95% sure customs seized my BIG box of goodies, how does one get them back?

I come here with a heavy heart. I purchased a box FULL of goodies from a reputable wholesaler in Germany last week, only to get it today to only contain 2 of my 17 shipped items. Now why I am yet to hear for sure customs has taken it, one can only assume. Now when I say a box of goodies, I mean it was full. I ordered:


A Blaze mix and match cooling tub
Blaze mix and match stemless diffuser base
Blaze mix and match 8 arm perc extender
A Blaze precooler
A blade glass pipe and oil rig
A Roor carbon filter
A large sharp stone crank grinder
A plain large sharp stone grinder
A Blaze double percolator
A "00" Small humidor with hydrometer
2 "00" mini humidors
An Iolite Wispr
2 45mm K clips
And a plain old hookah


Needless to say, this literally felt like Christmas. It made it from the warehouse in Germany to Philadelphia in just under 21 hours, and took 5 days in customs. Today I picked it up, brought it inside, called up some friends, bought some beers, and literally made an event out of opening it. When I finally cut the tape, dang, there is literally only the humidor with the hydrometer, and a broken hookah from what I have to image stems up to floating around a big empty box. Instant disappointment. I spend the next how ever long digging through the remaining six inches of packing peanuts until my friend grabs my hand, and kindly assures me there isn't anything in there. When it left Germany, it weighed 10.22kg, and when it got here it was empty. Needless to say I contacted ups instantly, only to be told they would need to launch an investigation. I haven't heard anything from customs regarding a seizure, but I'm assuming I will any day now. There were no stickers on the box hinting towards customs seizing my glass, not a letter in the box. They took everything down to the K clips. Now I have to assume it's seized, right? But now I wonder why, because everything is perfectly legal, correct? So what now? I assume I'm not in any legal trouble, because frankly, I wasn't doing anything illegal. Do I just consider my stuff gone, and hope the company replaces it through insurance, or does that not cover seizure? I'm willing to get a customs lawyer to help me with my case, just because I'm pissed the the good ol' US of A, do you think that will even help? And please, no one bring up operation pipe dream and Tommy Chong, me living in PA and all, that was a VERY targeted operation.


Thanks,
Sad toker

There would be green customs tape on it if it was inspected lawfully. Someone ripped you off your package and sealed it back up.

yup...bastards

Balzac89 said:

There would be green customs tape on it if it was inspected lawfully. Someone ripped you off your package and sealed it back up.

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To be honest, this is great news to this guy. I have a feeling it will be much easier to remedy this situation then if it were a customs issue. May I ask where you got this information from?

there are several threads on here about customs seizing procedures

Yup yup yup, it wasn't customs who ripped you off FOR SURE.

Why are you ordering supplies from Germany to the states? I live in Europe so I have no idea why you would be ordering anything but seeds from Europe.

BigEasy1 said:

Why are you ordering supplies from Germany to the states? I live in Europe so I have no idea why you would be ordering anything but seeds from Europe.

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I became interested in the Blaze mix and match system, but my ideal set up was going to run me $650ish. So I found who Blaze uses for distribution, applied to them using my appropriate tax numbers through my business, and was accepted. And since shipping was a smidge high, I ordered enough stuff to make it worth it. Put it this way, the a Iolite Wispr, brand new, cost me $118.27

Alright. So I called a customs and imports lawyer, and he agrees. He assumes it was taken somewhere in UPS' logistics chain with the assumption I would assume it was seized and not follow up on it. He also thinks that's why the hookah and humidor were left in the package, because something had to be delivered, and those were the least "gray market" items I had.

Yup Yup Yup ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Something is rotten in Denmark.

none of that stuff on your list is even illegal, idk why customs would touch it, so long as it was all clean, nib, they couldn't say word one about any of that stuff..

instead of flipping out and thinking the worst, why don't you try and contact the company you bought it from and see what they have to say about it?? maybe they only had a few things in stock and sent a partial order to get you some of your gear without waiting.. it's happened before.. did it come with a packing slip with it? what all was on the packing slip?
i just don't see why you wouldn't contact the place you bought it from before flipping out and assuming the worst though, seems like the logical step to me, but what do i know?

