Gripes and hassles (not blad)

- Never Stop Dreaming -

I wished the gripes that I am experiencing are from a Hasselblad and not from just hassles. Apparently I took advantage of the strengthening Yen to do some online shopping and have some stuffs shipped over from US. And of course when these items arrive here in Japan, I am subjected to a certain Consumption Tax, which of course like the GST in SG, I am perfectly fine with it.

But before this strange ordeal (Edison Chen's famous quote), I really had no idea about how the whole Japanese Consumption Tax thing worked, much like I had absolutely no idea how the SG GST works as well. So far the story goes that I ran into some rather unexpected and unfortunate issues with the new items that I got from US. Might be a manufacturer's defect, might be something else but I DON'T know. Thru e-mail correspondences, I am granted an exchange for the product which to my utter horror before I mailed it out, have certain dubious Consumption Tax attached to it. T

From what I could dig from both the guys at the local post office and thru phone conversations with the girl at the sub-customs branch, it was clear that when an item FIRST comes into Japan, I will be levied the CONSUMPTION TAX which of course I had to pay to receive the item. But in the event of an exchange, I had to first get the item with the necessary invoices to a "nearby" office some 2 hour drive from my place, filled up some forms, produce my bank book and personal identification and wait an indefinite 3 weeks or more to have the paid tax refunded. Then when the replacement item of the exact nature be it size, length, weight, manufacturer's orgin, material, etc arrives, the VERY SAME CONSUMPTION TAX which I had paid, then get it refunded while waiting for it to be cleared, will be ONCE AGAIN levied on the replacement item and I have to pay it AGAIN before I can get the item.

Now, that's quite a lot of work, a lot of hassle, a lot of time, energy, man hours, man power WASTED to do the same thing over again! The policy is simply, stupid and ridiculous and basically ridicule the basis of productivity and efficiency. I am so sorry that you poor Japanese folks work longer than anyone else in the work but only to produce the same or sometimes less than everyone else.

Why the hell do I have to pay the same tax 2 times which I had to go thru the entire process to get the tax paid the first time refunded when we are clearly refering to the same item from the same manufacturer from the same shop? The documents the invoices the receits are all there...so I don't see any problem there. Anyway, I see it as a huge joke in the policy that they are using, even the girl at the sub-customs branch who spoke to me agreed that it's a hassle and very troublesome. It's no surprise that robots wasn't a part of them, it literally IS them since they do things without questioning, they just do it because they have to.