When Customs is Generous, Take Advantage of It!

When I was in Hong Kong, I actually picked up a laptop computer and a cell phone. I was planning on declaring the cell phone. I also had a bunch of other goodies from COMPUTEX in my suitcase. Our duty free allowance was $750. You can see how this won’t work with the laptop and the cell phone in the equation. So I decided to ignore the existance of the laptop. Oh, I also had a huge honking shower head that I was bringing in for Carl.

I packed my Dell in my camera backpack which has the hidden laptop compartment, and dragged my Asus laptop in full frontal view, right through customs in its el cheappo OEM laptop bag. I figured if I showed them I had it with me, they won’t be the wiser, especially since most people only take one laptop with them. I took precautions and made the laptop look used, and tossed out all the useless packing at the hotel.

I walked up to the customs officer and told them I had the phone and a whole bunch of free samples from the show including a phone and a big ass shower head totalling $1000. She says alright and asks me to go to the cutoms desk to pay for the overage.

When I get to the cutoms payment area, the guy there asks me what I’ve got for $1000. I tell him that I’ve got the huge honking shower head, the phone, and the copious amounts of show samples totally $1000. He asks me if I paid anything for the show samples and if I included that in my customs declared amount. I told them they were all freebies on the show floor, and yup, I included them. He stamps my card and tells me to take off. According to him, we pay too much tax already and if those show samples are free, and I didn’t intend on selling them, I shouldn’t be paying anymore.

How cool is that! So not only did I get away with taking in my laptop, duty free, but I didn’t pay any duty for anything else I was carrying. If only every day was as lucky as that!