I am going to start selling on eBay and I ordered some pet accessories, Virbac shampoos from a French licensed distributor. No food. All OTC products, none of them are prescription.
They sent 4 parcels and I paid for Express mail as I wanted to get them asap. The parcels went through SF customs. They only got scanned inbound after 2 weeks (Geez, express mail takes so long too). Customs released 2 parcels to me, but held the other 2.
Last Fri night, according to tracking, they released it to USPS, but Saturday 3am, they scanned it "Unclaimed/Max Time Hold Expired, addressee did not claim from Post Office" (I live in Los Angeles, the parcels never left SF).
On Monday, I called USPS and they referred me to the Account Specialist in my area. She said she would check for me. Wednesday afternoon, she called saying it's SF customs who sent it back. Reason? Unsure. So she gave me the customs phone number to call.
I called and a really FIERCE customs officer answered and called the USPS account manager to ask for tracking #s. She was basically yelling at me after she checked the #s, yelling pet care products cannot be imported into USA, even shampoos. She demanded to know why I did not purchase from USA distributors. I replied USA distributors' prices are 2-3x that of the France distributor (the distributor is an authorized distributor of Virbac). She screamed saying "Then you pass the cost to your buyers, like all other sellers or don't bother to do business!"
I had to apologize to her repeatedly that I really did not know pet care products are not allowed to be imported. She slammed down the phone.
I did not tell her that 2 parcels were released to me, one parcel actually contained entirely shampoos. I did count the #s, the other 2 parcels contain only about 4-6 small bottles each, then toothbrushes.
Did I make a mistake calling Customs? Is Customs going to blacklist me from now on?
Thank you in advance to all your advices and help!
