Costa Rica's customs agency defeated by an ooops
Dear A.M. Costa Rica readers:
United Parcel Service of America, Inc., known as UPS, also is affectionately known to Costa Rican expats as OOOPs, although the shipping firm has a pretty good delivery record.
So this story is more about Costa Rican bureaucracy than the shipping company. The bureaucracy, especially the Dirección General de Aduana, the customs agency, is remarkably inflexible when there is a real ooops.
The Aduana is an agency where a little illegality can pay huge dividends. Each day customs inspectors are faced with international goods invoiced at a fraction of their real cost. Sometimes the goods are just mislabeled to the advantage of the shipper to reduce local sales tax.
A couple of times a month the Aduana gleefully reports the confiscation of goods. Some have been smuggled or mislabeled. Others are the victims of errors. Most long-term expats remember the week before Christmas seven years ago when the Aduana suddenly began assessing sales tax on incoming merchandise. That was a surprise to everyone who had placed overseas orders for Yule gifts. The system was so flawed that most recipients declined to wade through the Aduana morass to retrieve their packages even if they were inclined to pay the sales tax.
In addition to the 13 percent sales tax, buyers in Costa Rica also are faced with prices inflated mostly by government policy. That makes smuggling an attractive option, particularly since alcohol, personal care products and other premium goods are available cheaper in Panamá and in some cases in Nicaragua.
Last April 30 the founder and former editor of A.M. Costa Rica, Jay Brodell, dispatched a three-page legal document from the United States to a Costa Rican address via UPS. The company promised delivery in two days. The fee was $153, a steep price, but speed was needed for the document.
The envelope has yet to be delivered, and chances are that it never will. The problem rests with a small error at a UPS distribution center in Georgia. Workers accidentally switched the invoice with a shipment of $800 in pump parts en route to France.
So when the envelope arrived in Costa Rica, the Aduana wanted in excess of $100 in sales tax, plus handling charges. The invoice also said the shipment was for cash on delivery.
So far there is no technology that can cram $800 in pump parts into a letter-sized envelope, but the local UPS agent told the Costa Rican recipients that in order to retrieve the package the Aduana fees must be paid. Naturally the recipients declined.
Such events must happen frequently because UPS maintains an international resolution center in the United States. Not much really can be done by this department when the resolution needs to be done in Costa Rica.
The UPS agent in Costa Rica took action and reported incorrectly online that both the sender and the recipient had abandoned the shipment. That is a usual Costa Rican response to a bureaucratic maze, and the agent most likely is well schooled in facing the bureaucracy. The man has not replied to emails in either Spanish or English.
Both the sender and recipient were naive and thought that by simply showing the two-ounce envelope to an Aduana agents the issue could be resolved.
But in Costa Rica, expats know that written paperwork almost never is overturned by an official. Most are terrified at the prospect of showing initiative.
UPS is considering a refund. The document has been resent via another method.
2,500 years from now a lucky archaeologist might stumble upon the remains of the Costa Rican Aduana warehouse beneath feet of dirt. This will be a great discovery rivaling the find of the royal library at Nineveh. The archaeologist will see excellent examples of 21st century life and paperwork belonging to the mysterious Amazon and UPS. The future academics will scratch their heads and wonder how $800 in pump parts were stuffed inside a tiny envelope.
Melissa Pete,
Cariari, Heredia
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Welcome to a world without ‘natural’ variola major
Dear A.M. Costa Rica readers:
‘Natural’ means that it exists outside controlled laboratories. Variola major is smallpox.
In the ‘natural’ setting, smallpox kills three of every ten people it infects. Survivors can be left blind or with massive scaring.
Smallpox is highly contagious and considered a Level 4 biocontainment virus, the highest level of containment.
Level 4 diseases include those known to cause the viral hemorrhagic fevers (like the Ebola viruses), Flaviviruses (like the West Nile virus and dengue fever), and smallpox.
There are only three treatments for smallpox, all new and untested in humans. The last registered case of smallpox in the United States occurred in 1949. The last known case of smallpox in the world occurred in 1977.
On May 8, 1980, the World Health Organization announced the total eradication of smallpox.
A disease with a 30 percent death rate no longer exists outside the laboratory.
Thanks to vaccinations.
Dr. L. Torley
Tilaran, Guanacaste
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Please take the time to research this vaccine, before you infect our children
Dear A.M. Costa Rica readers:
It has never been proven to prevent one case of pappilloma virus. Although the side effects can be life changing if not death. This is a pharmaceutical $$$$ push, nothing with these many side effects should be put into our bodies. Please start with nvic.org and look for the research. Many beautiful young lives have ended with paralysis, seizures, lupus, heart attacks, sterilization. Please pass this web site on to those that make the decision.
