Attn Any Reputable (and Possibly Foolish/self Mutilating) Brokers

[Mr Eps]

Hi

i know i'm not supposed to disclose too much information about this in public forum. so names have been omitted and certain details have also. but here's the gist.

i have a guy that i work with. he told me months ago he was looking at importing a car for himself. this turned into importing several cars. for the intent to sell. i tried giving him helpful advise and points to look at, but he jumped in and kinda seemed too hot headded for my liking so i kinda backed off for a while and sorta decided to let him... well... sink, really...

i told him literally a tousand times. if he doesn't know exactly how to do it. don't do it. pay a broker.

but no no. mister guy over here took matters into his own hands and has imported cars on his own back with the help of a friend in japan. in short - he has a guy he knows that lives in japan.

he's bringing in two cars under the "personal import scheme"

as you will all be well aware. you can bring one car in - upon your arrival to australia after living abroad and owning the car for at least a year.

he bought these two cars in question a few weeks ago, and is importing two cars into the country. but here's the rich part, are you ready for it? can you handle it? or are you too full from the entree and main course...

no??? you can fit in dessert?

okay... here it is..

the guy in japan won't be returning to australia at all.. he didn't know you had to come back to australia

oh, still hungry?

the cars are currently either on the boat en route to australia or waiting to be put onto a boat. i couldn't quite get that info from him

now, please give this a moment to let this information *sink in*

...good. now, is there any brokers that are willing to rescue this... for lack of a better term "shipment of fail" to give this guy a hand? or is it too late for my entreprenuial work colleague...

fyi - i'm in no way affiliated with the party in question, and will not lose any sleep if you all laugh profusely (like i have) and just let nature run it's course

i gotta admit - part of me feels sorry for the guy... can anyone help? does anyone want to help?

[Import Monster]

short answer, unless the cars are eligible under SEVS, or the guy can pull a miracle out of his ass, he's pretty much f****d

Hi

i know i'm not supposed to disclose too much information about this in public forum. so names have been omitted and certain details have also. but here's the gist.

i have a guy that i work with. he told me months ago he was looking at importing a car for himself. this turned into importing several cars. for the intent to sell. i tried giving him helpful advise and points to look at, but he jumped in and kinda seemed too hot headded for my liking so i kinda backed off for a while and sorta decided to let him... well... sink, really...

i told him literally a tousand times. if he doesn't know exactly how to do it. don't do it. pay a broker.

but no no. mister guy over here took matters into his own hands and has imported cars on his own back with the help of a friend in japan. in short - he has a guy he knows that lives in japan.

he's bringing in two cars under the "personal import scheme"

as you will all be well aware. you can bring one car in - upon your arrival to australia after living abroad and owning the car for at least a year.

he bought these two cars in question a few weeks ago, and is importing two cars into the country. but here's the rich part, are you ready for it? can you handle it? or are you too full from the entree and main course...

no??? you can fit in dessert?

okay... here it is..

the guy in japan won't be returning to australia at all.. he didn't know you had to come back to australia

oh, still hungry?

the cars are currently either on the boat en route to australia or waiting to be put onto a boat. i couldn't quite get that info from him

now, please give this a moment to let this information *sink in*

...good. now, is there any brokers that are willing to rescue this... for lack of a better term "shipment of fail" to give this guy a hand? or is it too late for my entreprenuial work colleague...

fyi - i'm in no way affiliated with the party in question, and will not lose any sleep if you all laugh profusely (like i have) and just let nature run it's course

i gotta admit - part of me feels sorry for the guy... can anyone help? does anyone want to help?

[Iron Chef]

Yes I'm chuckling a fair bit, I hope that boat hasn't left. Get him to contact me and we'll see how much money he stands to lose...

[Mr Eps]

it's an R34 and a V35

...so very cimpliable under SEVS

Kris i'll get him to give you a call

and - i'm really sorry guys.

