This posting is a bit unstructured.  I'm sorry for that, but am a bit
frustrated now, since there's seemingly no end to the mail trouble
between USA and Europe.  It seems that the postal trouble between USA
and Norway just continues to increase; this is unfortunately related
to all of us who buy and sell mechanical and/or music related material
to and from the USA, not only popular foreign zone DVDs.

I have earlier posted to the Mechanical Music Digest about the strict
customs system in Norway.  It now seems that many of the problems of
getting US packages into Norway, don't have so much to do with the
customs as (probably) with political and security decisions.  In
connection with the following, I would very much like to know how the
situation is in other countries regarding receiving packets from USA,
and if there has been any change lately, because :

Our state's postal system is no longer allowed to deliver out mail
(packets) from USA, so you cannot pick up the packets at the local post
office or at the official customs office, but you have to receive them
at the door via a private company, for an extra cost of NOK 200 or USD
28.

In most cases, this is not practical, nor wanted for private households,
as they are at work during daytime and the packet firms seldom take
appointments, so in practice we will have to go by car to some remote
industrial place to pick up the package, instead of, as earlier, at the
local mail office within walking range in most towns.

The Norwegian official mail service says that the US Postal Service has
made this decision not to cooperate with the Norwegian state official
postal service, but instead with a private company, so there's nothing
they can do with this.  This explanation is confirmed by the Norwegian
consumer's council or Ombudsman.  ("Ombudsman" is, by the way, a
Norwegian word that means something like a council man. :-)

If the fee isn't paid, the packages will be returned at the sender's
expense.

This means the US in practice embargoes countries that still has their
politics a little to the socialistic side with good postal service
delivered from the state, not private (pirate!) companies, since the
state's official services in most social democratic or socialist
countries by law, aren't allowed to earn more than necessary.

I don't know if there's any law, but with exception of collect calls
(which are rare in Norway), the receiver of a phone call, or a mail
sending shall not pay anything extra for the reception of that.  The
service should effectively run at just a tiny bit more than self-cost,
that was anyhow the tradition here before.

Normally, the Norwegian state's postal office would have brought out
the foreign packets for to our citizens nearest post office (except
the customs free) unless you demanded express service (door delivery).
Many postal offices, except on the countryside, were within walking
range (0 to 4 km), many of them are now closed or moved to a grocery
shop.

(It should, however, be noted that Norway for the last years hasn't
even had a social democrat government; however, Norway is still much
more to the "left" than the USA, like most European countries except
UK.  Most European countries anyway have official services beside
private ones, so it's something between pure capitalism and pure
socialism, but the trend goes towards that even 'important services'
like water and electricity and mail are being privatized more or less
completely.  Therefore, European countries is nowhere near anymore,
to the socialism in Cuba.)

A probably more proper explanation for this trouble is found later in
this posting, though I cannot personally exclude the above as being
part of the explanation.

This new system for mail from the US to Norway will therefore add costs
of 200 NOK, about USD 28, for each package, for a "customs declaration"
plus "obligatory" door delivery, regardless if the package is subject
to the charge of 23% Norwegian VAT [value added tax] or not.

If you reject door delivery, you probably will have to go to a remote
industrial area; however, I don't know how this will be exactly in
2003.

That means you cannot even save on ordering small items under the limit
for taking customs fee at 200 NOK or USD 28 value anymore, because
there always will be a minimum fee for the customs declaration
paperwork for just receiving the package, and it is not decided by the
'socialistic' authorities in Norway, but by the US mail service!

This will greatly limit import of DVD-movies from the USA, since
there's been a debate whether if is legal, because the DVD-zone in USA
is different from Europe.  If you order only one DVD-movie, you get
under the 200 NOK or USD 28 customs limit; many people used this
loophole to get releases from the USA early.

In UK, it is now illegal for companies to import foreign zone DVDs.
Sadly, this 'mail embargo fee' also makes trouble for those who need to
privately import player piano parts or rolls, or simply get Christmas
presents.

With European countries, there is a tax deduction system, so the tax
in the sender's country (like the VAT in the UK) is deducted, then the
Norwegian tax is added, so you won't have to pay double tax.  In my
knowledge, this is not so with the US, you'll always have to pay the
list price, as stated on the Internet price list.  (Some states have
something like 10% VAT and some haven't -- how is this really?)

 [ The 50 states of the USA, and also the cities within those states,
 [ retain the right to establish and collect taxes upon retail sales.
 [ The state and city taxes thus collected are summarized on the
 [ receipt as "sales tax".  Oregon is proud that the state has no
 [ sales tax, but that means that taxes upon property and industry
 [ are increased.  You can't win!  -- Robbie

There are many Norwegians with relatives in the USA who now have to pay
for their presents, and after the private companies have taken over
this service, many Christmas presents from the USA last Christmas also
have been delayed and forgotten on the storage warehouse of the private
company that receives the packages from the USA.

