Please share this with your friends and relatives.

Please be informed of the recent travel advisory to the United States . I thank Tarde for this piece of information. However, not only pirated VCDs/DVDs are on the hot list. Customs officials are also looking into fake bags like Louis Vuitton, Coach, etc. Please be informed that the American Association of Publishers (AAP) has also alerted the American customs officers to check out for pirated books. This information;was given to me by Patricia Judd of the AAP. Please warn all nursing graduates who plan to take the NCLEX and CGF exams in the States not to bring in these pirated books because there will be a penalty of automatic deportation as violation of intellectual property rights. If you know anyone going from the Philippines and coming back to the USA , with 'pasalubongs' and 'padalas,' please read this important enclosed advisory from the American Embassy in Manila . Please share with your friends. Just a friendly reminder: if you have plans of going to the U.S. , please take precautionary measures on all 'padalas,' especially those containing fake/pirated compact discs/DVDs. US Embassy employees have been given an advisory that as US Gov't employees, we should abide by the U.S.laws, including Intellectual Property Rights (anti-piracy) laws. As an additional incentive, the Consular Section recently received a report that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) searched the bag of a Filipino entering the U.S. on NW 72 in Detroit . During the search, 70-80 compact discs, 30-40 empty DVD jackets and 10-20 DVDs were found. Since the travelers were not American citizens, their visas were canceled and they returned to the Philippines . If they had been Americans, they could have been subject to br & gt arrest and criminal prosecution in addition to civil fines and penalties. Please remember even ONE pirated item can jeopardize your trip. Also, the fingerprinting system has successfully been instituted in all port of entries. I suggest you bring extra identification cards in addition to your passport to facilitate your entry in the US Immigration. I hope this is helpful to you.


Thanks and regards

U.S. Commercial Service American Embassy Manila Tel: +632-888-4088 ext.
5830

Fax: +632-888-6606 Public Information Project of:PIDCI Action Team headed by Isagani Puertollano

Thanks, that is good to know.....

reach449

How is Immigration going to know if the stuff is pirated? I travelled with a ton of blank CDs and CDs I made from songs I downloaded from iTunes and other places and there is no way for Immigration to know if they're pirated or not.

Diana

Immigration don't care at all, it's Customs who would be interested. If they searched your bags and found blank CDs or DVDs that they were suspicious of they would play them to see what was on them. That's how they would know.

Gillian

Same diff, I can make all kinds of CDs from my downloaded songs and DVDs which were done in a legal way and they wouldn't know the difference. Unless you bring over 100-200 of these in your bags.

Diana

Probably homemade cds and dvds are not a problem. Here in China, we can buy dvds for just over $1, and cds for about $2.50. These are new releases and have the usual images on the top side with the movie title and a picture of the movie, or the album cover, etc. I also think that as far as bags and cds and dvds are concerned, they aren't going to look twice at someone carrying a reasonable amount. I mean, if you have a purse, they aren't going to even look at it to see if it is fake. If you have a small case of cds that the average person would carry when him/her when traveling, I'd doubt they would look at it. But if you have 5 or 6 purses and 50 or so dvds, they might look twice.

I'm not saying risk it, but I'm not going to sweat it on my way home this summer. I'm going to need dvds to keep my daughter occupied for at least 30 minutes out of our 26 hours of traveling. If they confiscate them at customs, at least I will have had them for the longest leg of my trip.

Thanks!!!

This just confirmed what I was thinking. I live here in LA and I told my wife not to risk bringing anything pirated. I wasn't sure how it was in the rest of the big cities, but here it can be taken very seriously and I didn't want to risk it.


If you have one or two blank CD's with a bunch of legit stuff I don't think it would draw attention, and they don't have time to pop it in a computer to check it out, but some of these people go to great lengths to make it look like the real deal.

My wife has a few DVD's that friend's have bought her on the streets down there for a birthday gift, and they look really impressive. I can tell from the quality of the images screened on the DVD's that they are fakes. I told her to just leave them there, and we will replace them with legit DVD's here.