The past 8 years of my research (Lucija Tomljenivic PhD) have led me to conclude that the promotion of this pharmaceutical product and its new and improved versions) is nothing short of reckless endangerment of our youth. Lucija Tomljenovic, PhD, poses this important question:
"Is it ethical to put young women at risk of death or a disabling autoimmune disease at a pre-adolescent age for a vaccine that has not yet prevented a single case of cervical cancer, a disease that may develop 20-30 years after exposure to HPV, when the same can be prevented with regular Pap screening which carries no
risks."
It can be translated into Spanish on the web site). You must stop this craziness.
According to the Annals of Medicine: "At present there are no significant data showing that either Gardasil or Cervarix (GlaxoSmithKline) can prevent any type of cervical cancer since the testing period employed was too short to evaluate long-term benefits of HPV vaccination.
During the past decade, there have been numerous studies and reports linking HPV vaccination to chronic illnesses in children and young adults. These include anaphylaxis, lupus, erythema multiforme, acute disseminated encephalomyelitis,
transverse myelitis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), 14 central nervous system demyelination, multiple sclerosis, including pediatric multiple sclerosis, Guillain-Barre Syndrome, pancreatitis, inflammatory bowel syndrome, brachial plexus neuritis, brachial neuritis, optic neuritis, neuromyelitis optica, opsoclonus myoclonus, evanescent white dot syndrome, acute cerebellar ataxia, autoimmune hepatitis, autoimmune neuromyotonia, vasculitis, thrombocytopenic purpura, immune thrombocytopenic purpura, Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS), Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS), Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), and peripheral sympathetic nerve dysfunction.
A published questionnaire of HPV vaccination recipients focusing on a combination of chronic illness including POTS, CRPS, and fibromyalgia found that 93 percent of individuals reporting symptoms related to these conditions were still incapacitated and unable to work or attend school four years after vaccination. Additionally, several studies have linked HPV vaccination to primary ovarian failure resulting in impaired fertility
A 2018 study found lower pregnancy rates in women who had received HPV vaccination.
The high immunogenicity of Gardasil was also addressed in my 2015 interview with Lucija Tomljenovic, Ph.D., a research scientist at the University of British Columbia. In it, she explains that by triggering an exaggerated inflammatory immune response, vaccine adjuvants end up affecting brain function.
In collaboration with a team led by Dr. Yehuda Shoenfeld, a world expert in autoimmune diseases who heads the Zabludowicz Autoimmunity Research Centre at the Sheba Hospital in Israel, Tomljenovic has demonstrated how the HPV vaccine can cause brain autoimmune disorders.
Please don't do this to Costa Rica !!!
Bill and Melinda Gates have a global vaccination program they have introduced to India and Africa. 25,000+ girls were vaccine injured in India alone and in Africa they found the vaccine to sterilize the girls. They were thrown out of those countries.
Carol Sweeney
San Miguel de Grecia,
Alajuela, Costa Rica
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Business Climate in Guanacaste
Dear A.M. Costa Rica readers:
Business must still be conducted and no need to make it worse. This is my 20th year spending 6-7 months per year in Costa Rica. I own a house, pay several employees and have real estate investments.
Residency: Very difficult and not worth the effort.
Employees: Many gringos employ part time help as gardeners and house cleaners. CCSS has made part time employees expensive. Full time salary amounts are used to calculate patron contributions. This results in less work for the ticos. The ticos report it is extremely difficult to get anything done at the CAJA.
Municipalities: Nicoya has stopped new construction in Nosara. Uso de Suelo's will not be issued. Much of the Nosara growth is now in the Esperanza pueblo.
ASADAS: Esperanza won't issue cartas de aqua. For the last year the excuse was the pump had to be tested in April. That pump test determined there's enough water to issue letters. Now the ASADA won't issue until someone pays for a $14000 technical study of the system. Another long term delay. AyA indicates the ASADA has to issue the letters. But they continue to refuse issuance.
Government entities don't follow their own rules.
These matters result in a loss of revenue for the municipality, a loss of employment generated from construction, new housing and related services.
Why should anyone conduct business in this lawless system of governance?
Too many regulations and an unwilling government to assist has and will continue to hurt the local residents.
S.C.
Nosara, Nicoya, Guanacaste
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The views or opinions expressed by the authors are the sole and exclusive responsibility of the senders and do not necessarily represent the opinion of A.M. Costa Rica. Therefore, the newspaper does not accept liability for the letters content.
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