US only sales WHY???

Trelja,
Did I offend you? How? Probably you are just not used to how people outside the US express their ideas, that's all.

Fpeel,
I want to live in the world which offers me a choice. In the world where I don't have to pay for the false righteousness of others. Your outlook is a result of your income. If you earned as much as people normally earn in Russia and similar countries, you would reconsider your ideas. You can afford to pay to the customs, but I cannot, so I choose the second world. Luckily, there are enough open-minded audiogoners who are willing to help to their audiophile brothers whenever they live, rather than finance the customs budgets. So, business opportunities go to such people, not to "US only" crowd.

Ironmine, you have no knowledge of my income level and it is only relevant in that it is not so great that I can afford to lose money on bad deals. My position on doing business honestly comes in part from the need to protect myself from unethical people.

As a businessman dealing in both domestic and international markets I have learned to avoid buyers and sellers who exhibit certain behaviors. One of them is asking my company or me to do something shady or dishonest. Falsifying information on shipping documents fits that description. In my experience it is a strong indication that person may not be trustworthy and business with them may have undesired consequences.

There are plenty of honest buyers and sellers available, so the few that exclude themselves by their actions are inconsequential and there is certainly no sense of loss on my part. In the perfect world such people wouldn't even exist, but, alas, this is obviously not a perfect world.

I recently shipped 2 Amplifiers to France. The amps were supposedly damaged in transit but I can not get pictures or proof of the damage from anyone. I have been dealing with the french UPS and the USA UPS people and they are very unpleasant to deal with. I have been waiting for 4 weeks and still have heard nothing. I think it is a big scam.

Ripn64, I feel for you. I think some organizations are just plain unpleasant to deal with as a customer. I think slowing down the process until you at least get pictures would be a good thing.