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Wiggle returns - reclaiming duty from Customs

AHS

Cruising
Dec 21, 2011
9
0
I have some gear to return to Wiggle - stuff that my wife ordered in multiple sizes to try on. We ended up paying quite a bit of duty on it as Wiggle listed the country of origin as Italy (even though it says made in Hungary/China on almost everything) so we got slapped with the Italian designer clothing duty rate for our lycra. :eek:

I am familiar with the Wiggle returns procedure, but would like to know if anybody has ever successfully managed to claim the duty back from Japanese Customs when sending stuff back (i.e. re-exporting) and if they did how they went about it? I have looked high and low on the Customs dept. website but can't find anything. If I can't do it I won't loose too much sleep over it but I suspect that I would be due about 4000yen back. So if I could do it for the cost of an email/stamp it would be very worthwhile.

Any tips appreciated!

Adam
 
Country of origin and country of mfg are completely different. This is how 'brands' f-you by charging you outrageous amounts for clothing that is actually MADE in another country - yet CLAIMED in their country. 4000 yen back?? Why is this such an issue? You chose to purchase from online supplier, Caveat Emptor! There are dealers in Japan who specialize (and stock) high quality non-Japanese wear. Why not visit them and get the right size/ prdt to begin with instead? Even you pay a little more, at least you won't be whinning about duty reclaim, sheesh. After all you DID pay and IMPORT it! So why should the GOVERNMENT refund your MISTAKE!?? In fact they should charge you again for EXPORT!
 
Harsh.... .but true.
 
Country of origin and country of mfg are completely different. This is how 'brands' f-you by charging you outrageous amounts for clothing that is actually MADE in another country - yet CLAIMED in their country. 4000 yen back?? Why is this such an issue? You chose to purchase from online supplier, Caveat Emptor! There are dealers in Japan who specialize (and stock) high quality non-Japanese wear. Why not visit them and get the right size/ prdt to begin with instead? Even you pay a little more, at least you won't be whinning about duty reclaim, sheesh. After all you DID pay and IMPORT it! So why should the GOVERNMENT refund your MISTAKE!?? In fact they should charge you again for EXPORT!

Thanks for your opinion. I agree with you it is always best to visit your LBS. But if you have visited all your local stores and find that when you ask them if they stock women's bib tights in a size suitable for somebody over 5'6" and in every store their response is a long the lines of "Maybe earlier in the season, but maybe not available in Japan now", then you have little choice but to order from outside of the country where there is a little more availability. If you know of a store that might stock that sort of thing then feel free to let me know.

Of course when you order from outside of Japan it is necessary to factor in that you might need to pay for return postage, duty, etc. But if you can't get something here then it is worth it. In fact I was not whining or moaning more making a casual inquiry as to whether or not somebody had been successful with reclaiming the duty in the past. Normally I would not bother but this time the bill was 25%, which makes it a bit more of a deal breaker on future orders.
 
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