I gotta be honest with you. I've bought a ton of stuff on the streets in Colombia and my husband brought all of his MPE3 stuff in DVDs. I also bought Colombian movies and stuff like that on the street. We were never quetioned once and if they had I would've said the truth, their personal stuff and was bought legit. I really find it hard to see how customs is going to spend a ton of time researching if 10-20 DVDs are legit or not while they can spend that time searching other bags for drugs.

But I mean if you're bringing 100-200-300 DVDs... that should raise a flag.

Diana

For me it is mostly a personal decision because I live here, and I know people in the film industry too, so I prefer everything to be legit.

Sometimes I catch the "Pirated DVD" crackdowns on the news here, and that plays a little on me. I would agree the risk is probably one in a million/billion, but when I look at the cost of replacement vs. that risk, I would much rather buy new ones when she gets here. It really shouldn't run me more than $200 to replace everything she has so that isn't a problem.

You know, there is just always that crazy "1 in a million" chance. Since I have been the "1 in a million" on other things, I get overly cautious; and quite honestly sometimes this defect of mine really bothers me.

What, this sux. I have a collection of Dvd's and they are way more than 200 and unfortunately all of them are pirated because this is all we get in here. My fiances biggest request was to bring ton's of Dvds cuz they are so cheap here. I guess I won't be taking them any more

I mean what is the worst that customs can do.....just confuscate the Dvds right?

how did they know (costums) if the bags are fake......im just curious....i have a lots collection of louis vuitton bags and wallets its all original but i didnt know where the certification of all my bags and wallets now.ofcourse im going to bring it all with me....what if they told me that is fake coz i dont have proof,,,but i know in myself its all original coz i bought that in louis vuitton shop.....now i start be worry....

okay that is my question. my fiancée had about 20 bags. they to are not original. she is going to ship about 20 boxes from manila to our address here. the boxes wont be accompanying her they will be on a boat. all her DVDs and tapes she will be leaving with her god daughter. so she wont be coming in technically with anything but 1 suitcase of clothes. so will there be an issue with shipping her bags?

I have also bought CDs/DVDs from trips to Peru, Bolivia, Brazil....and never had a problem. BUT, I always buy only for my personal use - I'm not trying to sell them in the U.S.

I bought a "CK" watch for a few bucks - no problems there

Do people really need to be told not to bring illegal material through customs? If anyone is dumb enough to bring pirated material through customs then they are risking being sent straight back to where they come from and losing the chance of being with there loved ones. Is it really worth the risk?

Tony

There are plenty of ways to tell if a designer bag is the real thing or not. Quality, label etc. Agreeded some fakes are better than others. But for example.....almost all LV fakes have white stitching. The orginals have yellow (if I remember correctly). Gucci fakes have a different colored label on the inside than the originals. You need to know what to look for but you can tell a difference. So if your bags are the real deal don't worry about it. They'll know.

I told my fiance yesterday about the pirated dvds situation and she got really sad so I came up with the idea of mailing it to the U.S. Today I went to my local post office and D.H.L to check out the prices and they straight up told me they are not allowed to sent dvds or cd's to the U.S unless if its a Wedding movie and I was like frigggg man. This really blows

put everything on a hard drive...

This is absolutely stupid.. deported for pirated CDs. what a joke. So sad..

I already have a ton of stuff such as music on itunes from my ipod and Iphone and some of them are pirated as well as we are not able buy the orginal stuff cuz of our I.P adress from this region which is totally retarted. I am hoping I won't get in trouble for that.. Will I?

1 in a million/billion... I need to start playing the lotto.

Diana

1 in a million/billion of getting busted with fake DVD's, I thought you didn't get busted?

Ok, I have a question... why don't you guys just go into Hollywood/Blockbuster video and buy the previously rented DVD's? I went into 20/20 video last week and they have everything I need to replace from $.99- $2.99 each. I never bought a used DVD before, but in this case I am going to do it. At this price, 30 DVD's cost me $100. A hundred bucks isn't going to break me, I have piece of mind, and I don't look like Captain Jack Sparrow.

The Blockbuster by my house went out of business last week. It doesn't look good for Blockbuster stores. Netflix baby!

Diana

We bought 4 used DVDs for $20 at Hollywood.
Used DVDs are as good as new - I mean some of the used DVDs JUST came out, so they were probably only watched once.