Don't worry, i appreciate your though.
To the shipping costs it also depends on the destination country.
I saw the prices DHL between Italy and USA are very different. Much more expensive for Italy.
Is also illegal to say one thing to another just to sell. Before you buy, if I ask you if you can write a different value, and you reply "yes" and then you do not do, this is not correct. She can say no, do not you think?
However the package arrived late and the gift is not appreciated as it has raised the value of taxes. The gift could send with china post, free of customs.
P.S: if she responded to me that he could not write a different value, I would have purchased individually choosing china post.
P.S2: In my dispute i mentioned only the unwanted gift (not listed on aliexpress) and the delay of the shipment.
I get your point; she should not have said the value would be marked down and then not follow through...but by the same token, just because she "should not" have done it does not give you any legal right to be reimbursed. Simply put, if someone agrees to help you commit a crime, you have no legal grounds to hold them to their word. The transaction itself has to be legal in order for the contract to be legally binding (and thus give you the legal right to hold the other person responsible for fulfilling the transaction).
For example, if you buy a car from someone, that is a legal transaction. Therefore, if you pay the money and they do not deliver the car, then you have a legal right to get your money back. On the other hand, murder is not legal. Suppose you hated your neighbor and hired someone to kill them. You paid them a lot of money and then after cashing your check, the hit man backed out and decided to not kill the neighbor for you....You would not have any legal right to collect that money back from the hit man because the original transaction was not legal making that not a legally-binding contract.
It's an extreme example, but the principle is the same. It's basic business law. You had an agreement with the seller to lie on the customs forms, but since that is an illegal agreement, it's an invalid contract and you have no legal grounds to hold them responsible for it. That's the rule of illegal transactions; it's done at your own risk with no legal warranty to protect yourself if it goes wrong.....It's a lesson you learned the hard way. To be honest, if a standard customs fee is the only "punishment" you face, you still got off lucky!
Also worth noting is that I can almost guarantee you that the sales representative that you spoke with is not the person that shipped the cameras to you. In most Chinese companies like this, the sales person only takes the order. They then pass it on to a shipping partner to package the items, print the postage label and ship the items to the end customer. It's very unlikely that this sales person that agreed to do this is the same person that taped up that box and stuck a shipping label on it. That shipping partner may have refused to do it.
As far as the included gift is concerned, that's an unfortunate situation in which they sent more than you ordered and at a higher value. About the only option I know of is to resell the gift to make up for the extra customs fees that it may have caused. It is up to you as the receiver to look at the customs value on the package and reject the package if it is incorrect. If you accept the package, then you are basically giving your agreement to pay customs fees based on the price listed on the package. Doesn't matter if you actually ordered what was in the package or not. Just accepting an imported package with "X" price on it is you virtually signing the agreement to pay the tax based on that given value.
Importing international goods is a tricky thing and has risks that typically go beyond receiving domestic goods. It can be confusing and frustrating and it's really a good idea to study your local import laws before ever buying anything directly from an international source. Otherwise you could find yourself paying lots of surprise fees and even facing legal charges if it's done incorrectly (ie. if the goods are illegal for import, the country you're importing from has restrictions with your local government, etc.)....International imports were never really intended for the average consumer. It was originally geared toward large corporations that have teams of legal representatives to help them follow the codes. With the rise of the internet over the past 2 decades (and thus online retail), it's opened a new avenue for the end consumers to deal directly with overseas companies, but it hasn't changed all the legal red tape and risks that are involved in international trade.
