Not so with the reverse, there is a FedEx USA watch worksheet which has to be completed and I did this on behalf of the customer.  What I got back was “Thank you for the information. This watch worksheet is missing the value breakdown between the case, movement, battery, and strap. Would you like to provide this? Our other option is to use the standard FedEx watch value breakdown, which is: Case 30% Movement 46% Strap 20% Battery4%”

So I had to fill in these values simply to get it past Customs.  Can you believe that a 2^nd hand battery from a 1962 watch is worth $20?  If the vendor was trying to sell the parts separately he would have not got 25% of the price that he got for the whole.  This is just another in my series of warning customers about the difficulties of US Customs and the forms that must be completed.

Oh, and Australia now has a ban on import of alcohol except between licensed parties (i.e. vineyard to wholesaler) so private individuals cannot send a bottle of wine to their cousin at Christmas.

Holiday Season

This is the prime time of year for holidays and the time when tourists leave their belongings in hire cars, hotels and at airport security.  This year we have already repatriated car keys, a wallet full of money, laptop computers and even a stolen iPod recovered by Barcelona Police.

Changes in Spanish Tax

From 1^st September this year, IVA (VAT) increases from 18% to 21%. This will automatically increase all courier prices (and Correos parcels too) by 3% within the EU.  So if you need to send something it is best to send it before the end of August.

Customs and Tobacco

We have had customers stupid enough to try and send tobacco through our courier services.  These shipments are all being intercepted by Customs in whatever country of entry.  Please don’t think of doing this it is illegal.

USA Food and Drug administration (FDA)

The FDA are getting tougher and tougher over imports to the USA.  We sent a wedding present of 60 drinking glasses from France and they needed a special test to make sure they would not break when people drank from them.  Citibox have an FDA accreditation so we can get these products through.  “I had an email from my cousin last evening – she’s received the box already! Incredibly fast, thank you so much!” from a customer sending product to the USA which passes Customs because Citibox know how to make it happen.

Removals and international relocation

Although the Spanish Economy is not at its best, there are plenty of people who need to move to and from Spain and even from another country to somewhere far away.  We are quoting from the UK to Malta, from Spain to Russia and sending loads from Spain to the UK.  Citibox can handle parcels from any location to any destination (except war zones, we recently had to get a parcel to Syria diverted toBeirut, so fulfilling the doctor’s requirements).  We send many boxes around the world with people’s personal belongings, avoiding high charges for airline excess baggage rates.

Welcome back to Citibox

With this code, CITIAG10, we can give you a 10% discount on any letter or parcel booked on our website in August which really gives you the chance of saving 13% before September!

Antique glass bowls, any antique over 100 years old sent by courier to the United States is free from Customs Duty.  They demanded to know the maker’s name and address, this was glass from the 1820s – luckily the shipper is a glass expert and persuaded them after completing US Antiques Statement.. The same customer had a problem with the FDA when he sold a massager for chronic pains on eBay shipped from Andalusia to New York.

Dinner Service of plates and bowls sent as a wedding present couriered from Alicante to California – these were actually returned to Spain and then re-sent to America and we had to persuade someone to accept responsibility for the shipment before they were released.

Boxes of second-hand clothing sent by his wife from Madrid to her husband in California before she moved out to join him.  A US form 3299  (Department of Homeland Security) had to be completed in order to allow her personal baggage from Spain to enter into America.

A parcel of flamenco clothes and shoes sent from Malaga to a non-profit theatre group in North America were stopped at Customs.  They demanded to know the manufacturer and from what the shoes were made.

Silk kimonos, which we had sent to the client by FedEx from the USA , after being painted in Cataluna and sent back to New Jersey were only released after a lawyer’s intervention.

The moral of the story is that if you are shipping from Spain you had better use a company which knows how to get your parcel through US Customs and that is Citibox in English or Citibox in Spanish .

There is a lot of talk in the British press at the moment of the need for countries like Spain and Greece to become more competitive but study the chart below and you will see that the only European country more expensive for hotels than the UK is Belgium.

At these rates Spain offers terrific value for money, the low-cost airlines are cutting their fares and more people are shipping their luggage through Citibox FedEx to avoid the inconvenience of  check-in queues.

I have found this brilliant new company www.CurrencyFair.com through www.economist.com .  Banks charge a fortune for transferring money between the £ Pound Sterling and the € Euro.  There are commissions where they take a fixed transfer fee which can be as high as €20 and then there is the completely unfair “spread” where they take a huge margin on converting the money.

We used to use our UK Nationwide building society account to withdraw small sums while in Spain because they used to offer a market exchange rate and no fees.  Now they charge £1.00 + 2% for any withdrawal.

We used Currencies Direct to bring the money over for the purchase of our house but they, too, take a wide cut over the current exchange rate.  One of our customers wrote to us and said “After a prolonged wait I was severely messed around by a currency service which, as it turned out, was more expensive than PayPal itself.  Don’t ever use currenciesdirect.com !”

I recently needed a hotel in Istanbul, Turkey, to do me a favour by removing the labels from an international courier parcel and printing and fixing new ones so our customer’s supplier and the recipient did not make direct contact.  The agreed fee with the hotel was €15 and Western Union charged €9.50 for the transfer from Spain!

So it is really refreshing to find a company with brilliant customer service who will convert your money instantly at the market rate and charge you only €3 – yes that’s all – to transfer your money.  Once your account is set up you can do everything on-line so you don’t have to sign forms and have them couriered to your bank’s headquarters or write a cheque.

