Job Discussion Forums

Turando · Joined: 18 Apr 2005 Posts: 31

Hi,

I'm planning to order stuff (books) from Amazon and some other stuff as well and was wondering if there are any taxes/import stuff I should know about before going ahead with it?

I'm not sure who to contact to get this information so I thought I'd ask because maybe someone has posted stuff over from America before.

Thanks in advance!

scot47 · Joined: 10 Jan 2003 Posts: 15343

Your 'stuff' will be scrutinised by the censor in the Ministry of Information. He will decide whether to let it through. There is no tax or cutoms duty payable.

Did you not notice the earlier post about the cyberblock on www.amazon.co.uk ?

That has now been lifted and we can access both www.amazon.com

and www.amazon.co.uk

You may care to note that the USofA is NOT the sole source of literature in English !

wannago · Joined: 16 Apr 2004 Posts: 85

Hector_Lector · Joined: 20 Apr 2004 Posts: 548

I think the reference was to �quality� rather than �quantity�.

Mohammad · Joined: 12 Jul 2005 Posts: 79

Thank you H_L.

scot47 · Joined: 10 Jan 2003 Posts: 15343

The 'other' source ? Is there only one ?

Hector_Lector · Joined: 20 Apr 2004 Posts: 548

Maybe it is a reference to satanism.

Turando · Joined: 18 Apr 2005 Posts: 31

Hi,

Thanks for that information. I'm not worried about bringing over anything the Ministry won't like too much. My main concern was regarding customs/taxes as I heard somwhere they did have taxes.

Do you know if this is the case with other goods as well such as electronics (i.e. no tax)? If so, I guess I'll ship over alot more!

I prefer to ship from America because I have a forwarding address there with www.myus.com. They use FedEx so I figure it'll be alot faster than Amazon shipping and cheaper too since Amazon has free shipping inside the US.

Thanks again!

Hector_Lector · Joined: 20 Apr 2004 Posts: 548

Or even �alot� of satanism.

Cleopatra · Posted: Fri Dec 23, 2005 9:12 am Post subject:

When ordering from Amazon, the main thing is to be careful that there are no pictures of 'scantily clad' women on the cover of the book/DVD/CD that you order. If there are, the offending item may very well be returned to sender.

Regarding books, my suspicion is that the censors aren't terribly concerned about English language material, so long as it's not 'obviously' offensive or on a list of banned books. IMHO it's pictures, and Arabic-language materials, that they're more interested in.

crashartist1 · Joined: 06 Jun 2004 Posts: 164

Cleopatra or anyone else for that matter, where can I find this list of 'banned books'?

poorESLteacher

Stephen Jones · Joined: 21 Feb 2003 Posts: 4124

crashartist1 · Joined: 06 Jun 2004 Posts: 164

Well I ask because I am actually not in Saudi right now, but on Christmas day I will fly to Jeddah (real nice of my employer to fly me to Saudi on the one day I ask not to fly on). I wish to bring some books with me, and since I am WW2 freak I have a lot of books about Germany and the holocaust that I don't know if they would be allowed in or not.

Well if the list of banned books is in Arabic that doesn't help me very much. I have asked my company a few times about this subject and I have never heard a reply back from them (I tried the embassy in Washington D.C. and the consulate in L.A. and no one has any idea or I have never heard back from them, which is more likely)

One last question: Through my conversations with my company I have realized one of two things; 1) My sense of detail, communication, organization and timeliness is vast superior to that of the Saudi's and my expectations are too high, after all I am not in Germany or 2) They are the slowest and/or laziest people I have ever come across. If someone can either say that maybe I am just too impatient and/or inflexible in requiring that all my questions be answered in a timely manner (rather then 2 weeks later or not at all) or tell me to relax and that the Saudi's are not lazy, they just have very little concept of time and/or responsibility and things will get done when they get done like Southern Italy, Greece and Southern Turkey.

Thanks a bunch y�all.

poorESLteacher

veiledsentiments · Joined: 20 Feb 2003 Posts: 17644 Location: USA

I'd say get used to it... and if this sort of thing bothers you a lot, perhaps you should give that Sunday flight a miss. You have to be able to go with the flow... or it will drive you around the bend. Laughing

Think of this as the high point of their efficiency and your expectations will probably be met.

VS

crashartist1 · Joined: 06 Jun 2004 Posts: 164

Hmm, well VS, I might be posting here a lot more often in the very near future.