passing through customs day to day. But it’s a risk many sellers including myself won’t take. Murphy’s Law and all that.
Lol PSA hardly knows the value of cards they grade customs is beyond clueless, if you pay customs everytime you import something my hat goes off to you