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Adventurer
Joined: 28 Jan 2006
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 Posted: Wed Mar 11, 2015 5:42 pm Post subject: |
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| I think what happened is that I made a couple of orders that week, and they decided to combine them as one order and have me exceed the 150K, and then charged me. That said, 77,490 is a massive tax. Be careful not to make more than one order for iherb in the same week even if you think you're somewhat under 150K won. You can order honey, but if you are deemed to exceed the 150K won based on how they want to interpret it, a customs official could charge you a crazy amount for honey as happened in this case. Perhaps, the rationale is because honey is very expensive in Korea. |
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northway
Joined: 05 Jul 2010
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| Posted: Wed Mar 11, 2015 5:54 pm Post subject: |
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| Adventurer wrote: |
| Cave Dweller wrote: |
Maybe the kovernment needs to go after tge bigger honey operations that offers better value and quality. They should be forced to close on odd Sundays.
| Nester Noodlemon wrote: |
| gotta keep the incoming honey prices on par with Korean honey prices. some bee farmer in Kwangju is trying to raise a family with the income off of two bee boxes. |
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They should have them blue laws for iherb, so people won't be able to order on Sundays. LOL I seriously bought honey like 3 times before without an incident. I'm still puzzled. How's this 400%+ tariff on an American good so acceptable? I guess their rationale is that a 3 pound jar of honey in the stores is very expensive, but so are their vitamins that we get off iherb. It's not our fault they're price gauging the locals.
I paid what they asked, but only because there were several other items and iherb gave me credit before because the items were "lost" for a month. |
Korean customs makes no sense. Once my parents sent me salami (don't ask - makes no sense) and I got a note three weeks later saying that you can't send meat through customs (along with my meat). |
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The Cosmic Hum
Joined: 09 May 2003
Location: Sonic Space
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| Posted: Wed Mar 11, 2015 7:36 pm Post subject: |
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| Adventurer wrote: |
| I think what happened is that I made a couple of orders that week, and they decided to combine them as one order and have me exceed the 150K, and then charged me. That said, 77,490 is a massive tax. Be careful not to make more than one order for iherb in the same week even if you think you're somewhat under 150K won. You can order honey, but if you are deemed to exceed the 150K won based on how they want to interpret it, a customs official could charge you a crazy amount for honey as happened in this case. Perhaps, the rationale is because honey is very expensive in Korea. |
Really?
So you went over the w150,000 limit in a 24 hour period...which is what we thought at the beginning of this thread.
It wasn't about honey at all.
Not a matter of interpretation...just a simple rule.
Anyway, thanks for clearing this up. |
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Underwaterbob
Joined: 08 Jan 2005
Location: In Cognito
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| Posted: Wed Mar 11, 2015 8:49 pm Post subject: |
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| The Cosmic Hum wrote: |
| Adventurer wrote: |
| I think what happened is that I made a couple of orders that week, and they decided to combine them as one order and have me exceed the 150K, and then charged me. That said, 77,490 is a massive tax. Be careful not to make more than one order for iherb in the same week even if you think you're somewhat under 150K won. You can order honey, but if you are deemed to exceed the 150K won based on how they want to interpret it, a customs official could charge you a crazy amount for honey as happened in this case. Perhaps, the rationale is because honey is very expensive in Korea. |
Really?
So you went over the w150,000 limit in a 24 hour period...which is what we thought at the beginning of this thread.
It wasn't about honey at all.
Not a matter of interpretation...just a simple rule.
Anyway, thanks for clearing this up. |
There are more than 24 hours in a week, though he doesn't say how close together in that week those orders were. |
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Jake_Kim
Joined: 27 Aug 2005
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Wed Mar 11, 2015 9:48 pm Post subject: |
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| Underwaterbob wrote: |
| The Cosmic Hum wrote: |
| Adventurer wrote: |
| I think what happened is that I made a couple of orders that week, and they decided to combine them as one order and have me exceed the 150K, and then charged me. That said, 77,490 is a massive tax. Be careful not to make more than one order for iherb in the same week even if you think you're somewhat under 150K won. You can order honey, but if you are deemed to exceed the 150K won based on how they want to interpret it, a customs official could charge you a crazy amount for honey as happened in this case. Perhaps, the rationale is because honey is very expensive in Korea. |
Really?
So you went over the w150,000 limit in a 24 hour period...which is what we thought at the beginning of this thread.
It wasn't about honey at all.
Not a matter of interpretation...just a simple rule.
Anyway, thanks for clearing this up. |
There are more than 24 hours in a week, though he doesn't say how close together in that week those orders were. |
The criteria is neither the date one places orders with merchants overseas nor the date respective packages are shipped out, but the date packages arrive at Korean border and get accepted into the Customs custody for clearance. If multiple packages are declared under the name of an identical buyer/recipient on the same day, the customs regard them as an attempt to circumvent the KRW 150k duty-free ceiling, so they automatically aggregate them as if they're one big shipment for the same person and levy taxes accordingly.
This comes straight from the customs officer who handled this very case. (Not yours truly, however.) |
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The Cosmic Hum
Joined: 09 May 2003
Location: Sonic Space
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| Posted: Thu Mar 12, 2015 12:26 am Post subject: |
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| Jake_Kim wrote: |
| Underwaterbob wrote: |
| The Cosmic Hum wrote: |
| Adventurer wrote: |
| I think what happened is that I made a couple of orders that week, and they decided to combine them as one order and have me exceed the 150K, and then charged me. That said, 77,490 is a massive tax. Be careful not to make more than one order for iherb in the same week even if you think you're somewhat under 150K won. You can order honey, but if you are deemed to exceed the 150K won based on how they want to interpret it, a customs official could charge you a crazy amount for honey as happened in this case. Perhaps, the rationale is because honey is very expensive in Korea. |
Really?
