hc h.

Badly ripped off. Amazon's advice to use mail service firms such as MyUS.com, led me into an expensive tax-trap. Key point is Amazon uses USPS postal delivery, no taxes are levied by the importing country Customs. Not So, when using MyUS.com
I wanted to buy a few simple items: walking stick, fixing unit for camera and small wooden abacus. Amazon.com informed me (25-Oct-13) the vendors do not export to my country of residence, Thailand. However, among Amazon's advice was the following:
"You can use freight forwarder to ship the item. There are many freight forwarder's available to ship it to your location. You can search them by Google."
Google suggested: MyUS.com, and now I see this almost everywhere I look on the internet, they advertise heavily).
Strangely, when it comes to shipping, MyUS.com, charges hundreds of dollars for the basis USPS postal service, which would normally be cheap and efficient and "signed for" delivery. Yes, in Thailand too, I've used it countless times.
MyUS.com guides their customers to Fedex or Fedex Priority. Charges are much higher than normal, but not so extortionate to scrap the deal.
But what I found is the Customs people in Thailand will automatically levy onerous taxes on Fedex shipments, and all the more for the Priority service. This is surely known to MyUS.com, but of course they field the easy evasion."import taxes of another country are beyond our control".
But i suspect this is all very well known to the people on the inside of the postal/courier trades. I discovered the structure offered by MyUS.com led me directly into an expensive tax trap at the point of end-delivery. Goods with aggregate value of US$207, had MyUS.com postal charges (Fedex) of US$77; plus Thailand Customs Tax of US$100. So, my total cost was US$385, or +85% of the actual goods value.
Based on my experience, I would not use MyUS.com again, and would ask Amazon.com to stop guiding their customers into their hands. This leads to an expensive tax trap at point of delivery.
The key point is, whereas Amazon uses a reasonably efficient USPS postal service, this is denied by MyUS.com (unless you want to pay much much more than the Fedex price). Maybe MyUS.com and Fedex are in collusion to take their customers for a ride?