“Hi Edmund the chair made it here in 2 working days, thank you so much for the great service not to mention the price.”  (It was a HUGE chair imported through FedEx Freight).

Last week we sent a lady’s personal belongings from Spain to the USA and imported a gentleman’s personal belongings from the USA to Spain.  We courier lots of Amazon returns back to Amazon in the UK and in the USA.  We also ship to Amazon UK Spanish items that they sell on their website.

Every week we send from Spain items sold on eBay and import to Spain items bought on eBay.  We import and distribute within Spain a leading brand of spectacles.  We import clothes from the USA, China and India to Spain and we export clothes from Spain to many countries in the World, including wedding dresses, children’s clothes and flamenco dresses.

As is normal during the holiday season we are returning to the UK owners’ laptops left in airport security, cameras and mobiles left in hotel rooms, car keys left in hire cars and as more people leave behind  smartphones and book readers in Spain this is bound to increase.  Sensible holidaymakers courier their luggage to and from Spain so they don’t have to wait at the baggage carousel and pay the extortionate airline excess luggage fees.  I once saw a 90 minute queue at the car hire desk in Malaga Airport so it really pays to be first in the line!

As Spain’s only internet international discount courier service it is really important that people who are looking for the very best deal for their next-day letters or their excess luggage or their economy parcels can find our website so they can get the best price for their courier services.

The SEO consultant, who we have agreed not to name, managed to get us from third place on Google to 77^th place for my preferred search of “Courier Spain” and this in only two months.  To be on page 8 is the same as not existing in the world of internet.  We are in the business of shipping international parcels; I consistently asked this consultant “what guarantees do we have if you don’t perform?”  If we don’t get a parcel delivered on time we refund the money, if we lose or damage a parcel we pay out on insurance.  Be careful with SEO because there are no guarantees but these guys won’t let you down http://www.linxhurricane.com/ , they got us to page 1, thanks Lesley.

Within a few days of parting company, and after I had completely undone all the damage that this man had done, we are back up to number three on the first page of Google.  I now have to work on our Spanish site to get that back to where it belongs.  What a waste of time and money!

Then there is the Spanish side of it.  Having a UK Address is all very well but you need to get delivery in Spain and we take the parcels down to Spain and sort them and despatch them either to one of our offices or direct to the customer.  People buy goods from the USA and worldwide to go via the UK either because they are banned direct into Spain (herbal medicines for instance) or because the UK Customs authorities are less likely to charge Customs duties and allow ordinary packages through which the Spanish don’t.  We had one mother come to us after Spanish Customs charged her student daughter €50 import duty on a dental plate that she sent from the USA.

Then there are all the foreign customers who use us as a Spanish delivery address because they are buying on-line from Spanish companies who won’t deliver outside of the Peninsular and they want their goods sent to Brazil or Singapore.   It is more than just eBay.  It’s an accommodation address, it’s a mail divert service (cheaper and more flexible than Royal Mail’s), it is secure because your credit cards and bank statements come down with FedEx not Correos, for Sky cards, for prescriptions, it is used as a returns address for companies selling from Spain who need a UK presence or companies that want to pretend they are in the UK when actually they are on the beach in Spain with a diverted VOIP telephone number.  It is unique and a really valuable service to all residents in Spain.

a. Although we cannot beat the price of a simple letter, we are cheaper for most packages over 2kg and we can collect from hotels or car hire companies in Spain where customers have left their mobile phones or keys or computers and need them sending from Spain to their home.

b. We offer special rates for businesses who send many parcels from Spain.  Please ask if you want to be a regular business customer.

2) Every parcel is trackable and insured and we only use the two largest international parcel services in the World.

a. People sending parcels are really only concerned whether they arrive or not.  After all, what is the point of sending something that doesn’t arrive?

b. If you use the postal service you are relying on a minimum of three different carriers:  Correos from Spain, the transit company that moves the mail overseas and the delivery company e.g. Royal Mail in the UK.  Would you save a few € to lose the parcel?

3) From most places in Spain there is a guaranteed next-day delivery service to major European and West Coast USA destinations.

a. All the postal services in Europe are increasing their prices for urgent mail because the EU VAT laws have been changed and now only ordinary mail is exempt from VAT, not any premium service such as tracked and insured urgent delivery.

b. Citibox courier services have always built in VAT to their prices and therefore, while the postal costs increase, the courier package costs of Citibox remain the same.

4) Citibox are experts in customs declaration forms and in providing the correct packaging and customs advice to make sure your packages sent outside of the EU arrive with minimal duty payable and safely.

a. The trouble caused when a package is sent from outside the EU or a delivery to a country outside the EU can be considerable.  There are Customs in both the export country and the import country and both need all the documentation to be correct.

b. You may be sending something you consider completely reasonable, vitamin pills to your daughter studying in Spain.  Spanish customs will not agree with you and will destroy the shipment.  Citibox can let you know in advance how to get around these problems.

5) If something goes wrong, and it very rarely does, Citibox are better placed to help you as they have direct contact with top management in both UPS and FedEx.

a. There is no such thing as a fault-free service.  Millions of packages are sent every day to and from Spain and some will encounter problems.

b. The question is “who do you want on your side if something goes wrong?”  If you send your international packages through Citibox we are there to help you; we re-locate lost packages; we process claim forms for lost or damaged packages; you are our client so we are your friend and we work tirelessly for you.

If you need to send it, send it by Citibox!