Traveller in Buenos Aires and shipping problem, customs

Yeah, stupid regulations. As a workaround, you could buy a cheap, unlocked smartphone on www.mercadolibre.com (maybe something in the order of $100 dollars) and ask your parents to send you over the sim card.

Being unable to communicate with your loved ones, access the interwebs for useful resources or maps in real time for the place you are - especially when abroad - is certainly something to think of.
 
Yeah, stupid regulations. As a workaround, you could buy a cheap, unlocked smartphone on www.mercadolibre.com (maybe something in the order of $100 dollars) and ask your parents to send you over the sim card.

If you can live without a phone for two weeks it will probably be much cheaper to buy another one in the next country you visit.
 
It could be a pain in the back to do shipping to Argentina especially if it is about electronics. It is not very new but relatively new phone.

I am planning to leave Argentina in two weeks and do you think is there any way to proof that it is not for reselling but for personal usage?

It wont matter to the aduana if the phone is for resale or personal use. They might asses its value at less than it cost new, but they would make all calculations based on its value in Argentina (as much as twice the cost of electronics in other countries).

So I believe you would have to pay 50% import tax on whatever Argentine customs says it's worth and they may also tax the cost of sending it by DHL.

Since you don't have an Argentine DNI I don't think you would have the option of having it sent directly to your door and then paying the customs fees on line.
 
Last edited:
If you can live without a phone for two weeks it will probably be much cheaper to buy another one in the next country you visit.

Well, I breath IT for living, so any time I can turn off my devices - including my WiFi home router, what I do every night - is a win for me.

I could go with your theory of living without a smartphone if I was in holidays and in my own town, sure thing, but not in some random place +5Kkm away from home, be it visiting a lawless, forgotten part of the world or a nicely civilized place.

I picture myself holding a paper map fully unfolded in the middle of Trafalgar Square (just to name a place) and couldn't help but feel like a loser and a yummy target for local crooks. Hell, I don't know what would I do in Buenos Aires itself without having my real-time map, the subway map or the bus application to learn which one to take to move around the city...
 
Last edited:
It's much safer where it is.
My wife and I have a few sad tales to tell regarding items sent to us from abroad even under Macri.
 
its true that in Argentina, one of the most stolen objects is a mobile phone, while paper maps being stolen never happens.
I spend 3 months a year in argentina, and the first thing I do is turn off my phone and put it in a drawer when I arrive. I turn it back on again after I land in the USA. But I am not normal.
 
I picture myself holding a paper map fully unfolded in the middle of Trafalgar Square (just to name a place) and couldn't help but feel like a loser and a yummy target for local crooks. Hell, I don't know what would I do in Buenos Aires itself without having my real-time map, the subway map or the bus application to learn which one to take to move around the city...

No. Looking like a loser is about your body language, not about what you are holding in your hand. And - loser or not - studying your phone on the street is a bit like being a fishing line with a nice, juicy, wriggly worm as the bait.
 
You may think you look silly with a paper map but trust me you don't even want to attempt the shipping route... You will never realise something so simple can be so complex (the mail system). Argentina has managed to make the process akin to proving quantum physics.
 
I once sent a friend in BA a box of cookies via DHL from France. Took 2 months to get to him. Cookies were still good :) Don't risk it.
 
Back
Top