Damn US Customs being bloody incompetent

Jeez when it comes to airsoft lately I've been having horrible luck (see a previous thread floating around here). I decided to buy a nice M93R from an HK based site. I had a good experience buying from another HK based website before, the package arrived in 3 days.

However..this wasnt the case:

Take a gander at the HK mail tracking site:
Outward Speedpost

Item Number: EA006292766HK
Posting Date Posting Time Drop-off Point
6-Mar-2009 18:37 Pick Up Service

Date # Location Delivery Status
6-Mar-2009 Hong Kong Item posted.
6-Mar-2009 Hong Kong Processed for departure.
6-Mar-2009 Hong Kong The item left Hong Kong for its destination on 7-Mar-2009
8-Mar-2009 United States of America Arrived.
8-Mar-2009 United States of America Pending customs inspection.

And what the US Post Office said.

Spoiler:

GAAAAH. The vendor I bought from will give me a refund if my item gets siezed. However its stuck in customs. I decided to call the post office all they could tell me is that customs has it and told me to come to them. This is the horrible part coming up. I call Customs and Border Protection and said that a package I have is late: they give me some long load of shit saying that they are unable to help me since they go through a lot of packages letting drugs and illicit weapons go through their borders (ok thats made up) and that when the post office told me to call customs that the post office were wrong to tell me to call customs.

*sigh* US Customs are friggin morons.

That's horrible. I hope they get it sorted out soon. That's really stupid - they should be able to x-ray it, see that it's not a real gun, and then send it on. They usually only check stuff that looks suspicious anyway, so it's not like it could be lost for that long.

Something is not right here. Customs and US Postal System has nothing to do with each other. The problem is that the USPS rents planes from other carriers, and these planes often get seized for custom inspections. The US Customs had not right in going into USPS property (The USPS Cargo Pallet), as the USPS has their own law enforcement and their own set of package checks.

There is an issue with the plane (it registering for explosives or bio-warfare) Homeland Security would step in, and if you think you're f'ed up now? I'm not going to say what will happen next.

The only way to deal with this is to use a private carrier who knows who to get through customs (Private carriers must go through customs, the USPS does not). USP and DHL are great for it. FedEx too but they are the most expensive of the three, even though you will be paying through the nose for such services.

There is one thing you forget there Kodoku.

Many Airsoft weapons are extremely similar to their real life counterparts.

Heck, I am going to get myself a HI-Capa airsoft pistol soon. and from my talks with Tsundere trough Oovoo, I have allready come to learn that some of these airsoft guns are so real, that you could actually make the damn thing fire real rounds if you put in a real barrel and some other bits and pieces.

Seeing Airsoft guns have an outer barrel to cover up the copper inner barrel which actually fires the BB, it will be hard to tell if it is a real one or a airsoft replica with an X-ray. the only real way they can tell is by actually observing it with their eyes, because the weight doesn't really give away the fact that the weapon is a fake.

full metal beretta M93R the x- ray would sdtill look like a gun...........

If Homeland Security thinks it might be a real weapon, they'll open the package and examine it.

I get shedloads of stuff shipped from vendors in Japan and every once in awhile there will be some lime green packing tape noting my item had been opened and examined by Homeland Security, but it still gets to me.

yeah but remember it is spring break time So customs is gonna be swamped cause their higher ups order security to be tighter so give em a little time (hell my package is takng twice the time it should take(oh USP come home to me!) than it should) What with spring breaakers ordering all kinds of bullshit through the mail like drugs!

Its sad when I was looking inbound into customs on google, most of the people that are worried are the ones that buy anabolic steroids and marijuana seeds. *sigh* I was going to buy that prebuilt hi-capa too from ehobbyasia, now I might just get that Wilson Combat CQB Elite but WE makes me uneasy.

In my whole journey of figuring out what to do with customs I have learned that gear=syringes and the stuff they need to for their steroid cycles.

do your research when buying prebuilt guns i heard the prebuilt at some companies (unco) means just the shell and no internal parts

It's a lot more fun upgrading GBBs yourself. I'm rocking a TM P226 that has a Guarder metal body and a mishmash of internals that lets it shoot 350 with green gas.

Maybe I'm just old and poor, but I really can't see dropping the dime on a full-up airsoft replica when i can buy the real thing for the same price, sometimes less. Then again, I'm not a paintball/airsoft junkie. To each their own.

The last time I visited America was about nine years ago;that was before present security issues and I was thirteen at the time anyway, so I haven't had much direct experience with border controls there. However, I did have an old classmate who was arrested for terrorism offences - his trombone was mistaken for a blunderbuss in the X-ray machine and for hour or so he was considered an arms smuggler...!

his trombone was mistaken for a blunderbuss in the X-ray machine and for hour or so he was considered an arms smuggler

You know, if it were me and I wasn't incredibly inconvenienced by it, I would probably laugh at them until they figured it out. And then I'd laugh some more. As a foreigner visiting, though, I probably wouldn't find it funny.

i would have been an American and sued

I'd hardly call England foreign, maverick, but I take your point. He was more amused by it than anything else - getting to travel through that warren of corridors and service ducts behind the facades of the departure lounges was something of an adventure. If I was in his position, I can't say that I would have been glad to have been stopped - it's still an awkward intrusion and promises an age of needless faffing - but I would have understood it. It was an exceptional thing (not everyone carries musical instruments in their baggage after all), and while it's easy to feel resentful at inconveniences, it's good that they're taking security seriously. Someone waddling through the scanner with bulging pockets full of tinfoil would be blindingly obvious and noticed any day of the week - it's casually waving through things that might elicit a question where the dangerous material gets through.

Just look at all of our own Gunslinger Girls with their gangster violin cases...

Why don't you just buy an airsoft gun from a store in America?

