I use a skybox service called Irie Express, basically they give you a PO box in Miami so you can order stuff from US sellers online, which is then put on a flight to Trinidad. The bonus is that this expedites things, having thing sent here directly they sit in customs for 1-3 months before being released for pickup at a post office.
(BTW if you are in the USA you are spoiled, customs here will attach charges to a %$#&ing magazine!!!)
ANYWAY, I order four bottles of vitamins/supplements and get told the charges are around $80 USD, FAR more than the actual cost of the items and I know this merchant includes a invoice in the box. I insisted on calling in and bitching, get a run around, eventually the secretary says oh it is cuz the box weighs 18 pounds.
:DI have you now! That box weighs no more than a pound!
End of the story I win, scam attempt averted! WOO HOO!
My wife said fro her perspective foreign white people would just pay it, they assume you are rich like the other expats, bad assumption!
I get a kick out of watching the check out clerks at small groceries squirm when I point out their total is over by ten to twenty bucks, they are always disturbed an apologetic and miraculously produce my missing change without! opening the register.
Stick to Massey stores(formerly Hi-Lo) or True Valu chains and you’ll never encounter it.
Go to small independent groceries, watch your total and change like a hawk! It is almost common that they try and scam 10-20 TT. (we’re talking under 5 USD).
Shit just tonight me and my wife and kid were coming home in a taxi, fair is 4 TT per person so three of us is 12 TT and I gave the guy a 20 TT. He gives me 6 TT in change. We argued back and forth until he agreed on basic MATH.
Yes people will absolutely try to scam what they think are tourists, it is downright flipping pathetic. I’ve heard of taxi drivers telling tourists fairs are 50 USD, this is 300 TT and almost ten times the real fair.
Indeed they do. gee, maybe this is thread is basically a “mockery”.
The original problem was some typo, they put 18 instead of 1.8 or put in number of cm but in units of inches… (they charge by volume or weight, which ever they can charge more for… They say they convert volume to weight, but its the same decision, same result, if you convert volume to money…)
For one thing the freight costs(shipping costs) are calculated into the customs and VAT charges, so they would not have so easily waived it f it was true because they would be out money.
I left a place called Ezone because I received two boxes, each box had the full invoice of the contents of both boxes inside. So each box was charged the same amount of 150 USD, even though one box only had a cheapo PC mouse and keyboard inside.
I abandoned the second box there, after hours spent on the phone arguing, fuck em even though it probably wasn’t their fault per se. (I honestly did not have the money and was weary of being financially raped by imports).