Forty Thieves

The Hainan Island Incident of 2001 is overshadowed by events that happened later that year, but when it transpired, it set the then-still-nascent Internet abuzz.  An American spy plane, which had been flying over a disputed section of the South China Sea, collided with a Chinese fighter jet and was forced to make an emergency landing on Hainan Island.  The crew was interned.  The Chinese government clutched its rhetorical pearls and announced that it was shocked – shocked! – that the American government was collecting sigint on them.  They demanded an apology.  A days-long diplomatic kerfuffle ensued over the type of apology that was offered.  The State Department initially said that the United States ‘expressed a profound apology’ (Shenbiao qianyi) and a regret (yihan) for what had happened.  The Chinese refused to release the crew until the embassy said that they ‘were sorry’ (daoqian) for what had happened.  As I understand it, the first two mean ‘sorry’ in the sense of ‘I am sorry to hear that your hernia is acting up again’, while daoqian means ‘sorry’ as in, ‘I am sorry for running over your child with my shopping cart’.  The first is an expression of generalized regret, while the second is an admission of culpability.  In the event, a letter was issued in which the United States said that it daoqian, the crew was released, and the world’s bandwidth was freed up to watch a bunch of Saudis fly some planes into a couple of big buildings later that year.

Any park owner who spends time on Alibaba.com will salivate at what they see.  You can buy a brand-new skid steer for $14,990, ground penetrating radar for $2,888, a 5 KW off-grid solar panel-inverter-battery system for $4,600, and an electric car for $10,000.  You can buy water leak detection equipment, a house made out of shipping containers, and a prefab villa ($260 per square meter) When I scroll through it, I feel like an Italian in a whorehouse with a credit card.

About a year ago, Mike, the manager at my park in northern New York, told me that we should buy a sewer jetter.  The septic system in that park is, well, crap.  Some of the lines are made of Orangeburg.  The baffles in many of the tanks are disintegrating.  There is a large belly in one of the lines near the top of the hill, which interferes with drainage.  Residents flush cat litter and baby wipes down the toilets.  We have a large snake and a jetting attachment that Mike can put on the pressure washer, but some clogs need professional help.  For those, we call a local rooter guy, who jets the lines. 

We have paid seven grand to the rooter guy over the past five years.  Mike said that, in the long run, it would be cheaper to buy a jetting machine and bring the septic declogging in-house.  So he gave me the specs of the machine that he needed and I began to look for sewer jetters.  A company in Texas quoted a price of $7,500.  Machines with fewer psis and no tank went for a bag of sand or two less.  A few truck-mounted machines were for sale on Ebay for about ten grand, but they were located in places like Baltimore or Illinois, and I didn’t know how I would get them back to northern New York.

So, I looked on Alibaba.  After some pointing and clicking, I settled on a gasoline powered model produced by a company called Shanghai PINFL Electrical and Mechanical Technology Co., Ltd.  All communication with the manufacturer was done with a guy named Aloys Wang, over Alibaba chat.  The chat transcript reads like Beckett, with a stroke:

AW: 1998.5 only deliver cost

If can go sea deliver

hello bro

Me: I understand you mean $1,998 all-in for the product AND door to door shipping.

AW: Sorry for make missunderstanding

Me: so, can you sell it for $1,998.59 all-in, price +delivery?

AW: This price, we can deliver by sea

But air deliver can’t

We agreed that he would sell the machine for $1,998.50, CIF to the New York port.  ‘CIF’ means, ‘Cargo Insurance Freight’.  It is the acronym used to denote delivery to the port nearest the purchaser, and only to the port.  ‘FOB’, or ‘Free On Board’ means, pace Eddie Huang, delivery to the seller’s port.

When I told my wife that I was going to buy on Alibaba, she said ‘Don’t do business with Mainlanders.  They will fleece you.’  I said,

-But your uncle had a factory on the mainland, and he made a mint!

-That uncle is a goniff.

-I thought the word was pianzi.

-It is worse if you say it in Yiddish.

Aloys told me that I would need a customs agent to get the item out of the port.  I hired a company called Clearit USA to handle that.  Shortly after I hired them, Clearit USA told me that my case would be stalled until the address on the bill of lading matched the address on the power of attorney that I signed with them (I believe that the park’s address was written on one document and my mailing address was written on the other).  When I mentioned this to Aloys, he suggested that Clearit USA contact him directly to fix the problem.  I thought that this was the best solution because my agent should be able to negotiate on my behalf, but Clearit USA had different ideas.  As with Aloys, all communications with Clearit USA were done over chat:

Me: Could you email the manufacturer, please? They have asked me to ask you to do that. Their email is info_marketsh@yeah.net Thanks

Clearit USA: As you are the IOR [importer of record], we work with you within this chat for the proper documents. Also, as you are the IOR-you may change the information on the invoice yourself as well and re-upload.

