purchasing cactus from thailand on Ebay

evelyn · Post by **evelyn** » Thu Jul 14, 2011 2:38 am

I was looking at cacti on ebay and bid on a cactus from Thailand. I won the auction. Needless to say, I did not do my homework before hand and now I'm paranoid about customs. Has anyone done this before? What should I expect? Am I screwed? Thanks.

tudedude · Post by **tudedude** » Thu Jul 14, 2011 3:06 am

Did you get the proper certs from the seller? Ive been tempted to try one of those guys for a while now. Where are you located? You may be the guinea pig.

evelyn · Post by **evelyn** » Thu Jul 14, 2011 2:10 pm

I dunno. I bought it from pkauctiononlinethailand and I live in TX. They say they can send it anywhere, but they're not responsible if your cactus gets confiscated by customs in your country. I definitely don't have any permits or anything. I just sent the seller a note asking if he has had success sending plants to the US or if there are any permits I need. We'll see what he says...

TimN · Post by **TimN** » Thu Jul 14, 2011 3:43 pm

I've bought plants from Thailand, England, and China in the recent past. I haven't had any problems (so far!)

Whenever I've asked if they have problems sending plants to the US, they say, "no problem!"

So, hopefully yours will arrive without any problems!

evelyn · Post by **evelyn** » Thu Jul 14, 2011 8:50 pm

Awesome, Tim!! Thank you so much for your reply

. I did ask, and just like you said, he replied "no problem". So funny!

iann · Post by **iann** » Thu Jul 14, 2011 9:00 pm

Illegal without permits (phytosanitary and CITES). Might get confiscated. Probably won't.

Enzo · Post by **Enzo** » Thu Jul 14, 2011 9:03 pm

please think twice, theres nothing worse than reading a paper from customs saying they confiscated your plants.. I am NEVER going to do that again
and waste $ because of US customs..you're better off getting seeds in the mail IMO (in my opinion) what exact cactus are you looking for??

Enzo · Post by **Enzo** » Thu Jul 14, 2011 9:04 pm

Enzo wrote:please think twice, theres nothing worse than reading a paper from customs saying they confiscated your plants.. I am NEVER going to do that again
and waste $ because of US customs..you're better off getting seeds in the mail IMO (in my opinion) what exact cactus are you looking for??

thats just my 2 cents, I dont mean to sound rude

Rebel Squirrel · Post by **Rebel Squirrel** » Thu Jul 14, 2011 10:25 pm

California has different import restrictions on plants than other US states - I remember when driving into CA (while moving from Louisiana to Oregon some years ago) that there was a customs-like checkpoint where they wanted to know about any plant material in my vehicle (even fruits and vegetables). I didn't have any, but figured (because of the fruit thing) that they were looking for agricultural pests.

Let us know what happens!

tudedude · Post by **tudedude** » Fri Jul 15, 2011 2:40 am

yes I'm curious about CA, I know we're a very strict state.

Enzo, did yours have the cites and phyto when they got confiscated?

Jefff · Post by **Jefff** » Sun Jul 17, 2011 11:41 pm

I just posted a question about these papers in another cactus forum:

Today I bought a cactus from ebay from Thailand. It's a small Gymno grafted on a Hylocereus. The seller immediately ebay messaged me with "Hello,

Do you want Cites export permit and Phytosanitary ?
The paperwork is 10 GBP / 1 shipment.

If you don't want paperwork. I can't responsible or refund if the plants was confiscated by your customs.

Please reply me as soon as possible."

-I recently purchased a cactus from Hungary... no papers and no problems.
-I've bought a few other Taiwan cactus in the past and no papers- no problems.
-In the past two weeks I purchased two Euphorbia's from two different sellers in Taiwan... one insisted on charging for the papers and the other one never even asked. Haven't received either plant yet though.

So now the seller of the cactus I just bought seems to be in a hurry about the darn papers (which is another $16.11 in addition to the $14.50 shipping and $27.50 for the cactus).

Is it really likely that customs is gonna take my cactus if it doesn't have this Phytosanitary certificate??

Should I just definitely pay the extra $16???
I feel this is a bit of a scam and like if I dont pay the money then the sellers will screw w/ me/my cactus or something.

What would y'all do??

iann · Post by **iann** » Sun Jul 17, 2011 11:46 pm

Is it really likely that customs is gonna take my cactus if it doesn't have this Phytosanitary certificate??

Not likely, but possible. If they detect it they will confiscate it.

Entirely up to you. Standard practice that confiscation is at the buyers risk unless they buy the right papers, although I'd be miffed if it wasn't stated up front. Grafted Gymnos are at least exempt from CITES

Also, when asking about such things it is wise to mention the importing country. I have assumed you were talking about US dollars, although Canadian would have brought virtually the same answer

Jefff · Post by **Jefff** » Mon Jul 18, 2011 12:12 am

iann wrote:
Is it really likely that customs is gonna take my cactus if it doesn't have this Phytosanitary certificate??
Not likely, but possible. If they detect it they will confiscate it.

Entirely up to you. Standard practice that confiscation is at the buyers risk unless they buy the right papers, although I'd be miffed if it wasn't stated up front. Grafted Gymnos are at least exempt from CITES

Also, when asking about such things it is wise to mention the importing country. I have assumed you were talking about US dollars, although Canadian would have brought virtually the same answer

Wow, thanks a lot for the quick reply iann.

The ebay add does say (regarding the papers) "If you don’t want the documents, I don’t responsible about your customs confiscated.".

So what does it mean if I buy the paper and then my cactus gets confiscated anyway? Does it mean that the seller gives me a refund?

Oh, and I am in the US. Sorry... I should have clarified. Unfortunately it seems many of the coolest cacti are from elsewhere.

It's not the the extra $16 is a fortune, but I feel like it'll be like throwing it out unnecessarily If I don't need the thing. And that $16 could buy me one or more nice grafting stocks.

PoC · Post by **PoC** » Mon Jul 18, 2011 7:15 pm

I've bought a few cacti from pkauctiononlinethailand and it's been pretty reliable. There's the risk of customs but I've gotten some smoking deals too. Last ones I can think of were a 3-headed own-roots crested Astrophytum asterias nudum kikko and a A. asterias 'Hanazono' grafted onto this mysterious stock. He doesn't seem to speak English very well but I asked about the stock and he told me he didn't know and they call it "Japanese stock"

evelyn · Post by **evelyn** » Tue Jul 26, 2011 6:09 pm

Update: the cacti I purchased on ebay arrived yesterday from Thailand, much earlier than the date range the seller had predicted (just 12 days from purchase)! They are in great shape!!!