Papirex
Feb 4, 2007, 6:09 PM
Post #7 of 11
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Re: [aikizen] Duty on Desktop Computer for FMT
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I had it shipped to me via Merkalink, http://www.merkalink.com.mx/ , I have an account with them. There are no membership fees. You only pay them when you have something shipped by them.
They use their own customs broker to determine the duty due, if any. They then ship goods into Mexico using The Estafeta Company. Estafeta is a very reliable Mexican shipping company. They are the FedEx of Mexico.
Merkalink will send you an Email telling you the amount of shipping charges and duty to be charged to your credit card before you approve it to be shipped. They will accept shipments from individuals, and not just from commercial companies. There must be an invoice with anything sent to them for shipment to you so they may calculate any duty due. I once had to scan and send them an invoice via Email; they accepted that invoice for use by their customs broker, for a box sent to us by a friend.
One caution is to be careful about having anyone send you food. They once refused to send me a box that contained among other things, several cans of Boston baked beans. I called them and they told me they couldn’t ship food items, even though they were not fresh. I had to pay the shipping charge to return the box to the sender.
Many online vendors will only ship an item to the billing address on the credit card being used. My billing addresses are all in Alaska. I once had to change the billing address for one credit card to the address of Merkalink in Texas. I changed the billing address online using my computer, as soon as the item was shipped; I changed the billing address back to Alaska.
If you look at their website, there is a link to change the language to English, but it is for the home page only. It will be a lot easier to use their service if you have some understanding of Spanish.
There is an 800 number that you can call to speak to one of their customer service agents. The chances of getting an English speaker at any time are about 50%. The chances that an English-speaking agent will be fluent in English are also about 50%.
It’s kind of a pain in the grommet to use, but it is the best service I have found so far to have things shipped to me here in Mexico. Under no circumstances will I ever trust the Mexican postal system. Against my advice, one of our daughters mailed a box to us here in Cuernavaca a few years ago. Predictably, it was stolen and never arrived.
I have had no problems having things shipped to me by our daughter here using FedEx, and UPS. Not many businesses in The US will ship anything to Mexico. I once had a router and some computer parts shipped to me here using Airborne Express, I had to call the vendor I was dealing with to get permission for them to ship to me here. Airborne Express was the only shipper they used.
Airborne Express is the pits in Mexico. It took me ten days to find out where my router was at, and to get it delivered, after it arrived in Mexico. Two-day delivery turned out to be twelve-day delivery with them, and a lot of work on my part. I will do without before I ever allow anyone to ship anything to me here again using that service.
It’s a different world down here. Don’t expect things to be as easy as they are up north.
Rex
Rex
"The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved" - Victor Hugo
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