bleeding aus customs.....

[chloeb2002]

has anyone else had a bad time from customs in australia, sure we cant be alone? We sent a container form the uk at the end of novemebr, admittidly we did it on the cheap and used contacts we had to get container at a very good price. filled it our selves and arranged for help to unload at this end. included in the container by accident was a box of pine cones, being what appears now too bloody honest i decaled that i may have left them in. The other bad stiff was my horse equipment wheich was at least worth alot of money so needed to come along. All in all we paid 2300 gbp for container door to door including customs. ha ha. except the small print we never saw that stated we had to pay for any required treatments. ok when we left the uk i contacted the AQIS and asked for a rough price.oh about $500 shoud cover sraying and cleaning. cool i thought. well yesterady thye bill arrived for $3500! OMG. yes the spraying was 500. the upacking, storage, movement, steam cleaning, inspection and incineration charges were slightly more than 500! to make me even more annoyed it appears that they only opened the container because i admitted its contents. was advised after the fact that maybe we shouldnt have done so then it was almost a dead cert it wouldnt have been inspected. so this leaves me to think how much stuff comes into aus uninspected and then unteated. just for the record it cost $200 to have 8 pine cones incinerated. so is honesty the best policy.. no bloody way! advice to the next person would be declare household goods, you dont get charged any extra if they do a random open and find your contraband. is it just me or is it insane?

[tilbatilba]

don't really get your point. Pine cones carry disease and are strictly prohibited by Australian quarantine. You could have potentially introduced disease. Of course not everything can be inspected and stuff does get through but you knew you had a high quarantine risk plant product.....of course you had to declare it.