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Thank God, my wife and I have arrived safely and soundly here in Mexico City. We took the Colombia Solidarity Bridge and it was a lovely, quiet, and uneventful ride from 35 to the Bridge. But then all heck broke lose when we entered Mexican Customs. I want to warn folks who are planning on shipping anything to Mexico or who are arriving with a Menaje de Casa. We spent 6 hours in Customs, and at times it looked like they were not going to let us into Mexico.
Mexican Customs is NOT a government agency; it is a privately owned and operated business. So, you can imagine the potential for abuse and bribery. There is no clear hierarchy amongst the men who come to inspect the vehicle and its contents. Various men give various prices, and you have to negotiate with them. At one point, they wanted the three of us to each pay $300 to cross the border into Mexico.
Now we were traveling in a private vehicle with many of our expensive things, so we did not just go to the green/red light, we stopped to declare our possessions. Maybe we should not have declared our possessions, but we were told that, even if we got a greet light, if a policeman stopped us at any point on the way to our destination, we could be returned to the border to have Customs inspect our vehicle. We did not want to risk that.
Worse still, were the Customs Agents at the UPS office at the airport. We shipped many things by UPS in a total of 17 boxes. There is absolutely no clear definition between the UPS personnel and Customs agents. It is sheer and total confusion designed to harass the customer. The UPS personnel would never directly answer our question, "Who are you working for? Us as a UPS official or as a Customs official?"
You see, at both the border and the airport aduana, you have to "hire" a custom's agent. You cannot process anything through customs without hiring a custom's agent. Now if you are shipping your household things with a moving van, I am sure you will not encounter any of the problems we did. But if you are shipping things to Mexico by UPS or any other parcel carrier, expect the worst.
They basically held our things hostage for 10 days, and made us pay storage for each of the days they stretched out with all of their red-tape.
A close friend who is a journalist says that journalists in Mexico do not write about three things: drug lords, kidnappers, and (you guessed it) Customs Agents. Because journalists who do so, disappear.
Another friend from Austria tried to order some musical instruments from Austria. He experienced the same delays and demands for extravagant amounts of money from the Customs agents in the airport. He actually went to the Austrian Embassy and the Austrian Ambassador came to the Customs department in the airport to facilitate things, and even the Ambassador could not help! This is how bad it is.
We just contacted our UPS shipper in the city in the US where we shipped from, and our shipper says that the Mexican UPS has filed no paperwork at all saying that we received our shipment, nor paid for it. Yet, we paid $800 to ship the boxes from the U.S, and then another $1200 to the UPS/Customs in Mexico City, and we were given a bill and we have our receipt. Nevertheless, UPS here in Mexico, says to expect another bill in the next few days. It seems that they don't want to report the money they received from us, the $1200, onto the official UPS computer system.
This has left a real bad taste in my mouth, and is not a welcome entry into Mexico. Our friend who helped us ship our possessions via UPS is trying to recover some of our money at the U.S. end, but he fears that if he "rattles too many cages," we could be in danger.
So, at least, we finally have all our possessions in our new condo, and we're in the process of unpacking. But I am very worried I will never see my (I think) "bribe" money again, and I fear more red-tape and hassles when my wife begins the process to make me a Mexican citizen.
Wishing you all well,
Votexijah
Mexican Customs is NOT a government agency; it is a privately owned and operated business. So, you can imagine the potential for abuse and bribery. There is no clear hierarchy amongst the men who come to inspect the vehicle and its contents. Various men give various prices, and you have to negotiate with them. At one point, they wanted the three of us to each pay $300 to cross the border into Mexico.
Now we were traveling in a private vehicle with many of our expensive things, so we did not just go to the green/red light, we stopped to declare our possessions. Maybe we should not have declared our possessions, but we were told that, even if we got a greet light, if a policeman stopped us at any point on the way to our destination, we could be returned to the border to have Customs inspect our vehicle. We did not want to risk that.
Worse still, were the Customs Agents at the UPS office at the airport. We shipped many things by UPS in a total of 17 boxes. There is absolutely no clear definition between the UPS personnel and Customs agents. It is sheer and total confusion designed to harass the customer. The UPS personnel would never directly answer our question, "Who are you working for? Us as a UPS official or as a Customs official?"
You see, at both the border and the airport aduana, you have to "hire" a custom's agent. You cannot process anything through customs without hiring a custom's agent. Now if you are shipping your household things with a moving van, I am sure you will not encounter any of the problems we did. But if you are shipping things to Mexico by UPS or any other parcel carrier, expect the worst.
They basically held our things hostage for 10 days, and made us pay storage for each of the days they stretched out with all of their red-tape.
A close friend who is a journalist says that journalists in Mexico do not write about three things: drug lords, kidnappers, and (you guessed it) Customs Agents. Because journalists who do so, disappear.
Another friend from Austria tried to order some musical instruments from Austria. He experienced the same delays and demands for extravagant amounts of money from the Customs agents in the airport. He actually went to the Austrian Embassy and the Austrian Ambassador came to the Customs department in the airport to facilitate things, and even the Ambassador could not help! This is how bad it is.
We just contacted our UPS shipper in the city in the US where we shipped from, and our shipper says that the Mexican UPS has filed no paperwork at all saying that we received our shipment, nor paid for it. Yet, we paid $800 to ship the boxes from the U.S, and then another $1200 to the UPS/Customs in Mexico City, and we were given a bill and we have our receipt. Nevertheless, UPS here in Mexico, says to expect another bill in the next few days. It seems that they don't want to report the money they received from us, the $1200, onto the official UPS computer system.
This has left a real bad taste in my mouth, and is not a welcome entry into Mexico. Our friend who helped us ship our possessions via UPS is trying to recover some of our money at the U.S. end, but he fears that if he "rattles too many cages," we could be in danger.
So, at least, we finally have all our possessions in our new condo, and we're in the process of unpacking. But I am very worried I will never see my (I think) "bribe" money again, and I fear more red-tape and hassles when my wife begins the process to make me a Mexican citizen.
Wishing you all well,
Votexijah