[Nhcoll-l] new US Customs regulations?

[Dirk Neumann]

Hi Doug,

any easy way to test if this is a courier related problem or a true 
regulations based one is if you take a rejected consignment with all the 
original paperwork, forms, documentation, etc. you issued, and try to 
ship this with a different company (e.g. FedEx, UPS, whatever).

We have similar problems with parcels to Switzerland, but not because of 
regulations, recent amendment or customs, but because the hub of the 
German national postal service responsible to hand those parcels over to 
Swiss customs refuse to do so.

We took the returned parcel, with all rejecting stamps and notes field 
by Deutsche Post - glued a new airwaybill on top and launched it again 
with FedEx. It was delivered at the destination in two working days. 
Once you know this, you can explore alternatives.

If several institutions in your State or area face the same problem with 
one local courier or hub, it might be worth teaming up and to approach  
responsible managers or supervisors jointly. We had a workshop uniting 
major couriers, ministry representatives, veterinarians and aviation 
authorities with good results. Such informal meetings usually are very 
rare, and sometimes it needs others to offer a floor to discuss problems.

Maybe this helps

With best wishes
Dirk


Am 28.02.2020 um 22:24 schrieb Doug Yanega:
> On 2/28/20 12:39 PM, Bentley, Andrew Charles wrote:
>>
>> Doug
>>
>> Are these issues on the US end or the international end?  Are they 
>> related to customs or something else?  Do you have any info on the 
>> forms – names, codes, etc.?
>>
>> If on the international end I would assume that the rules are 
>> different for each country.  Are there specific countries that are 
>> proving to be problematic?
>>
> It's strictly between us (or our university mailing office) and the 
> USPS, as it's the USPS that has been rejecting our attempted 
> shipments. We had been using form 2976-A and the small green form, and 
> when those were rejected we tracked down the new form. But today, even 
> with the 2976-R form provided by USPS, they just returned one of 
> those. Apparently, the regs changed some time back, but not all USPS 
> offices griped about it, as people reported to me privately that 
> they'd started getting rejects almost a year ago, so maybe our local 
> agents were just cutting us slack until recently.
>
> The proper form and filing procedure appears to be linked here: 
> https://www.usps.com/international/customs-forms.htm
>
> It's going to mean a bit more frustration to prepare shipments this 
> way, given (1) yet another *$%@$ website that you can't use at all 
> unless you create a user account and password to go with the 50 other 
> accounts and passwords you have to navigate every day, and (2) the 
> requirements of the online form, according to what Deb Trock told me:
>
> "Another thing that took us a while to figure out is that on the very 
> first page of the on-line form it will ask you for the weight of the 
> package, which you will need to have before you start the form.  Then 
> a couple of pages later it will ask you for the weight of the 
> contents.  If you put down the same weight that you had entered on the 
> first page, it will reject your form because the weight of the 
> contents is added to the weight of the box and packaging for the total 
> weight.  We usually just put the total weight of the wrapped package 
> on the first page and then subtract a pound for the box and wrapping 
> when it asks for the weight of the contents a few pages later."
>
> Frustrating, but not as bad as having packages actually returned to us 
> for re-shipping, so we'll just have to accommodate.
>
> Peace,
>
> -- 
> Doug Yanega      Dept. of Entomology       Entomology Research Museum
> Univ. of California, Riverside, CA 92521-0314     skype: dyanega
> phone: (951) 827-4315 (disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
>               https://faculty.ucr.edu/~heraty/yanega.html
>    "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
>          is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82
>
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-- 


Dirk Neumann

Tel: 089 / 8107-111
Fax: 089 / 8107-300
neumann(a)snsb.de

Postanschrift:

Staatliche Naturwissenschaftliche Sammlungen Bayerns
Zoologische Staatssammlung München
Dirk Neumann, Sektion Ichthyologie / DNA-Storage
Münchhausenstr. 21
81247 München

Besuchen Sie unsere Sammlung:
http://www.zsm.mwn.de/sektion/ichthyologie-home/

---------

Dirk Neumann

Tel: +49-89-8107-111
Fax: +49-89-8107-300
neumann(a)snsb.de

postal address:

Bavarian Natural History Collections
The Bavarian State Collection of Zoology
Dirk Neumann, Section Ichthyology / DNA-Storage
Muenchhausenstr. 21
81247 Munich (Germany)

Visit our section at:
http://www.zsm.mwn.de/sektion/ichthyologie-home/

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