using Ebay for foreign rations

[elandil]

( not 100% sure this is in the right area, mods feel free to move if I goofed. )

So, looking around at the interwebs at foreign rations, it seems the best place to buy is Ebay. However, with the proliferation of international sellers now showing up in the searches, (at least in mine) i'm wondering how much of an issue customs is with the shipping.

Has anyone had any issues with Customs when ordering foreign rats, or shipping foreign rats to someone here in the States? Is it better to stay with smaller packages to fly under the radar? I noticed a seller out of Spain has multiple items of Spanish rations on a couple of different auctions, but it seems that much would be more likely to be flagged than, say, 1 or 2 French RCIR's.

Any advice?

[cavguy]

Customs is like rolling the dice, sometimes you win sometimes you lose. I have seen no evidence to suggest that a smaller package is less likely to be flagged by customs than would be a large package. I think a big portion of that is all about how the contents of the box are labeled on the customs declaration.... If you label an item as food, or say meat - then the item will probably be flagged, inspected and/or removed and disposed of by customs.

[Bypah]

As cavguy said , is a russian roulette. I'm still waiting a parcel that was sent to me by one of the members from Romania. It says it "cleared customs" on March 4 and I'm still waiting for it.
Add to that that I have been tryuing un successfully to communicate to any type of customer service from the USPS and so far the attempts have been unsuccessful.
Simple make sure whatever is labeled " camping supplies".

[gundog4314]

Elandil,

I have had real good luck with overseas sellers on ebay. In fact I have a half dozen or so pretty much on call when something interesting comes their way. As far as the quanity or rations and US Customs, I have had 4 RCIRs and several IRPs sent in one shipment and no problems. In fact I just today recieved a shipment from the Russian Federation and it only took 8 days. Now that's a miracle.

As far as what I put on customs declartion forms is packaged, sealed, food. Never had a problem. Shipping costs are usually the killer for me. Finally got a guy with a 2014 10 Euro Italian ration but he would only ship through UPS. Freakin' shipping was $154.00. Italian post was only $35.00. What ya gonna do? Needless to say he probably still has it or somebody has a bigger wallet than me. Still looking for a cheaper Italian ration. Someday I'll get my hands on one!

Cheers