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Customs clearance in Vietnam

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Anikaias

Because of my relocation to Vietnam, I sent two boxes of clothes and shoes to Vietnam by using OCS. The boxes were arrived in HCM custom on Nov 28th. Last week, they said I need to change the recipient to individual not company, otherwise I need to pay tax, therefore I changed it. Dec 7th, agent said custom is cleared, should be shipped very soon. However, they not shipped yet. And I’m very worried my times. Agent tried to call custom today, but no one picked up phone. Anyone have experience like this before? How long would it take to be delivered to my hands? Thanks!

SteinNebraska

Vietnam customs is always a problem.  Even when I have everything perfect it gets hung up 40-50% of the time.  Yours was messed up because of shipping to a company.  Then it sits because everything is likely used so they don't know how to deal with it because it's outside of the norm.  Everyone here is so scared to do anything for fear of being wrong and losing face that everything must be exactly perfect by the book. Nobody will ever take any tiny risk to move something through so it's very slow.  If it has been cleared it should move in a couple of days.  If your agent doesn't follow up diligently it can sit around for a while.  Get on the agent, tell them it's been cleared and ask them to get it moving.

I've got one hung up right now for two samples of a steel and cast iron car jack that a customer wants me to quote here.  Ministry of labor wants me to do testing on the item to be sure it is safe.  It's ridiculous.  We aren't going to use it.  We are only going to quote it to make in Vietnam to ship to US.

Anikaias

Thank you so much! I just don’t get it, agent said on Monday that it’s be cleared. But then today, agent said they can’t get in touch with custom and obviously my boxes are still not cleared. I hope they can arrive very soon. I will be out of quarantine on Monday, otherwise I don’t have much clothes to wear ............

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