| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
ppcg4
Joined: 16 Oct 2008
|
 Posted: Tue Apr 28, 2009 1:32 am Post subject: My shipment of Spice Gold was denied by customs |
 |
|
Ok. I ordered incense online, called Spice Gold.
It was denied by customs, who claimed that it contains cannabis. It obviously doesn't.
I got a call from them, and the guy explained that I can't have it because it contains hemp. It doesn't contain hemp, and I told him to look at the ingredients list. He said that there are no laws against it in Korea right now, but they can't give it to me because it's illegal in the US.
Do I have any recourse here? I'm pretty damn pissed about this.
And anyone who thinks I'm a troll can kiss my ass. |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
Adventurer
Joined: 28 Jan 2006
|
| Posted: Tue Apr 28, 2009 1:35 am Post subject: Re: My shipment of Spice Gold was denied by customs |
|
|
| ppcg4 wrote: |
Ok. I ordered incense online, called Spice Gold.
It was denied by customs, who claimed that it contains cannabis. It obviously doesn't.
I got a call from them, and the guy explained that I can't have it because it contains hemp. It doesn't contain hemp, and I told him to look at the ingredients list. He said that there are no laws against it in Korea right now, but they can't give it to me because it's illegal in the US.
Do I have any recourse here? I'm pretty damn pissed about this.
And anyone who thinks I'm a troll can kiss my ass. |
I am not surrpised. It's hit and miss also when you order supplements. Recently, I haven't gotten something in the mail. It's happened twice as of late. I like Korea Post, but I prefer USPS or Canada Poste. Still, it's better than what exists in India or Russia, but I do agree with you that what they did was very idiotic. There is no hemp in incense, but since they weren't sure they denied it. If they don't know what it is, they deny it in some cases.
Did you get a Korean to call? Did you try to provide them information substantiating your claim? That does help. I did that once when I had a problem and reasoned with the post office.
They probably made a search on the net and came up with this:
Spice (drug)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
A bag of SpiceSpice is a brand name for a mixture of herbs that has been sold in smartshops in Europe, Canada and other parts of the world since around 2002, purportedly as an incense, as well as over the Internet as an "herbal smoking blend". Even though the manufacturer officially warns against human ingestion of Spice, it is usually smoked for its cannabis-like effects which are believed to be caused by a mixture of synthetic cannabinoid drugs. Several different "flavours" of Spice have been marketed which have been shown to contain different proportions of the synthetic cannabinoid active ingredients, and reportedly produce subtly different effects. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
ppcg4
Joined: 16 Oct 2008
|
| Posted: Tue Apr 28, 2009 1:43 am Post subject: |
|
|
I'm having my friend who's training to be a cop call customs for me. I just don't want to get into any trouble.
The thing is that it's illegal in another country, namely the one country that saved Korea's ass, so I guess they'll uphold US law here, if that makes any sense (hint: it doesn't).
My neighbour ordered it back in November without an issue.
And yeah, I understand you can get high from it. But it's an incense. I'm sure you can get high from misusing ammonia or bleach, but they're still legal. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
jdog2050
Joined: 17 Dec 2006
|
| Posted: Tue Apr 28, 2009 1:49 am Post subject: |
|
|
| ppcg4 wrote: |
I'm having my friend who's training to be a cop call customs for me. I just don't want to get into any trouble.
The thing is that it's illegal in another country, namely the one country that saved Korea's ass, so I guess they'll uphold US law here, if that makes any sense (hint: it doesn't).
My neighbour ordered it back in November without an issue. |
This is absolutely insane. It's illegal because...it's illegal in...America? What? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Adventurer
Joined: 28 Jan 2006
|
| Posted: Tue Apr 28, 2009 2:21 am Post subject: |
|
|
| jdog2050 wrote: |
| ppcg4 wrote: |
I'm having my friend who's training to be a cop call customs for me. I just don't want to get into any trouble.
The thing is that it's illegal in another country, namely the one country that saved Korea's ass, so I guess they'll uphold US law here, if that makes any sense (hint: it doesn't).
My neighbour ordered it back in November without an issue. |
This is absolutely insane. It's illegal because...it's illegal in...America? What? |
I think they were trying to defend themselves by saying, hey spice is illegal in the U.S. As far as they understand, they looked up spice and saw that it could also refer to marijuana. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
ppcg4
Joined: 16 Oct 2008
|
| Posted: Tue Apr 28, 2009 3:20 am Post subject: |
|
|
My friend sent an email in Korean, along with my English explanation. I just hope they haven't sent it back already.
Could this be a precedent-setting case? Perhaps I could single-handedly lead to the banning of all incense being imported into Korea  |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
justaguy
Joined: 01 Jan 2008
Location: seoul
|
| Posted: Tue Apr 28, 2009 5:46 am Post subject: |
|
|
| I know a Canadian guy who had his frozen pork taken from him by customs because they said it may contain BSE. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
moosehead
Joined: 05 May 2007
|
| Posted: Tue Apr 28, 2009 8:42 am Post subject: |
|
|
| ppcg4 wrote: |
My friend sent an email in Korean, along with my English explanation. I just hope they haven't sent it back already.