Me: Sorry – what do you mean by “in this chat”? The manufacturer says that the additional info needed for the EPA form will be on the bill of lading. They also say that a change of address will cost $110. Do you mean that I can upload a pro forma invoice with the correct address hand-written in? I believe that I have already done that. Could you please email them, per their request? They have asked me to ask you to do that. Their email is info_marketsh@yeah.net Thanks

Clearit USA: The commercial invoice is more what we are after than the bill of lading in terms of right to make entry. The bill of lading also instructs delivery. The invoice should reflect the sold to party and ship to party.

Below are the scenarios with right to make entry…The customs power of attorney that was signed is the party that has the right to file the entry with customs. Your commercial invoice does not cite this party, or the address on a power of attorney does not match the documents. Please see below how to help us rectify this situation.

• Different Address –  Did your firm move locations? Please tell us so we can update the 5106 with customs. We would need to confirm the physical and mailing address.
• Sold To Party Vs. Ship To Party – If your firm purchased the cargo but is having the goods shipped to a different location, please update the invoice to show the name and address of your firm as the sold-to party and then the name and address of the ship to the party receiving the cargo.
• Your party did not purchase the cargo – If the party that signed a power of attorney did not buy the cargo, we need a new power of attorney in the name of the party that purchased the cargo signed by the owner/officer of the company. See an agent for a new document or if you need a new account or 3rd party billing waiver.

Me: Can I please speak with you guys over the phone? I am not sure what you or the other parties need, and email is not helping.  Here is my number.

Clearit USA: As we are a digital service provider, we do communicate within this chat, and would be happy to respond to any questions you may have.

So – my agent could not communicate with the manufacturer on my behalf, and would not speak with me by phone, to help me figure out how I could get the information that they needed from the manufacturer.  By way of throwing spaghetti against the wall, I scratched out the address on the pro-forma invoice, hand-re-wrote the address, and resubmitted it.  The objections on this point subsided.

That was the undercard.  The main event was the EPA form.

In order for an item with an internal combustion engine to clear US customs, an EPA Form 3520-21 must be submitted.  On the form, the importer must list, inter alia, the serial number of the engine and the engine family name.  When I filled the form out, Clearit USA bounced it back, saying that I had not provided this information correctly, and that I should contact the manufacturer to get it. Aloys did not have this information: 

Me: Hi – sorry to bother you, but to clear customs, I will need an invoice with the following information: (i) model, (ii) serial number, (iii) engine family name.

AW: the B/L will release by tax

Me: What do you mean that the bill of lading will “release by tax”?  I need (i) model, (ii) serial number, (iii) engine family name.  Can you take care of the above-referenced requests?

AW: Do you have custom clearance company?  Please let them send us email

Clearit USA reminded me that they could not, and would not, contact the manufacturer on my behalf. I went back to the chat:

AW: Please confirm the BL draft.  I send you the BL to confirm the details. You are not mention the address

Me: I will see if we can keep the same address. Can you send me the bill of lading, please? I need the (i) model, (ii) serial number, (iii) engine family name. I understand that that information will be in the bill of lading.

 AW: Okay, I will check with logistic and send you next Monday

AW: 16th this month, the ship will set sail. And we will get B/L 18th.

Me: 18th it is. As discussed, I need the (i) model, (ii) serial number, (iii) engine family name. I understand that that will be on the bill of lading.

AW: (i) model: BX4020, (ii) serial number: the seriel number named by yourself , (iii) engine family name: 22HP/15.5kw / 3600rpm Rato/ V-2cylinder/4stroke (OHV) /air cooling/669cc

Me: Thanks. Gongxi facai.

AW: Xiexie ni

Clearit USA told me that the information Aloys supplied was not sufficient.  The EPA was looking for a narrow universe of manufacturers.  ‘Engine family name’ is a term of art.  A serial number is, well, a serial number, and not something that the purchaser can make up.  None of what Aloys had sent was what they were looking for.  I passed this on to Aloys:

Me:  That information is not sufficient.  here is what they requested – “I see that you provided a revised EPA 3520*-21 form but it is still missing some required info, the Engine Manufacturer Name (Briggs & Stratton, Tecumseh, or whatever the brand of engine), Model # could be the BX 4020, but the Serial # is requested and the Engine Family Name is required, the engine family is name is typically a 12 digit alphanumeric characters with a period (.) or slash (/) in the middle of it. It is absolutely required at time of entry of we can NOT process the entry for the goods to be released.”  If you have a certificate of compliance, that might have this information. The bill of lading does not. Thank you for your help in this matter.

