Customs Problems
 

What can you do if a DVD is held up in US customs? It was being sent to me from HK. I was told that a huge lot of DVD's were seized for "trademark violations" whatever the hell that means. They think mine might be part of that. They are looking into it for me. I bought it from HiViZone.com and know that they were legit versions, not copies. Any advice?

db:

Can you post a list of your order?

Fong Sai Yuk and My Father Is A Hero

Thank the bastards at Buena Vista/Miramax for this. I think this is troubling news for HK movie fans if US customs is now looking at and holding legit DVD shipments from Hong Kong because BV/Miramax is claiming all rights to the HK films rights they have bought.

That's what I thought too. But, I don't think anyone at Disney can pronounce yet even spell Fong Sai Yuk. I hope this isn't true.

I agree. But, I got lucky today. I finally (after about 5 phone calls) and found someone I could convince to ship it to me!!!!! I told them that there was no way the DVD's weren't legit. That they were manufactured by the appropriate HK distributors and sold by a legit store. After about 15 minutes of that they gave up and cleared them! Still, I am greatly concerned. Hearing "trademark violations" makes me wonder: is there any way that Disney can legally do this? Seems to me that the answer would have to be no...

If you look at the covers.. and the back.. How can they even say they aren't legit???

Hey look "Fong sai yuk".. Looks like a chinese bootleg of a movie with that guy from "The One"...

Were they sent regular airmail or did they send it using UPS etc

They were sent EMS. You are right. There is no way they can verify wether they are legit or not. I think they saw em, saw they were from HK and just panicked. Some of the government workers aren't the best trained...

You know, this also could do with all the hoopla about the Episode 2 bootlegs that were in the news.

On the flip side of things...it really was a 2 movie shipment. I could see if you were buying like 40 discs, but 2? They're now stopping packages with like 2 movies in them?

I have movies coming to me from Australia...I hope they don't get held up.

So who did you call to get them released? can we get a process description, and maybe put it in the International Forum FAQ?

I went to customs.gov and found the customs office that was nearest the point of entry (Chicago O'hare) and found a number to call. They refered me to the Foreign Mail Office at O'Hare (773-462-9475) and I let them know that hese were not Bootleg versions. They asked for my last name, my tracking number and the name of the store (HiViZone.com). They found my package and told me it was seized with the others that had come in and had been determined to be bootlegs. After about 10 or 15 minutes of complaining, they kind of gave up and decided to ship them out to me.

Don't know if this'll work for everyone or not. Best just to try and track it all down and get a hold of whoever you can. customs.gov is actually a pretty good site for finding contact info.

BTW, I was told that HK was what was targeted. I wouldn't worry about Australia.

Hope that helps...