This was much about the economy in this; of course, most of us will not
suffer extremely much, unless we buy only some music rolls, or one
small part, then it will be costly; however, there's reason to believe
that the handling of mail is tougher now.

I got a videotape from Douglas Henderson recently.  It was damaged,
like someone had stepped their foot on the corner of the package, so I
had to move the reels to another VHS case.  Fortunately the tape reels
were okay.

(Yes, we can play NTSC tapes too with new VCRs here, but you probably
can't play PAL there... :-)  )

 [ I understand that most modern videocassette players will synchronize
 [ okay with both NTSC and PAL video, but not many TV monitors in North
 [ America can display the PAL frame rate of 50 Hz.  I hope to adapt
 [ my computer video display for this task.  -- Robbie

Douglas Henderson has in very many years never experienced mail trouble
like this.  This unfortunate damage might have been a coincidence, but
please take into consideration:

Before sending any fragile instruments or smaller packages, please
check the insurance conditions, and what the fees might be, this
applies to both sender and receiver.

Because:

I would guess that mail _to_ the USA, is checked thoroughly, and
therefore will be opened and delayed, which is very understandable,
terror threats taken into consideration these days, perhaps also mail
_from_ the USA.  It might be checked for any "objectionable contents",
something like that potential terrorists inside the USA, send a CD-ROM
with info about airports and nuclear plants.

This however means that any sending of fragile or very valuable
"reproducing" rolls or music automata to/from USA, must be done with
heavy insurance and very properly packed, however not too 'tightly'
with lots of tape so they who open the mail, might get irritated and do
damage by eager and/or stressing handling.

We have earlier read stories on the MMD about improper handling of
music automata and damaged music boxes, rolls and combs, because of
improper packaging.

I ordered a GPS from UK a couple of years ago.  It was a demo model,
so the batteries were inserted already, the customs had opened the GPS,
and re-inserted the batteries backwards!  (How much narcotics could be
hidden behind two AAA batteries?!  My regards anyway to the Magellan
firm which makes robust devices that tolerates this well! :-)

If you send home burned CDs/DVDs with music or data, don't send anything
that seems suspicious and/or encrypted without a proper explanation,
and keep a copy, in case they check the CD-ROM and accidentally make a
scratch in it during the handling.  They can't possibly check all the
mail like this, but there has been suspiciously much delays and things
with the mail to/from USA from here, after the 9/11 attack, so this is
expected and in some degree understandable.  Probably this extra free
plus extended paper work, is putting the security costs onto the
public.  It wouldn't surprise me.

I know this practice from the times of the former eastern Europe
communist block, where all mail to and from was checked and re-checked,
but now it seems to apply with Europe vs. USA too, though under other
circumstances. :-/

Forced delivery of packages to the door could of course have something
to do with identifying the recipient by location, allowing no 'poste
restante' or a 'straw man' to pick up objectionable packets; that's my
little "conspiracy theory"... :-)

After some digging I found a link to an English language explanation of
what was mentioned in a Norwegian newspaper about the "GLS postal
system":  http://www.usps.com/news/2002/press/pr02_006.htm

The strange thing is that neither Norway nor the extra fee is described
here.  They tell that the mail rates are unchanged, which of course, as
I have explained, is wrong, because of the fee, which is higher than
the official postal system here took before.

On a separate page one can find the fees for receiving packets in
Europe:  http://www.usps.com/global/duties.htm

The fee to Switzerland, Malta and Norway is, according to this list,
stated to be much higher than in the rest of Europe, though not as high
as what the Norwegian article reveals, so the difference probably goes
into the pockets of that private company here.  (What's wrong with
these countries, since the fee is higher than in the neighbouring
countries?)

Here it is described that the fee doesn't apply if the package is under
the customs limit: http://www.usps.com/global/duties.htm#H6

  "Business air parcels delivered by GLS to Norway valued at NOK 200
  ($27.79 as of December 9, 2002) are not assessed customs duties,
  taxes or an administrative fee.  Those valued over that amount are
  assessed."

But this is not right!  According to the Norwegian article _and_
the Norwegian info at the private mail company "Nordisk Express"
( http://www.nordiskexpress.no/html/gls.html ) the new thing is that
the high fee, also will be added to duty free packages.

So be aware that the info from USPS regarding sending packets to Europe
isn't quite correct, and it all seem more difficult than ever, and it's
no fun if this means that it will be more difficult for us Europeans
than ever to trade with Americans and vice versa, because I already
have noticed that some small businesses and persons understandably
hesitate to go through the paperwork, insurance and extra packing
efforts to send smaller items securely out of the USA.

The best thing for non-US residents to do right now would probably be
not to frustrate smaller companies and private persons too much by
asking too detailed questions about how much the mail costs will be,
because the total is difficult to calculate since the USPS's info isn't
to be trusted.

If it's any condolence, there are no restrictions to pay (smaller
amounts) with VISA/Mastercard here (yet)... :-)

Thomas Henden
Oslo, Norway