AW: I will check after back to office 4th Feb

Me: Please do. I cannot, and will not, accept shipment if you do not provide this information in a format that is acceptable to my clearing agent. I will look for your answer on Feb 4.

While Aloys was away for Lunar New Year, someone at Clearit USA informed me that on January 19, the Commerce Department had begun an investigation of the importation of cold water pressure washers from Vietnam and the People’s Republic of China.  These were being sold at less than fair value in the United States.  Because of this, a punitive anti-dumping tariff would be imposed on them. That tariff would be imposed on the jetter that I had bought.

A sewer jetter is not the same as a pressure washer, but they are similar.  Both machines are designed to shoot water at high pressure through a pipe in a way that dislodges matter.  You can make a low-rent sewer jetter by putting a jet nozzle on a pressure washer hose.  In fact, that is what Mike had been doing for a couple of years, until we realized that we needed to upgrade.  Many of the machines that are advertised as ‘sewer jetters’ on Alibaba are, in fact, pressure washers in drag.  I had asked Aloys to confirm that the machine that was now on a ship travelling to New Jersey was a jetter, rather than a pressure washer, before I ordered it, but I noticed that it was called a ‘high-pressure washer’ on the bill of lading.  That is what made Clearit USA think that the anti-dumping tariff should apply to the jetter.  I confirmed with Aloys again that the machine was a sewer jetter rather than a pressure washer. I made up my mind to dispute the application of the tariff to this particular machine, but I was losing my confidence in Aloys’ ability to know relevant information or tell the truth.  And fuck if Clearit USA or the Commerce Department was going to help me.

(Dumping is when a manufacturer based in Country A sells a product in Country B that is below the producer’s sale price in Country A or below the cost of production.  I don’t understand why dumping is a bad thing.  If Chinese manufacturers want to sell us stuff at bargain prices, that is a win for American consumers.  We love their cheap shit!  That’s an efficient market!  But lobbyists are paid to disagree with the truth.)

On Feb 3, Aloys came back to the office and the chat started up again:

AW: The supplier told us can’t have Serial # and Engine Family Name.

Me: I need the serial number and engine family name. The United State Environmental Protection Agency will not allow the machine to be imported unless that information is given to them by the importer. If you and the supplier can not give me that information, I will refuse the item, request a refund and inform Alibaba and potential United States buyers that it is impossible to import these items from you and your supplier.

Me: Following up on this. Any manufacturer or distributor should be able to provide the information that I have requested. CAN YOU PROVIDE IT OR NOT? IF NOT, I CANNOT ACCEPT THE SHIPMENT.

AW: You should told these to us before send us order.

AW: We have checked and can’t proviede serials number from supplier

AW: Beacause products has been made and the request not send to them before order the machine.

We were at an impasse.  Aloys didn’t have the information Clearit USA needed.  Clearit USA wouldn’t let it get through customs without that information.  I asked Clearit USA what happens in cases like this.  They said that, if property can’t clear customs, it sits in limbo for a while and then is destroyed.  When I told this to Mike he said, ‘Jesus!  Can you get your money back?’  I said,

-Alibaba has a refund procedure.  I have applied for one.

-Will you get it?

-I doubt it.  The forum is staffed by Mainlanders who have every incentive to side with their suppliers, instead of customers.  I think I have a strong case, but it is a kangaroo court.

-So, what are you going to do?

-Take the loss and move on.  What else can I do?

I am not sure how you destroy a two hundred kilo hunk of metal.  Dump it in a blast furnace?  Put it underneath the BQE and let homeless people strip it for parts?  It seems like a terrible waste, but so long as I don’t have to pay to store and insure it, that is ICE’s problem now, not mine.

Here’s the lesson I learned from the $1,998.50 and the brain damage:

• Don’t import internal combustion engines;
• If you must import goods, ask your seller for a compliance certificate and a track record of selling like goods into the US before you pay for them; and,
• Don’t economize on your customs agent.

I spent three grand on Frank and Dave’s course and a comparable amount on Mobile Home Park Academy.  Two bags of sand is a small price to pay for a valuable lesson.  Less, even, than the loss of face incurred by giving a daoqian apology.