At the time it was slightly cheaper, and for the price with the shipping combined it would get to me a lot sooner (or so I thought) versus airsoftgi that tends to tend a week and a half.

Must you get it through the mail, though? You'd think that physically walking into a shop, buying one and taking it home would be an option in America...

Good airsof tstores arent as abundant as you would think

Airsoft stores less abundant than stores selling real guns? Say it ain't so!

airsoft isnt as popular here Paintball and real guns are more poplular

Airsoft is more of a novelty that you buy at wal mart to play around with But there are some hard core stores

Tommygunner70 wrote:There is one thing you forget there Kodoku.

Many Airsoft weapons are extremely similar to their real life counterparts.

Heck, I am going to get myself a HI-Capa airsoft pistol soon. and from my talks with Tsundere trough Oovoo, I have allready come to learn that some of these airsoft guns are so real, that you could actually make the damn thing fire real rounds if you put in a real barrel and some other bits and pieces.

Seeing Airsoft guns have an outer barrel to cover up the copper inner barrel which actually fires the BB, it will be hard to tell if it is a real one or a airsoft replica with an X-ray. the only real way they can tell is by actually observing it with their eyes, because the weight doesn't really give away the fact that the weapon is a fake.

Ah, I didn't realize airsoft guns could be that realistic. I'm used to seeing the cheap plastic ones.

Robert Frazer wrote:I did have an old classmate who was arrested for terrorism offences - his trombone was mistaken for a blunderbuss in the X-ray machine and for hour or so he was considered an arms smuggler...!

Say what? Who uses blunderbusses in this century? Seriously, I don't think a guy with a blunderbuss is that much of a threat.

Robert Frazer wrote:I'd hardly call England foreign

"Y'er all stinkin' foreign'rs I tell ya!" jk

KodokuRyuu wrote:Ah, I didn't realize airsoft guns could be that realistic. I'm used to seeing the cheap plastic ones.

Yeah. Some replica's do have plastic slides instead of metal ones. but that is mainly for proformance purposes then anything else. the Gas and CO2 pistols highly mimic the real thing. an AEG (Which is an electric replica) will show up as a fake easily on an X-ray because it uses a electric engine and a gearbox.

on a Gas or CO2 weapon, the whole weapon is like a real one. minus the outside of the barrel and an inner barrel to actually fire the BB. The Gas/air mechanism is in the Magazine itself. but that is easily overlooked when you X-ray it.

KodokuRyuu wrote:

Robert Frazer wrote:I'd hardly call England foreign

"Y'er all stinkin' foreign'rs I tell ya!" jk

*grabs hold of Sword*

Got a problem with that Yank?

KodokuRyuu wrote:Ah, I didn't realize airsoft guns could be that realistic. I'm used to seeing the cheap plastic ones.

you'd be amazed... even a lot of the cheap plastic ones look close enough to the real thing... 'course, if you've ever held a real gun you can tell they're fake when you pick 'em up... having a plastic slide eliminates a good 60-70% of the weight of an auto pistol.

Spoiler:

then there's this little guy:

Spoiler:

wow that HFC glock is fake looking my CYMA looked real and it was plastic

Airsoft looks real when there are Full Trades from the real steel counterpart.

It's true, in fact most states are cracking down on the sale of airsoft guns as well, unless they look like a toy.

I. E. Pretty-pretty colors and the occasional 'Hello Kitty' decal.

Well there is that picture of the pink M-16 with Hello Kitty decals at the firing range...

clear m1911s are pretty sometimes

Spoiler:

Kinda makes me wonder though.

Can a firearm really be made using industrial-grade Lexan polycarbonate?

Oh man, I'd like a handgun clear enough to make people think I'm not holding anything at first glance. :lol

if the murders ever begin... I'm totally painting my guns so that they look like toys...

I wonder how my PSL would look with an orange flash suppressor..? I could even powder coat it to make it look plastic!

Lexan is pretty tough.....but it would have to be a really simple gun and it would be thick

Nachtsider wrote:Oh man, I'd like a handgun clear enough to make people think I'm not holding anything at first glance. :lol

Agreed. That would be epic

well two things down and three things to go

Tsu, just call customs. Sometimes you need to remind them, my package was never touched by them. They got bogged down and just forgot about .

If theres something i am Its a Patient sonufamother

Congrats tsundere, your Dragon has just become whole again

So this is a horrible necro post but what the heck im gonna follow up with it.

I never got my USP......so much fail......I got a refund instead after threatening them with hell and death.
I ended up getting one here in America for just as cheap....wtf I want my ambition back.

i got pulled out of the line at Boston's airport,the computer said i wasn't who i said i was !

Kiskaloo wrote:every once in awhile there will be some lime green packing tape noting my item had been opened and examined by Homeland Security

At least they use a cheery lime green color. If they were REALLY mean they'd use menacing black tape.

Awinnell wrote:i got pulled out of the line at Boston's airport,the computer said i wasn't who i said i was !

Wow, fail on their part. Was it Logan's Airport? I flew out of there like a week before 9/11.

tsundere9kagami2 wrote:So this is a horrible necro post but what the heck im gonna follow up with it.

I never got my USP......so much fail......I got a refund instead after threatening them with hell and death.
I ended up getting one here in America for just as cheap....wtf I want my ambition back.

Calling the customs faciility also helps but hey you got your money back thats all that matters.

KodokuRyuu wrote:

Awinnell wrote:i got pulled out of the line at Boston's airport,the computer said i wasn't who i said i was !

Wow, fail on their part. Was it Logan's Airport? I flew out of there like a week before 9/11.

turns out that when i last entered the US, my fathers passport was swiped through when my details were being taken,funny thing though, he got in no trouble at all this time !