Could this be a precedent-setting case? Perhaps I could single-handedly lead to the banning of all incense being imported into Korea |
it all sounds very subjective and suspicious - I hope you make a big stink about this (pun ok!) - call the media, ask why this is? whose laws are you expected to obey anyway?? call your embassy even -
keep posting! |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Hyeon Een
Joined: 24 Jun 2005
|
| Posted: Tue Apr 28, 2009 9:19 am Post subject: |
|
|
| ppcg4 wrote: |
My friend sent an email in Korean, along with my English explanation. I just hope they haven't sent it back already.
Could this be a precedent-setting case? Perhaps I could single-handedly lead to the banning of all incense being imported into Korea |
Well a lot of incense is burned in Korea. Especially with Buddha's birthday coming up this weekend. Lots and lots of incense. Why don't you just burn some Korean incense instead? korean incense is.. lovely.
Unless you were trying to get high. That's frowned upon. You should bow 3,000 times to the buddha at a RECOGNIZED temple and maybe you'll be forgiven. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Seoul'n'Corea
Joined: 06 Nov 2008
|
| Posted: Tue Apr 28, 2009 2:51 pm Post subject: |
|
|
This ain't your country. Korea takes a hard line when it comes to any drug that is potentially abuse-able except for Alcohol... just look at the problems with that.
Personally I don't blame customs for the seizure. I applaud it. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
cdninkorea
Joined: 27 Jan 2006
Location: Seoul
|
| Posted: Tue Apr 28, 2009 2:59 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Seoul'n'Corea wrote: |
This ain't your country. Korea takes a hard line when it comes to any drug that is potentially abuse-able except for Alcohol... just look at the problems with that.
Personally I don't blame customs for the seizure. I applaud it. |
I have an image of you, in all your self-righteousness, standing outside Customs Korea and clapping at them as they go into work in the morning. Then the riot police show up, assuming it's a protest.  |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
GoldMember
Joined: 24 Oct 2006
|
| Posted: Tue Apr 28, 2009 4:36 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Years ago a friend of mine had a cutlery set sent to Korea. She was going to give it to a friend as a wedding present. Customs did not want to hand it over. Their explanation, "weapons", they handed over the package once she started crying. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
ppcg4
Joined: 16 Oct 2008
|
| Posted: Tue Apr 28, 2009 4:45 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Seoul'n'Corea wrote: |
This ain't your country. Korea takes a hard line when it comes to any drug that is potentially abuse-able except for Alcohol... just look at the problems with that.
Personally I don't blame customs for the seizure. I applaud it. |
I bet you were a hall monitor in high school.
Cigarettes are illegal in Bhutan... so should Korea recognize Bhutanese law and ban them here too? Don't say apples and oranges because it's the exact same thing... Korea observing another country's laws. I guess that wouldn't be convenient for them.
I'm going to call them back today and see if I can get to the bottom of this.
I'd understand if I were trying to import something illegal. Hell I'm sure you can get high from mixing household chemicals, but they don't ban the import of those. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Straphanger
Joined: 09 Oct 2008
Location: Chilgok, Korea
|
| Posted: Tue Apr 28, 2009 6:33 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| ppcg4 wrote: |
| I'm going to call them back today and see if I can get to the bottom of this. |
Maybe instead of trying to fight a battle of wits unarmed, you might contact Wikipedia to find out the Schedule of the active in what you're importing, and cross-reference it with Korean import laws? Just a thought. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
ppcg4
Joined: 16 Oct 2008
|
| Posted: Tue Apr 28, 2009 6:56 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Here's an email I got from my Korean friend who called them this morning:
| Quote: |
*. why we can't have it korea where is legal to have it)??
- (their answer):Although it is legal from classification, Korea is now in the process of establishing a control law for this incense.
It's already started. The plan is now under consideration by the government.
Officially America announced that the incense absolutely contains synthetic hemp which is changed hemp chemically.
As long as they know the incense what contains, they can't let you have this incense.
Everyday, they get the incense postal matters 3~4 times a day, they are trying to be more strictly to control this stuff.
* then, what is the name of the chemically changed hemp .
- There are few ingredient. Especially, 'Hu201' is the well known for chemically changed hemp.
*.His neighborhood already got have it few weeks ago, why only mike can't have it?
- They are scrupulously examine all of postal matters as possible as they can .
However, they deal with up to 50000 postal matters every day. it could be mistaken to through very rarely.
They seemed kind of admit that it was their mistake or your friend's incense was a very small quantity.
If you want to argue with this unfairness, they want to know your neighborhood's exact address and name and
check them again.
*. where is the incense he ordered right now?
- They are already made a urgent request to send them back.
there is no way to get back it.
*. Is there any way to get the incense?
- this process is simple entry service. You are unable to get this incense with this simple entry service.
if you really want to have this incense, you should follow very complicate process then.
1. You should make a fulfil the necessary conditions for importation requirements.
2. You have to get official permission.
(they are certainly sure that it could be really difficult)
3. You have to get through examination service legally.
|
So there you have it. A substance that isn't officially banned is still prohibited. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
