Jerry wrote:
"Just a warning about buying things from Holland right now. The delays imposed by US Customs on getting anything from Holland seem to be worse than ever. I recently waited a month on a small parcel from Renaissance, and I think they have an easier time because they are an established shipper. It seems perhaps Customs keeps a history on shippers, and if they have opened many parcels from a shipper and found nothing out of order, at least they let the parcel through after a merely ridiculous, but not quite outrageous delay. But a one-off shipment from an individual shipper may simply fall into the US Customs Black Hole, never to be seen again. I bought a Vitus frameset from a Dutch eBay seller on September 9, and it never arrived. The seller was very honest and cooperative, but finally we both concluded that it probably will never be seen again, and he sent me a refund yesterday via Western Union.
This problem seems to involve mostly Holland and Germany. Stuff usually arrives quickly from UK and Denmark, and Italy and France aren't too bad. But getting anything from Holland is a crap shoot. I'm glad Cecile and BC are relocating to the US. "
It must be bad karma, as I regularly get things from both the Netherlands and Germany without any delay. The latest arrival from Germany was mailed on December 20th in the middle of the Christmas rush, it arrived on January 4th, this notwithstanding that I only paid for surface mail. From the Netherlands, my last package arrived in 8 days (when I paid for airmail). As far as US Customs identifying a shipper, this seems highly unlikely as this would take the same or more time than to check every package. It is more likely they have a watch list of suspect destinations, either by zip or individual addressee. The packages that I have run into problems with, were the ones where I went the cheapskate way and opted for surface mail and one airmail package sent by Renaissance, where they admitted to screwing up (a real pity as it meant that I missed le cirque.)
BTW: the country is the Netherlands. Holland is the area made up of the provinces of North and South Holland only. While these two provinces include the majority of the population of the Netherlands, to equate Holland with the Netherlands would be akin to equating New England to the USA. I doubt that most Texans would like to be called New Englanders... -- Steven (a proud Hollander) Maasland Moorestown, NJ