Anyone dealt with AmiAmi ??

[smoothyg35]

Hey everyone,

Just wanted to know if anyone has dealt with AmiAmi before??

They have great prices on their Masterpiece figures and shipping is reasonable i.e.

MP-28 Hot Rodimus 6000 JPY + Shipping 1500 JPY
TOTAL = 7500 JPY (with current exchange rate it comes to roughly $88 CAN), which I personally find cheaper than most retailers here on the boards.

I have spoken with their customer service and they are unable to mark the items as a GIFT and must declare the full price of the item.

My question is - does anyone know how much or if I have to pay for taxes, duties, brokerage fees on the item??

Cheers - any help would be greatly appreciated

[pandaprime]

I have ordered from them many times and so far so good. No additional customer service experience though.

[smoothyg35]

Originally Posted by pandaprime

I have ordered from them many times and so far so good. No additional customer service experience though.

Thanks for the confirmation.

What were the amounts of the things you purchased ??
So no hidden fees or duties you had to pay ??

[Darth Cylon]

I order from Amiami all the time. My MP-25, 26, 27, 28, 29 and soon 30 are all bought from them. Also a bunch of Gunpla, Cospa, and misc stuff. I always ship with registered SAL and once with EMS. Never got hit by duty/tax.

Also this is my option: Almost all legitimate businesses in Japan declare full value of the item you buy. They simply do not mark items as gift or as no value. This is partly for shipping insurance covered by Japan Post in case the item is lost, but also it's a culture thing. Everything as a value.

The shipping label they use are bilingual in Japanese and English, but it's easy to miss the value declaration.

[pandaprime]

Originally Posted by smoothyg35

Thanks for the confirmation.

What were the amounts of the things you purchased ??
So no hidden fees or duties you had to pay ??

approx. totals in yen for most recent orders are :
27,000
17,000
26,000
14,000
18,000
8,000
15,000

fortunately I paid no additional fees *knock on wood*

[TRUCKvsGUN]

I'm a little surprised and envious you've imported stuff worth as much as 27,000 and didn't pay any customs.

[Masta_Skidz]

that is nothing and it all depends on customs agent working I have had packages come from Japan as much as 75,000 yen and nothing and on the opposite side I have had a package come in that was 19,000 yen and got hit with taxes and handling fee.

There is no for sure way to dodge customs. It all depends on how busy they are and what agent you get.

[BoNKerS]

^ agreed.

Lately I've been dinged with customs on my Play Arts Kai Figs. they are around 14000 yen including shipping.

My Transformers have been fine. We'll see how Shockwave goes.

Anime-Export actually declares the package at a lower value. Amiami full pop.

[xueyue2]

Originally Posted by Masta_Skidz

that is nothing and it all depends on customs agent working I have had packages come from Japan as much as 75,000 yen and nothing and on the opposite side I have had a package come in that was 19,000 yen and got hit with taxes and handling fee.

There is no for sure way to dodge customs. It all depends on how busy they are and what agent you get.

I ordered from HLJ, Amiami, AE and NY, quite a lot in the past few years.
Among these 4, AE and NY are willing to declare lower price on the package for me, so the shipment from those 2 don't' have extra costs.
That's why I prefer those 2 site first, however sometime there were deals on HLJ and Amiami too good to past, so I ordered from them too.

[Pascal]

I've sometimes paid customs on AmiAmi orders and I'm from Quebec just like you.