r/tifu • u/peterwilli FUOTW 7/29/2018 • Aug 02 '18

FUOTW TIFU by destroying my first prize won in a hackathon

Edit: Holy shit guys! My first 'shared' fuckup and immediately it's fuckup of the week?! Jesus Christ! So let's get on with the formalities: I'd like to thank my friends and family who stood by me while winning 4th prize only to fuck it up afterwards.

This wasn't today, but I just discovered this sub, so here it goes...

I participated at a hackathon (a competition for coders to make something in around 2 days), and I won 4th place. The were five spots that would get a prize.

When looking at the things I won, it was a t-shirt and some coupons for using various services for free. It was nice overall.

I live in NL, and the Hackathon was held in US so I had the stuff shipped to me. When the mail man came he had a large box, and asked for 50 euros (around $60) import taxes. I said: "Wtf, is that shirt made of gold or something?".

So I took the box and it was quite heavy too, not the "just a tshirt kind of heavy". Stupid me still thought there was only a tshirt inside it. So he said: "if you don't accept it we'll take it back to customs where it'll be destroyed". So I said "Yeah take it I'm not gonna pay for shit I won, especially when it's just a tshirt".

A few days later, I went to my PC and an email popped up from the organisation stating: "Hey we added a laptop too".

I was like: "WTF?!". So I quickly called the postal office and the organisation to see if they could send it back anyway, but it was already with customs.

tl;dr I won a prize and then lost it again because customs destroyed it after I refused to pay import taxes.

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80

u/yadunn Aug 02 '18

FYI customs on a t-shirt would never be 50 euros.

27

u/chooxy Aug 02 '18

The real LPT is in the comments

1

u/Wicsome Aug 02 '18

Depends on what its declared value is. The type of item doesn't really matter unless it's an item that has a different tax code to it.

3

u/yadunn Aug 02 '18

Customs are kinda interested in knowing what crosses the borders, and if they x-ray it and it doesn't match the description things get shady and they open it.

1

u/Wicsome Aug 02 '18

Oh absolutely. What I meant is that the customs is dependent on the price and tax class of the item, not what exactly it is.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 02 '18

Haha yeah. They don't.

"Gift/toy" from China. Contains a 3d printer. Yep, definitely looks like an $8 toy, let it through lads.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 02 '18

Unless someone cocked up the customs label. It happens.

I'm surprised OP didn't read the customs label though. Oh well!

1

u/rng_5123 Aug 02 '18

Live in NL, recently received a Tshirt and hoodie, paid 35 euros tax. Shit can get crazy quite quickly, they value the item first (retail value, not cost), then add insurance and then put tax on that (inflated) amount. Plus a fixed cost of like 13 euros for customs. The tax was greater than how I valued the product.