What the...?
I went to the post office today to send my best friend (in Manaus) Centrum Vitamins and few other small "gifts". However, the woman who was helping me showed me her computer which stated that it is prohibited to send vitamins to Brazil.
Has anyone ever experienced this? I was quite shocked...and disapopinted - as my friend said they're expensive there and she'd like it if I could send her some...

When my fiance crossed borders in Africa into Senegal the border patrol took his vitamins away !

I think he wanted them for himself but how do you argue starring at a gun ?! He did tell the guy he was stupid for taking them away from him.

Yup, can't send them from here.


However, my MIL/husband get antibiotics and all kinds of crap from Peru all the time and have never had issues. Weird.

yeah centrum is way overpriced in Brazil. Here you pay like $ 10 for 100 caps, in Brazil you pay like R$ 100.00, that would be like $ 54.00

It sucks, but yeah, you can't send medicine there. Can you imagine how easy would be for drug dealers to send drugs if it was possible to send pills to Brazil?

you can try sending as a gift, inside something else. If they don't open it, good. True that Centrum is way cheaper here.

But drug dealers have other way of sending pills....

I bought 130 capsules for about $7 - that was a deal. Well, I'll just carry them with me next time I go then.

Hi!

I had problems before sending body lotion and body wash to Brazil. They say that you cannot send anything liquid but the "jeitinho brasileiro" let you send anything you want.... hehehe
So I always send the lotions with other stuffs. I bring the box closed and sealed to the post office, when they ask me or when i fill out the custms declarations, I always say or fill out the form as: 3 Girls beauty suplies, 2 pictures, a letter and 1 travel purse.
the girls beauty suplies description works hehehe it always got there...


When packages are suspicious the customs officials send a letter that you received a pacakge and that should be picked up. Once the person arrives the place the show the package and make the person that you sent to open the package in front of them ... and thats it! if they see is centrum will be fine!

Just send it! will get there! don t worry!

try it!

That's what I was thinking of....but I couldn't have done it there in front of the woman at the P.O....

And there are things you can't send from Brazil abroad either....my mom tried to send me some birth control and fluconazole and the person at the post office in Brazil told her she couldn't send me that. So it's not only from the US....the other way around is just as bad!

But then again, it wasn't only vitamins...it was medicine as well. Although people can import medicine from China...so I don't get it!

Mom sent me pills, I told her to put inside a gift box, and send as a gift, I dunno what she wrote on description, but it was a small box, I think she put down bijuteria. It arrived here without any problems, it was 5 boxes of pills.

All this thing of things that you are not supposed to send, well, most times they do pass without issues, exceptions of things you really shouldn't send are glass bottles of beverages, 'cus they can break and destroy other people's mails, and if they are alcohool, there's the risk of fire as well, so those are a BIG no no.

Luis's cousin sent us home made granola and cake through the mail, from Tennessee to here in Puerto Rico, so yeah, you can just about send anything if you don't announce what it is.

Last I knew, stuff from US main to Puerto Rico didn't have to pass customs - which makes it less of an issue.

But shouldn't not industrialized food not be permitted to be mailed? To me it sounds so odd to send a cake through the mail.

My wife's mother did the same for her. Just sent them in a gift box, not sure what she put on the paperwork. No problems for us!

No. My mom sends me banana bread and muffins all the time...

Wow, I just never thought possible sending food through mail, especially internationally, since it may take weeks.

I agree Laura - but people DO do it all the time. A friend of mine is married to a Mexican guy and his family sends him food, and I've heard of many other cases...weird.

My brother in law sends non-perishables.

When my mom sends me baked goods, she wraps it up pretty tight in an airtight container, then mails in a box with other stuff. It weighs more, but she mails priority and I usually have it in under 3 days.

I can't imagine that either. Maybe from Peru it works different, if my mom were to send me that from Brazil to be here in less than 3 days, she'd have to pay a fortune, it's totally unworthy.

Nessa, I think the person who posted about the bread from mom is the USC...

The food mailing conversation was concerning domestic mail. Since Puerto Rico is part of the US and doesn't have to clear customs, I compounded on that.

As for sending from Peru, I stated that my BIL mails non-perishables.

i got it

Ok, I know I'm chiming in a bit late, but my aunt just sent a package to me from the States and it was a whopping 30 pounds full of dog chew toys, tea, pepto-bismol, brownie mix, clothes, and SHOULD have had Graham crackers, too (down where I live there are no graham crackers). Anyway, when I opened up the package, the graham crackers were missing, but everything else was there. I wasn't asked to go to the Correios or to open up the box, and there was no note on the box that said it was opened for inspection. So now, who took the graham crackers? She had just listed "snacks, toys, clothes" on the box, so there's nothing to say that graham crackers were in the box, except for the bit of Nabisco packaging that was left inside.

Are graham crackers one of those things that shouldn't be sent to Brasil, or was someone hungry at the Correios?

Are you positive they were sent?

they stole it, and there's nothing you can do about it.

Hungry hungry carteiro

I've heard of a lot of packages that get opened and things go missing to different countries, I guess Brazil is now on that list.

My mom sent me a package from NY to Bolivia back in 2000 (while I was living there) and it took 4 months to get there. She did NOT ship it by boat either. Who knows why it took so long, but everything was there still...
I think that's funny.

I guess things get lost and suddenly someone finds it and ships it on.