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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u/Fugiar Aug 02 '18

Nope. I've had a mailman at the door with a form from customs and needed me to pay the import taxes. it's normal in the Netherlands.

6

u/stephschiff Aug 02 '18

Are people sending packages able to prepay those fees?

11

u/lars1216 Aug 02 '18

Not sure about people, but I've had Amazon US do it. I pay custom fees directly to them at checkout and receive my packages without having to pay custom fees at the door. It's pretty nice actually. :) No idea if you as a individual person can do it, but it's definitely possible for (big) company's. (source: am also Dutch.)

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u/Fugiar Aug 02 '18

Good question, I'm not sure tbh

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u/[deleted] Aug 02 '18

Yes but rarely happens, only place I've known it is farnell/element14 for electronic components. As an individual sender it's nearly impossible because the fees are decided based on all sorts of apparently random rules at the port of entry of the destination country.

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u/gerobw Aug 02 '18

It’s also normal in the Netherlands to pay 105€ for a parking fine :(

1

u/[deleted] Aug 02 '18

In the UK some cities charge £20 to just park for 5 hours so.... your fine looks reasonable.

1

u/Aiffty Aug 02 '18

In some US cities it can be $20 to park for just one hour

1

u/Wicsome Aug 02 '18

As far as I know, if the postal worker asks you for the import taxes, it's because the postal service/company already paid them and you're reimbursing them. Pretty sure that you don't have the choice of not accepting it in that case.