Passport number taken for bringing toooo many ciggies into the country

[rosiew]

Hi Answerbankers, i little over 4 years ago, customs stopped me at the airport and took my passport number and all my duty free fags off me. Now before you non smokers start(lol) i was not bringing them back to sell like most people do, it was for my own personal use. Does anyone know how long they keep it on the system. Im going away soon and i want to bring just a couple of hundred more than my allowance. Im worried that if i got caught again they may do something horrible. You fellow smokers will know what i mean, i dont expect non smokers to have any sympathy

[rosiew]

Good grief, this topic really got us all going didn't it. I am not thinking of bringing back 10's of thousands of ciggies, just maybe 600 over the limit between myself and mr rosie. I see people buying thousands of fags to bring back to sell, iv no intention of doing that, i bring them back so it does not cost me £55 for 200 as opposed to £16 over there. Thank you to everyone that replied and thanks also to those who were not so kind

[naomi24]

200 cigarettes cost £55 here and £16 there, so you're going to break the law and spend your journey worrying to save yourself just over £100. Clever!

[Dris]

I have it on good authority from someone who lives in the Canary Islands that he was stopped at Glasgow and asked if he knew the limits and he told him he did. He had taken slightly over the limit back as he is resident there and didnt want to pay the prices we pay (everthing is relevant) he was just asked what the weather was like and was on his way.
So the moral of the story is try your luck at a few cartons and maybe a couple of litres-more likely to get waved through then.

[maclarencat]

Why do so many people think it is OK to break the law in this way? If they were told their mother had just been robbed of £60 they would be highly incensed and want the offender caught and dealt with but because it is the country (you may moan but they do fund the nhs the schools the pensions etc etc and it is for all of us)they are stealing from they think it is OK. It is no different to benefit fraud. Is that OK too?

[Bobbisox]

we weren't breaking any law bringing them from Poland maclarencat , are they in the EU or not?

[rosiew]

For crying out loud, how can you compare robbing someone to bringing back a few extra cigs. If i was going to mainland spain i could bring back suitcases of the bloody things but im going to the canaries which i love. I work for the NHS but never moan about how little we are paid to look after whatever comes through the door. One day, cigs will stop being made and then we will see how you moan about your taxes going sky high because of the revenue they will lose from smokers.

[mike11111]

The trick is, when coming back from an EU state, is to bring in a brand which is not available in the UK and therefore unlikely to have an illicit market, which marks them out for your own consumption. There are many brands which I used to smoke half a century ago which are no longer sold in the UK but still freely available on the continent, mainly manufactured in Belgium. I prefer untipped cigarettes, common at one time but now hard to find - and - given the slow turnover - the freshness may be debatable. Whenever I go to France I fill every available space with the original Craven A cork(not filter)tipped, and have had no problem.

[Jane_32]

That's true Prudie. Thank god that us smokers never beat anyone senseless just for their ciggies. I have never mugged anyone so i can go buy a packet of fags.
Yes but many have

http://www.google.co....a=&btnG=Google+Search

And let us not forget the many hundreds of thousands that you smokers Robbed of their lives due to cancer from passive smoking...

[joko]

i love this pathetic ''poor ol' me, i'm just a poor ol' smoker who can't help meself, no-one understands the pain i suffer cos I can't get me faaags cheap...blah blah blah''....hahaha

take responsibilty for what you are doing - you know its wrong, so why try to justify it?

try it, and hope you get away with it, if not just take the consequences instead of trying to drum up pointless support!

[DocHH]

I think you should consider why they took your passport number. It would not surprise me if there is now a note on their computer system, in perpetuity, against your passport number to the effect that you have previously tried to bring more cigarettes than allowed into the Country. Once your passport is presented at Passport Control on the way in they will be alerted to this fact and that you are about to exit through Customs.
Now ask yourself if you really want to have the excess confiscated, and then add the cost of those to replacements you will have to buy in the UK. Doesn't seem cost effective to me.

[cherrychapstick]

why dont you just bring your allowance back that way if you do get stopped at least you will still have them (seems smart to me) oh and i am a smoker x

[jno]

ZebUK, I've read the replies and they say quite clearly they are NOT guidelines, they are LAWS. This is because the Canaries are not treated the same as the rest of the EU. See Buenchico's post on the first page.

[Buenchico]

Er, did somebody call for proof that the Canary Islands are regarded as 'non-EU' for customs purposes?

No problem:
http://customs.hmrc.g...tentID=HMCE_CL_001734

Chris

[Dris]

Bet rosiew is sorry she posted now -lets face it folks she was only asking a question.Now some people are being being really nasty to her (the bandwagon syndrome I call it )
Cut her some slack -we've al done something we shouldnt have its hardly a crime of mass proportion.
I would have given up after the first page rosie -have great holiday :)

[rosiew]

Thanks Dris. You are right, I did not sleep very well last night, not for thinking about bringing my cigs back next week but purely for the fact that i was hated on here. I have used this website for information and to give answers where i could but i have had 57 responses where some people have been quite nasty. At the end of the day at least i can say that i am a nice person and would always do anything for anyone who needed help. I was only trying to bring back a little more than my allowance not bring back 1000's to sell. I think this should be closed now.