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A pdf guide on how to upload your information if you have ordered stuff from amazon.com (US) and want to avoid getting it held up in Chinese Customs.
Amazon asks for a Citizen ID number when adding a Chinese address, but I’m reading it doesn’t matter whose you use. Thoughts on this?
Thanks for putting this together!
I bought some stuff in the fall, and put my address in the box, but left the Citizen ID blank empty. I guess it got held up at customs, but I got an email from a customs clearing company asking for some info including the CID, but responded in both English and Chinese that I’m an American citizen, living in China, and as such don’t have a Chinese ID number. I think I attached a passport copy to the email?
My stuff got delayed, but the amazon customer service rep told me that it was due to 10-1 delays and backlog, rather than bad form filling out.
Hope this helps
Woodwerd, there is a discussion re: this on the Chengdoo. Might be some info there, and from what I remember, the CID was something that made the delivery not get held up in customs, me thinks…but I don’t recall exactly since we have a CID.
Hello,
I’m glad to see quite a few of you have been busy buying stuff from Amazon.
And at the same time i apologize for things not always coming together so nicely.
I decided to make this guide because for me the foreigner community is important, and has a big impact on how our company.
I very much appreciate all your comments.
@WoodWERD – in reality you should put yours. The Chinese page requires Chinese citizens to upload their Chinese I.D. card so Customs can officially check. (so if they order something which is a no-no. historical books or ‘cultural products’ they have a record and can monitor them- all part of Chinese law.
But for foreigners you don’t need to do this, You just have to put in A passport number. (of course it should be yours) but considering that customs are lacking the ability to check.. well you can guess the rest. But the risk, of which i don’t know would be yours.@squirrel suit – (great name by the way) Yeah this story sounds familiar. On that one there was quite a bit of back log because of 1. the holiday shopping season and black friday.
@drjtrekker- Yep, basically the CID or just I.D is needed to pass through customs, being ‘held up’ is just what they officially write. In reality if that message comes up, chances are it hasn’t left America yet due to the lack of the I.D form.
The only things that really gets held up in customs are kitchen knives (sometimes they think they are weapons), plants, meat products (including some pet food) and liquid products (especially anything containing milk) – I was amazed also that you can buy plants and meat and try to have them delivered to China.
-milk powder is fine
& thanks for the info i will check out gochengdoo soonPlease if possible pass this along or tell your friends about how to upload, i think on the case of figuring out weird Chinese laws and conquering living in China, the foreign community has to stick together a bit.
Thank you for your support
Tha’ts great info, thanks so much for your input David.
If I remember correctly, (it’s been like 3-4 months since I did it) the reason that I didn’t put anything in the CID slot was because it required an 18 digit shifenzhen number, and wouldn’t accept a US passport. There wasn’t any kind of laowai option. I could have totally missed it or mis-remembered it though.
There is no option on Amazon to use a passport number instead, from what I see. The closest I could find was on the bottom of my residence permit, it’s 19 digits with letters and Amazon didn’t like it, even when I dropped the leading digit before ‘USA’. I remember the GoChengdoo thread but I don’t think this was covered, and someone over on the Shanghaiexpat(?) forums claims you can use anyone’s number. I’m in no hurry so I’ll just send Amazon an email and see what they say.
Any of you have to contact China Customs before? My parents sent a package and did NOT add my phone #, and added a value of $150cdn to it (duh)… so I know this one is stuck at customs. The problem is they have no way to get ahold of me I guess, so I need to figure out a way to contact the correct customs group who may have it and pay whatever the fee is.. just not really sure where to start on this one!
Hey squirrel suit and WoodWERD, i guess you’re talking about this: ‘Your packages will not clear customs without the recipient’s valid 18 character Citizen ID Number. Please change the shipping address.’ from amazon.com just before you’re about to place your order right?
Don’t worry leave this part blank. (don’t worry you can still place the order)
Then when you get the email from ECMS then add in your passport number, and we had it across to customs 3-4 months, yes i don’t think there was an English option available, like before September, plus we had big trouble getting the emails through to people
If people never got the email please use this link https://www.ecmsglobal.com/oms/order_consigneeand then select English up the top right hand corner
@Rick in China (don’t you also post on the china smack comments?) – The contact number for the head office of customs is 022-8420 1114, or there’s another number 12360But it’s very likely that they don’t have an English service so i would ask a chinese friend to help you.
Just spoke with Amazon by chat and phone. It honestly seems they did not account for this issue, their reps had no clue and offered to give me a phone number for Amazon China. I’ve sent an email in hopes that it’ll get escalated to the right people.
@ecms – Interesting, that works haha.
@Rick in China (don’t you also post on the china smack comments?)
I used to. I was banned a few days ago, I don’t think Kai liked being called so pompous it’s puke-in-mouth worthy.
David, you’re really on the ball. Hey, David’s bosses, give him a raise!
I had all english options I think, must’ve been in October? or I was just able to figure it out, 姓名，地址，etc. are right up my vocabulary wheelhouse.
That’s what I did, left it blank. I didn’t have any wentis other than it showing up after the Amazon promise date or whatever. I contacted Amazon customer service and they apologized and refunded the $10 shipping, and told me what was going on – National Day backlog, which was a little bit annoying because that happens on the same day every year, so it should have been forecast that the entire nation would take a week off and it would affect my package, but it really wasn’t a problem and the guy I communicated with was super professional and actually told me what was up.
A couple days later I got an email from yall at ECMS and then it was all gravy. Pretty straightforward process, and it’s ballin’ that you can get a parcel shipped from like 8000 miles away at such a low price. I guess there’s a big enough demand for it to make sense to Amazon to fulfill those orders? Do you know their trans-pacific carrier is?
@WoodWERD Sorry i tried messaging through p.m but it didn’t go through.
I understand your problem, baidu.com really doesn’t seem to like that address
踏水桥北街, 成华区， 成都，四川。 But generally the delivery people prefer an actual specific address, like building no. door number, floor and room number.
I would advise you ask your co-workers to give you a more specific address, or get it delivered to your office, that was there’s probably someone always there to collect it.
@squirrel suit, hahah i haven’t heard the phrase ‘it was all gravy’ for a long time.
Are you from Australia by any chance?
Our company does America – China at the moment, but that’s all i know about.@Rick in China. Hahaha I’m meant to stay professional but i just read some of your comments on chinasmack. funny stuff.
hope everything cleans up for you by the way.
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