Glass Package Seized by US Customs.

I ordered a package of water pipes from oversees on March 31st, set to arrive and be delivered on April 4th.
The package was stopped tracking on April 3rd and I contacted both UPS and the Merchant.

UPS ceased to give me any information and repeatedly requested that I contact the Merchant for any questions.

The Merchant notified me that Customs had seized the package around mid-April..

What do I do? What should I expect?

Specifically, the Merchant's Terms and Services does not specify anything regarding packages being seized by customs.
It does state that any lost or damaged items must be dealt with the shipping company (UPS)

UPS will not do anything about this. Especially since they will not give me any information regarding the incident and repeatedly inform me that they and the merchant will deal with the issue.

Both of their policies contradict one another..The price I paid for the package was somewhere around 550 USD..200 USD was for shipping..Retail my package was somewhere around 2000 USD..

Now I believe this package was improperly seized.. water pipes are not illegal here in NY and they are brand new.

I am prepared to Fax a paper to my bank that disputes the charge, stating specifically that it had never arrived.

Any advice?

Thank you

That's garbage man. I don't know what you should do, but I would contact every party involved and try to get in touch with a customs regulator about it. Interested in seeing how all this plays out. Keep us updated

Have fun fighting the "guberment". They have all the time, money, and thousands of worthless bureaucrats to work through. It pisses me off how the "guberment" can basically ass rape you without any recourse.

If you're so inclined, you can look at the seizure/forfeiture list (http://www.forfeiture.gov/pdf/CBP/OfficialNotification.pdf) and see if you can figure out which package was yours. Then you'll at least have the legal basis for the seizure. If it's incorrect, you may have some luck, but I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you. Honestly, your best, easiest route might be going through the credit card company like you mentioned. They may not be able to help, but that's a lot easier than trying to convince the federal government that they were wrong.