[Import Monster]

Reminds me of the phone call I received from a guy who was all excited that his Ferrari had arrived to Port from the UK and a friend had recommended he call me to help him get it clear and assist with getting it registered. After asking the normal questions I got the response

"where do I get an import approval from. Can I get one from you"?

Thought he was the first fella ever to discover that cars are cheaper overseas than they are here and jumped in head first just in case anyone else caught on before him. Thankfully he had a friend in NZ who was happy to take the car off him at a substantial discount over what he paid for it.

[kakimoto33]

As long as the cars are mainly standard and in good condition with no major accident history then it should be no real trouble, but he will want to act fast to get things sorted before they land in Australia ideally ... get him to call a one of us brokers and most likely we can help!

Edited June 4, 2010 by J-Spec Imports

[Import Monster]

Then he'll be ok. Worst case will be having to pay some storage fees if the VIA isn't issued in time, but all my VIA's have been issued in 3-4 working days this month.

You realise by posting this, you are now an enabler - if you spoon feed him the answers, how is he going to learn his lesson?!

it's an R34 and a V35

...so very cimpliable under SEVS

Kris i'll get him to give you a call

and - i'm really sorry guys.

[Mr Eps]

lol i love enablers.

and now i am that which enables. win.

i'm pretty sure he's going to learn from this... i hope so at least..

i guess what beer baron was saying about f**kheads sorta weighs into this...

because i am ON sau - i have things to read from you guys... as in, things from importmonster, ironchef, jspec, beerbaron, driftt, jash@c-red... even myself sometimes have insight (seldom)

but i guess that's why i never think about the f**kheads - because you guys ARE "my" network... i don't SEE dodgy dealers or compliance shops or brokers or .... people who completely violate importing rules which are clearly stated if you perform a google search...

all i see is the "fantastic" people in the industry... and for that i am forever grateful!

[Iron Chef]

Suck-up lol - you're just lucky none of us are moderators so we can't ban your arse....haha

[Mr Eps]

haha. YUP!

Edited June 4, 2010 by Mr Eps

[Beer Baron]

Suck-up lol - you're just lucky none of us are moderators so we can't ban your arse....haha

*cough..........

your mate has had the 'awesome' idea that people have been having for at least 25 years that I know of. and that is "hey, I know of someone in japan I'll import cars and make millions". I have no idea why he would want to use the personal import scheme to bring in cars that are on the SEVS register. I guess he thought with a mate in japan he is one up on all the poor fools limited to doing SEVS imports and he can take full advantage of this awesome connection and do a "personal import" instead.... never mind that a PI application is 10 times harder than the sevs VIA application which takes a couple of minutes. makes absolutely no sense at all. if you are doing a personal import then for gods sake make it something different and otherwise unavailable like an NSX. people are not exactly queuing up to buy a 34 or a V35 there are shitloads of them. Consider that to successfully do a personal import the mate in japan would have to transfer the rego into his name, and all that that entails (getting a parking space etc), and keep it rego'd for at least a year then he can apply for the personal import approval and ship the car. I say at least a year as any holidays etc outside of japan they will deduct off his 1 year of ownership. there is lots more but that's the basic gist of it. and that only takes care of the first car. now that the personal import scheme is much more restrictive on how many personal imports you can do in a set period of time it would be even longer before he could do the second one.

anyway forget about personal import. it's silly in this case and chances are he didn't even understand what that means.

there is a very simply solution which has already basically been outlined. he needs to do a SEVS VIA application and do it post haste! very lucky he bought cars that are on the SEVS register and with plenty of compliers doing them. I doubt he was actually going to do a personal import at all. most likely he just used the term as he thinks that's what he's doing as opposed to 'commercial import' or 'dealer import'.

[Beer Baron]

Reminds me of the phone call I received from a guy who was all excited that his Ferrari had arrived to Port from the UK and a friend had recommended he call me to help him get it clear and assist with getting it registered. After asking the normal questions I got the response

"where do I get an import approval from. Can I get one from you"?