Alright. I will say as of now, UPS is giving the me complete run around. I called them Thursday at about 7:00PM to inform them, and was told someone would contact me within 24 hours. That never happened. So I gave them the weekend, all called them today, Monday, and was told since I called them after 7 on Thursday, my call would be returned by the end of today since it was the second business day. I made sure to ask when the end of their business day was, and she said 6 o'clock. Well, no call. Tomorrow I will just ask to speak with a manager. I talked to a manager at the UPS store next to my work, and he told me they'll never tell me this, but theft from the UPS warehouses is actually freakishly common. But on a different note, the distributor I was dealing with has also gone quite. I sent them two emails, one Friday night, and one Sunday night, and gave them a business day to respond to both. As of now, there has been no response. So I went to their actual site, told them I wasn't able to get a hold of them through responding to previous emails, and am now waiting to here back. I should know tomorrow if they respond, with Germany being 6 hours behind the US. Either way, I now pretty much know for a fact it wasn't customs. Which either leaves theft within UPS, which is the most likely, or they just didn't ship it all. I made sure to tell them I was disappointed that they have gone missing at the first sign of trouble, especially now that it isn't looking like a US customs issue.

racerboy71 said:

none of that stuff on your list is even illegal, idk why customs would touch it, so long as it was all clean, nib, they couldn't say word one about any of that stuff..

instead of flipping out and thinking the worst, why don't you try and contact the company you bought it from and see what they have to say about it?? maybe they only had a few things in stock and sent a partial order to get you some of your gear without waiting.. it's happened before.. did it come with a packing slip with it? what all was on the packing slip?
i just don't see why you wouldn't contact the place you bought it from before flipping out and assuming the worst though, seems like the logical step to me, but what do i know?

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Hey man, just saw this post after I posted the update

Anyway, like I said in my update largely, the company has gone completely MIA. The order was shipped at weighing 10.2kg, and arrived weighing 3.4. There also was a shipping manifest within the box staying everything had been sent in the one box, and they also confirmed everything was in stock and shipping with the order. The way this particular distributor works, is they box up your whole order, and get an exact weight on it for shipping before sending your total bill. The box was 26"x18"x18". It arrived with six inches of packing peanuts in it, the shipping manifest, and they two items. I understand the original post sounded like a freak out, but now I realize it's even far stranger then I originally believed. My items as of now resemble a Malaysian airliner.

Alright. So this morning I got contacted by both the wholesaler in Germany and UPS. The wholesaler says it sounds like a UPS insurance issue, and that the package will be resent to me if deemed so. And UPS called to schedule a pick up of the package tomorrow that will essentially start their investigation. So after all this early morning progress, I said fuck it, and called customs directly. The international shipping specialist there sang the same tune as the lawyer I called at the end of last week. She said they had no report of my package even being opened, let alone seized, and as far as she could tell, it breezed straight through US Customs. Hurray for progress... I guess?

My ex-wife worked for UPS so needless to say, she always got offered stuff for cheap from other employees that worked in the warehouse and at the counters. Sorry for your loss and I hope you get your stuff.

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Man that sucks! Seems like you will eventually get your stuff but sorry for all the trouble you need to go through!

stop calling lawyers and customs, what you bought was not contraband.


Did you use a Credit card? call them !


In the future order from the USA so you don't have to get all paranoid

I agree, if you used a credit card or Paypal STOP PAYMENT. Until everything is figured out at the very least..

And on a side note, UPS, like stated already, does have a lot of thieves to say the least. I knew a few people that worked there and the stores I heard.. Makes you wanna get insurance for damnnnn sureeee.

Idk man. Could it be possible that your order was just shipped out in more than one box (with a combined weight a total of 10.2 kg)? Maybe you just got half of your order and the second (heavier) half is still in route? Germany is out of the country. Could just be taking a bit longer for the heavier stuff to reach you. I've ordered stuff from amazon before from the same seller and at the same time, but the order came in two separate boxes with two separate delivery dates. I guess shit like that happens sometimes. How long ago did you purchase these?