RIVERGIRL...... AGAIN..THANKS FOR EVEN MORE USEFUL INFO...:icon_lol:... ALONG WITH THE SUGGESTIONS FROM ALL OF MY NEW FRIENDS...WHOM I HOPE TO MEET WHEN ALL OF THIS IS OVER AND DONE WITH.....AND I AM IN CANCUN..SAFELY WITH ALL MY HOUSEHOLD GOODIES AND MOTORCYCLE (AND KITTIE, TOO!) ALONG WITH EITHER AN FM-2 OR FM-3 OR WHATEVER..I FINALLY GET...TO ALLOW ME TO DO WHAT I WANT TO DO....EAT TACOS....!!!!:aetsch022:......Y "POLLO FELIZ".......!!! WHAT A DUMB NAME FOR A CHICKEN RESTAURANT......(?) EVERY TIME WE DROVE PAST ONE OF THOSE LOCATIONS.....I SAID TO MY DEAR AMIGA, SILVIA..."UN POLLO MUERTO ES UN POLLO FELIZ"....!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA..!! WTF?? AFTER 3 PHONE CALLS AND 2 EMAILS TO THE MEXICAN EMBASSY IN BOSTON....I AM STILL WAITING TO HEAR BACK, IN SOME MANNER, FROM THEM..!! :huh: AGAIN.... WTF..???? WHAT DO THEY DO BESIDES SLEEEEEEEP......??
In normal Internet etiquette the use of caps is considered SHOUTING. Using colors and altered fonts is even more impolite. While accepting your need to be creative, please stop and find another outlet for it.
They do have a red light at the docks. Last year when we brought our new books in by ship we got a red light and they went through all our boxes again. This is after they opened and went through each box, book by book and assigned a different duty of every book based on where it was printed.
For anything important to you, you shouldn't plan on being sneaky or playing the green light game with it. If you have a good broker and/or a menaje de casa, the taxes will be minimum and you wont have the stress or worry of things being confiscated or overvalued by customs. Also, the consulate (the embassy is in Wash D.C.) in Boston may or may not return your calls, you should plan on going there and doing everything in person. Their main purpose to to assist their own (Mexican) citizens, everything else comes second. There are tons of websites that tell you how to go about getting your FM2/3 if you do a google search. and as mixz1 said, typing in large, red, capitalized text, is a bit much for this forum.
Good to know. My understanding is that even if you get a green light when you float stuff in it gets looked at by Customs. I've gathered that from what people have told me about their personal experiences. I do not know that it's a policy, but it seems to be how it happens. Even when you do the menaje de casa and use a Customs broker and do everything right getting a red light still sucks. That was my main point. Doing a menaje de casa does not prevent you from having to go through the red light/green light process. We had a menaje de casa and filed all paperwork with a Customs broker. It was a hassle, but we brought in at least $80,000 USD worth of household goods. We did it all "right" but we still wanted to avoid a red light. A red light could have meant a full inspection, every box opened, everything looked at. That could have taken all day, or longer. So my point about the red or green light was not that you should gamble that you will get a green light, my point was that even doing it all right you still want the best chance you can get at a green light, just to avoid an extra headache. Make sense?
No question getting a "red" will add hours of wait to get through customs.. but if everything is in order you wont have to worry about any fines or problems as a result.
Not fines...but maybe additional tariffs if they decide things are worth more than you think they are worth, right? No question that doing it right is best. I agree with other posters who are asking for an end to large red text in posts. It's very hard to look at and makes me not want to read the text.
Well.. I consider anything over what you want to pay a fine... but whatever you call it, I feel that you have better odds of getting that added expense if you don't already have papers in order. I have a friend who regularly imports things through Puerto Morelos and its seems like he gets checked about eighty percent of the time.. I think you have good odds of being inspected in PM not because of any rules, but simply because its not a very busy port and the agents can check a higher percentage of people as opposed to a more heavily trafficked point of entry.
You may well be right that it's about the manpower to amount of goods moving ratio, rather than what kind of port it is. The land crossings from the US are really busy. When we did our menaje de casa my understanding was that if we got a red light they would go over everything to see if they agreed with the values we assigned to our goods. And there would have been lots of room for opinion...for example we had a blender we'd paid $2 usd for at a yard sale...I wasn't going to declare that it was worth more than what I paid for it...but I'll bet they would have argued about that value. I'm just glad we got a green light.
We arrived at the Matamoros crossing at 8:15 AM and had to wait while they rounded up someone to issue our vehicle permit. The red light/green light vehicle gate was up and unmanned and we were instructed to drive through. The only time we were inspected was at the Yucatan/Quintana Roo aduanas. The officer asked me to open the trunk, which was packed to within a cubic centimeter of capacity. He looked in, shrugged and closed the lid. I could have had a howitzer or 100 kilos of something to inhale in there and would have driven it right to my front door. On the other hand, our household goods, which were shipped by water and brokered by Crown Relocation Services, one of the high-end forwarders, were subjected to a 100% inspection. Fortunately, the broker handled it and we weren't involved. When the Crown truck arrived with our stuff, each and every box had been opened and resealed with blue aduanas tape, including some furniture that had been packed in wood. There were no additional duties, but some miscellaneous items had been pilfered. Some clothes and some tools had gone missing, but nothing of consequence. I guess that was the duty.
