Mailing DVD's to the US

[wanderliz]

Has anyone encountered problems mailing DVD's back to the US? I have about 100, out of the packaging and in a large DVD notebook holder (so they're obviously not for resale) that I would like to mail home as a gift. Will China Post give me any problems when I try to mail them?

also, is it okay to wrap things (like christmas presents) before mailing, or will they make you unwrap them at the post office?

thanks,

Liz

[liuzhou]

In my experience, you cannot mail DVDs at all.

[nomad]

Please explain, liuzhou.

I mailed some DVDs (not a 100) along with some over gifts back to the USA in November and the China Post on my campus never said anything to me about it.

[liuzhou]

I mailed some DVDs (not a 100) along with some over gifts back to the USA in November

Did they arrive?

[889]

You may encounter a lax post office, but I wouldn't count on it: post office people seem very by-the-books sorts, as you'll find out if you try to mail a domestic letter without a post code, or an international letter in a domestic envelope.

So yes, put christmas wrap on the gifts after they've been inspected.

As to DVDs, I'm not sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if they're restricted.

Note that only the largest post offices accept foreign parcels.

[liuzhou]

The last time I was in a post office with a friend who was leaving China and trying to post DVDs (I had warned her), the clerk produced a book listing forbidden articles. DVDs and CDs of all sorts were there.

[nomad]

Thanks for the details, I guess I got lucky, everything arrived. I wont tempt fate again.

[mr.stinky]

related question:

how about mailing cd's from furrin' lands to here? i've got a box of cd's gathering dust in

my parents attic i might could have them ship me. anyone ever have trouble recieving

packages with cd's?

[liuzhou]

Sorry to be negative, but in eleven years, the only package/parcel not to turn up was the one containing a DVD.

I wouldn't fancy your chances with a box of them.

[Lu]

Best not take the chances, not so much because of the content, but because of the Chinese post system. When I was living there I and my friends had all kinds of packages and things in packages disappearing. (But never a cd, as I recall.) Maybe you can ask the next person to visit you to bring the cds along.

I seem to recall there was at least one other thread on this subject. Personally I never sent home serious amounts of CDs, but I did send a lot of empty boxes while keeping the actual CDs in my luggage. They were near the bottom of a large box with lots of stuff, the post office person didn't bother unpacking it all, and all arrived in reasonably good order.

[flameproof]

The last time I was in a post office with a friend who was leaving China and trying to post DVDs (I had warned her), the clerk produced a book listing forbidden articles. DVDs and CDs of all sorts were there.

How they know? You need to shjow them what you send? Does it apply to domestic too?

Are "thongs" on that list?

[liuzhou]

How they know? You need to shjow them what you send? Does it apply to domestic too?

Yes. You need to show them. And yes, it applies to domestic, too.

[laohu489]

I guess i got lucky mailing dvd's to the US. I had mine in a book like you do. The thing is when they inspect it, open it up to a page that has 'real' dvd's or cd's, not pirated ones.

As far as receiving, i order from amazon once a year and have never had any problems with the cd's and dvd's i've ordered.

[liuzhou]

open it up to a page that has 'real' dvd's or cd's, not pirated ones.

The DVDs and CDs my friend was trying to post were real. She had brought them from England. The Post Office regulations merely stated that discs were not allowed. Nothing about real or pirate. And is a PO clerk qualified to differentiate?

That said, you could get lucky with a careless or uninterested clerk in a certain post office who lets them through. As in all aspects of Chinese life, the laws, rules and regulations are enforced at random on the whim of whoever has the great power to decide.

Many years ago, I lived in Xi'an and there was one idiotic woman in the local Post Office who refused all mail for overseas unless the addressee's name and address was written in Chinese characters. Even one 'English' letter was illegal, she maintained. So, we just went to another clerk.

Then there was the Post Office in Hunan which weighed my letter, announced the price and gave me the stamps. Of course, they only had ¥1 stamps and the letter cost around ¥12 so I had loads of stamps. I managed to fit them all on and handed the letter back to the clerk. She re-weighed the thing and announced that I had to pay ¥2 more because the weight of the stamps had pushed my letter into the next price bracket. I had to pay postage on the stamps!

Edited August 17, 2008 at 07:18 AM by liuzhou