Mallard4468 posted:George S posted:I haven't had many problems. I bought something at the same time from England and it came through Philly. It hardly even stopped at the port. This one hit the NYC ISC on April 24 and sat there until Monday this week. It said "processed through ISC NYC" and then nothing. I actually went on the US Postal Service website and filled out a lost / missing item report. I read someone else did that and it worked. It could be just coincidence, but it moved almost immediately to "Arrived at QUEENS NY DISTRIBUTION CENTER". I read online that sometimes customs has questions about an item and just sits on it. Providing the info in the missing item report to the USPS gets it going. No guarantees though.Thanks for the info. Glad to hear it wasn't anything serious.
I stayed at a B&B in Wales and learned that the owner was a train nut (mint Triang from his youth). He said that another guest from America once sent him a box of toy train stuff after his visit. The sender labeled the box "train parts". Customs thought they were parts for a real (not toy) train and charged a duty of over 100 GBP.
The UK government charges " Value Added Tax" on all "luxury goods", so food and clothes, for instance don't attract VAT, but toy trains do.
Cheers, Mark