So you went over the w150,000 limit in a 24 hour period...which is what we thought at the beginning of this thread.
It wasn't about honey at all.
Not a matter of interpretation...just a simple rule.
Anyway, thanks for clearing this up. |
There are more than 24 hours in a week, though he doesn't say how close together in that week those orders were. |
The criteria is neither the date one places orders with merchants overseas nor the date respective packages are shipped out, but the date packages arrive at Korean border and get accepted into the Customs custody for clearance. If multiple packages are declared under the name of an identical buyer/recipient on the same day, the customs regard them as an attempt to circumvent the KRW 150k duty-free ceiling, so they automatically aggregate them as if they're one big shipment for the same person and levy taxes accordingly.
This comes straight from the customs officer who handled this very case. (Not yours truly, however.) |
Yeah...I learned this the hard way, too.
Happened a few years back. I make at least one order a week...most every week.
Usually they take about one week. Unfortunately, on one occassion, I didn't check on my previous order. For some reason or another, Iherb delayed the shipping on it, and two orders arrived at customs withing a 24 hour period.
Kiss $75 goodbye.
I feel for Adventurer. Sucks to have this happen.
But since we are discussing Iherb...is it true that there is a duty on honey over 5kg? I order a lot of honey and never had anything come up.
Good to know these things.
I really think we need an Iherb sticky. |
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Adventurer
Joined: 28 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Thu Mar 12, 2015 3:14 am Post subject: |
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| The Cosmic Hum wrote: |
| Adventurer wrote: |
| I think what happened is that I made a couple of orders that week, and they decided to combine them as one order and have me exceed the 150K, and then charged me. That said, 77,490 is a massive tax. Be careful not to make more than one order for iherb in the same week even if you think you're somewhat under 150K won. You can order honey, but if you are deemed to exceed the 150K won based on how they want to interpret it, a customs official could charge you a crazy amount for honey as happened in this case. Perhaps, the rationale is because honey is very expensive in Korea. |
Really?
So you went over the w150,000 limit in a 24 hour period...which is what we thought at the beginning of this thread.
It wasn't about honey at all.
Not a matter of interpretation...just a simple rule.
Anyway, thanks for clearing this up. |
Based on the price on iherb it was below 150,000 won, but they chose to interpret the prices as they saw fit and charge me 243% on natural honey.
Fair enough to some extent based on their interpretation of things. However, they labeled it as artificial honey, so the tax rate was off. I complained, and they reduced the amount to the correct amount. Thus, even with their own regulations, it was not completely fair. I had to protest based on their own regulations and the error they made. Yes, part of it was I ordered more than one item, and they decided to interpret it as 150,000 won when it was under that price wise. The total for the good was the equivalent of 126,000 won if you convert it from US dollars to won. That said, I learned my lesson. I will space things out to avoid them using such a thing against me. It's happened to many people.
Jake is a really nice guy and very helpful. Space your orders out adequately to be on the safe side. I don't know about the 5 kilograms. I don't order that much honey. We all live and learn. I found out this kind of thing happened to several friends. Unlike them, I argued and got a reduction. I just want things to be fair and to fit with their laws. To tax me improperly, at least. I am happy that I received help from a poster and a fellow who works in our office who is a super guy. He called them for me several times. He probably doesn't get paid much to help us teachers, so I sometimes leave treats on his desk.
Should we ask the mods to have an iherb sticky? Or a customs issues sticky? What do you guys think? Someone mentioned the idea of a sticky. So many of us order from iherb. Did anyone almost have a coronary trying to figure out how to set up a customs ID number? That was a lot of fun! Not!  |
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motiontodismiss
Joined: 18 Dec 2011
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| Posted: Thu Mar 12, 2015 3:24 am Post subject: Re: 75,000 won in charges for a $16 jar of honey from iherb |
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| Adventurer wrote: |
| It seems like they're trying to stop people from importing things. |
They're trying to stop anyone who's not Lotte, Shinsegae or whatever other cronies from importing things so that Shinsegae and Lotte can charge you four times the price that iHerb or Amazon charges. The current administration couldn't give a flying rat's ass what happens to anything besides their own wallets.
Remember, this is the only country that bans discounts greater than 15% on books and prosecutes cell phone carriers for discounting too much. |
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Who's Your Daddy?
Joined: 30 May 2010
Location: Victoria, Canada.
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| Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2015 2:14 pm Post subject: |
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If you go into an "iCoop" store, they have good quality honey. Or I bought some NongHyeop brand honey at HomePlus. It was expensive.
My Korean father in law said the cheap honey's have mixed in corn syrup or something, you have to buy an expensive one. |
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EZE
Joined: 05 May 2012
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| Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2015 1:10 am Post subject: |
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| Who's Your Daddy? wrote: |
| My Korean father in law said the cheap honey's have mixed in corn syrup or something, you have to buy an expensive one. |
Most of the honey in both the USA and Korea is semi-synthetic "honey" from China. |
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Mix1
Joined: 08 May 2007
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| Posted: Thu Mar 19, 2015 4:33 am Post subject: |
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| northway wrote: |
Korean customs makes no sense. |
Yup.
And to top it off, sometimes things go through with NO charge at all, even if over $150.
Then the next time the same item gets massively taxed.
But in most cases it's still better than paying retail for certain foreign items from Korean retail stores that charge +400%.
They try to ream you either way. |
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young_clinton
Joined: 09 Sep 2009
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| Posted: Thu Mar 19, 2015 4:23 pm Post subject: |
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| That jar of honey better be full of Royal Jelly or have special properties. |
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