Anybody familiar with the US Customs procedures?

[Uncle Chô]

I have send from France to the USA a flat envelope with 70 pages of business documents (no commercial value) through express mail (a FedEx local correspondant).

The envelope is now blocked for 60 hours at an airport in New York city for "customs inspection".

FedEx is not able to do anything because "US Customs are sovereing of their decision".

****!

Those urgent documents are vital for my company (they need to be signed by my US partners and returned ASAP) and I am lost in the middle of nowhere.

This kind of incident never happened before.

Anybody does have an idea of the reason why they are blocking it (OK, I am French and it does come from coward France) and what else could I do other than taking an innocent US tourist visiting Paris in hostage as a retaliation mesure?
:bash: :bash:

[EvanL]

Did it have cheques with large sums of money written on it?
Did it contain any forms of identification, such as birth certificates social insurance numbers, or drivers licenses?

[Uncle Chô]

Did it have cheques with large sums of money written on it?
Did it contain any forms of identification, such as birth certificates social insurance numbers, or drivers licenses?
None of it. They are bylaws in several copies to be signed :(

A friend told me it may be a whole container they have decided to screen and my envelope is right at the bottom...

[Fintin]

Did it have cheques with large sums of money written on it?
Did it contain any forms of identification, such as birth certificates social insurance numbers, or drivers licenses?
None of it. They are bylaws in several copies to be signed :(

A friend told me it may be a whole container they have decided to screen and my envelope is right at the bottom...

that would be my guess...i dont know why they would get pissed about paper

[EvanL]

Im sure u just got shafted with the **** stick. Probably some other stuff in the container.
Your stuff is probably at the bottom like you said.
If i was still in NYC, i could probably check into it personally for you through contacts of mine. But i left 2 weeks ago.
Good luck with it all man.

[Uncle Chô]

FedEx or US Customs? ;)

I appreciated your help anyway! :hug:

[Romulus]

Cho, how come your company doesn't use email or faxes for overseas documents? Every place I've ever worked ( I work on Xerox machines) in that send documents overseas uses some sort of electronic delivery system. They save money and time, also the hassle of customs.

I know that don't help you any now, but you all should expect mail delays coming into the States.

I once sent a friend in Russia a little Jeff Gordon race car and it took over a month and a half for him to recieve it. Why? I have no clue.

[hank]

I can't speak for Cho, but by-laws generally need to be signed by both parties on one document. Email would work for the first signor but after that snailmail is the ticket. Am I right Cho?

Documents (especially those in Fedex) are not usually the province of customs. I imagine that EL got it right. Something in the container, or the whole Fedex plane got Customs interest and they detained the whole thing.

Sorry Cho, that is bad luck.

hank

[Uncle Chô]

I can't speak for Cho, but by-laws generally need to be signed by both parties on one document. Email would work for the first signor but after that snailmail is the ticket. Am I right Cho?
You get it right.

Snail-mail is mandatory when you need original signatures from - my case- several persons. I have been sending and receiving parcels and documents by express mail from/to the USA for about 10 years without any specific problem and this time where this is a business life threatening situation it fails with no valid reason (how could I have had imagined they would block a business document :( )...

[Uncle Chô]

FINALLY!

The envelope was cleared by the US Customs this morning and is now on its way to FL...

It is "only" a 84 hours delay...

As some said : bad luck :roll:

Thank you everybody for your suggestions and support :hug:

[soma]

I think it was stopped because you went the cheap way. Should have gone first class priority delivery with a courier.

[hank]

I think it was stopped because you went the cheap way. Should have gone first class priority delivery with a courier.

Courier? Across the Atlantic ocean? That is a good one. Why not tie it to a pigeon? Even a courier, if Cho could afford that, would have to clear customs when he got here.

hank

[Midtown]

E Mail.

[hank]

I can't speak for Cho, but by-laws generally need to be signed by both parties on one document. Email would work for the first signor but after that snailmail is the ticket. Am I right Cho?

Documents (especially those in Fedex) are not usually the province of customs. I imagine that EL got it right. Something in the container, or the whole Fedex plane got Customs interest and they detained the whole thing.

Sorry Cho, that is bad luck.

hank

Midtwon, next time read the WHOLE thread. ;)

hank

[ibstolidude]

I can't speak for Cho, but by-laws generally need to be signed by both parties on one document. Email would work for the first signor but after that snailmail is the ticket. Am I right Cho?
You get it right.

Snail-mail is mandatory when you need original signatures from - my case- several persons. I have been sending and receiving parcels and documents by express mail from/to the USA for about 10 years without any specific problem and this time where this is a business life threatening situation it fails with no valid reason (how could I have had imagined they would block a business document :( )...
they didn't likely; however they did seize the shipping container with all contains or possibly the flight number. Frankly USCS does not have the time to say "hey that uncle Cho's letter is in here, lets dig through 20k pounds of freight to get it to his party in the US." Any numner of errors could have taken place from wrong time wrong place, to incoorect manifesting, invoicing or errors with gen-decs.