Thought he was the first fella ever to discover that cars are cheaper overseas than they are here and jumped in head first just in case anyone else caught on before him. Thankfully he had a friend in NZ who was happy to take the car off him at a substantial discount over what he paid for it.

lol. good story and sadly one that happens or nearly happens a lot. how many times have you seen people make that 'discovery'? one day they look up car prices on a UK car sales type website. then they realise you can import cars to australia. they then tell you their awesome idea of how they can get an M3 for $20K in the UK and should be able to sell it here for $60K. you then explain about import rules, SEVS, compliance, duty, GST, LCT, CAF, BAF, FOB, WTF... and watch their face sink...

[Import Monster]

Even better when you can tell that they simply don't believe you, that there MUST be some way. The Govt couldn't possibly be so cruel. The teeth clench and the eyes narrow, like you're trying to deny them entry to car heaven.

lol. good story and sadly one that happens or nearly happens a lot. how many times have you seen people make that 'discovery'? one day they look up car prices on a UK car sales type website. then they realise you can import cars to australia. they then tell you their awesome idea of how they can get an M3 for $20K in the UK and should be able to sell it here for $60K. you then explain about import rules, SEVS, compliance, duty, GST, LCT, CAF, BAF, FOB, WTF... and watch their face sink...

[Beer Baron]

lol. yeah they are the best ones. when you get folk telling you the way it is. you explain it's not possible to import xyz model, or not financially viable due to various factors and you get "nah, my mates cousin has done it heaps of times and makes heaps of cash doing it", or "that's not what I heard. my mate says it's easy and I can import anything". that is when I say, "sounds great, go right ahead. I must be mistaken"... whilst thinking "what would I know I've only been doing it for 10 years...arseclown!"

[Mr Eps]

you are all very sweet for offering help or advice to this dude but last i checked with him he still hasn't called kristian like i told him to..

...soooooooooooo... not much else that can be said on this matter!!!

and - what's with all the hate n banthreats i only ever wanted to play nicely!

EDIT: exactly what baron said in the comment above mine - the dude in question i've TRIED helping him and explaining to him that unless he knows exactly what he's doing he can not make money off the import game... he's been told what he can do to import his OWN car but NOPE not good enough he still wants to get money off his ideas... i.. and we have all... tried to offer advise but he's blinded to it all... so let him play his games n get spanked by customs in a few weeks i suppose! nothing more you can do in this case...

and baron - your suggestion of importing an NSX / rare supercar / 22B etc is great in theory - but anyone that KNOWS to do that... also knows how to work the system... and anyone that knows to work the system knows not to bring in two cars under personal imports scheme when the japanese friend isn't returning to australia at all and has owned the cars for three weeks total.

which is what's happened here..

Edited June 7, 2010 by Mr Eps

[Iron Chef]

Yeah no call so far lol

A bit like the guy I had who, before even contacting me, had put the broker's fee in my account, then got in touch and asked me to help him import his GT-R he already purchased in Japan. No worries I said, just send me all the info you have - turned out it was an R35....

[Import Monster]

Yeah no call so far lol

A bit like the guy I had who, before even contacting me, had put the broker's fee in my account, then got in touch and asked me to help him import his GT-R he already purchased in Japan. No worries I said, just send me all the info you have - turned out it was an R35....

oh snap, that's gotta hurt

[Beer Baron]

all I can say is this. you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. you can give a man some bread and he'll be fed for a day, show him how to make bread and he'll be fed for the rest of his life. or you can light a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day, you can light the man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.....

[Iron Chef]

You are indeed a scholar, Richard...

[Guest]

In WA we got a lot of cars turn up with no import approval and I have know people tracked down over 12 months later and hit with storage costs. One morning I get a call from a guy saying he has 2 Aristos to import, long story short had paid main stream broker $2,000 in fees so thought not to much hassle...........Well the cars had been sitting on the docks at Freo for nearly a week before the owner contacted me.