Buying Overseas + CITES + Warranty

[kasperbauer]

Hi,

Is there s a definitive answer to the following questions:
1. For those of us not in the USA, but in a country that stocks new Ernie Ball music man guitars do/should they come with a CITES certificate?To Quote from the Fender website: "Any transportation or shipment of an instrument(s) for commercial purposes with any amount of rosewood requires a CITES Export Certificate issued by USFW, and possibly a CITES Import Permit required by the country to which you are seeking to transport or ship to". This could be an issue for those of us who move between non U.S. countries...

2. If an overseas dealer is selling display (shop floor) models with the title, "display model, no guarantee or return" would that invalidate the Ernie Ball Music man warranty online? To be honest, once the cost of shipping was taken into account, I think few if any guitarists would ship across the Pacific or Atlantic Ocean, but it would be good to know.


Any insights would be greatly appreciated!

Cheers,

kasperbauer

 

[DrKev]

Hi Kasper,

I'm not an EBMM employee, and I'm working from memory here, but as I understand things, the short answer to both questions is that it depends on the countries involved.

1) Travelling with instruments for personal use you do not require a CITES certificate when corssing international borders provided the total weigh of the restricted species concerned is less than 10kg. That would be nearly a dozen guitars with rosewood fretboards.

However, ANY sale of an instrument (whether wholesale, retail, or a private sale between two people) where that instrument crosses a customs border, whether by hand or by mail, will require CITES documentation of some form.

Whether or not export/re-export and import certificates are required will depend on the countries involved but in general assume that they will both be required. That means the seller and buyer must research what is required in both countries, who of the seller or buyer are responsible for ensuring the documentation is correct, and come to an agreement amongst themselves of how to deal with any associated additional costs.

2) Warranties are covered by the laws of the country the seller is in.

e.g. in France, ALL goods (even used goods) sold by a professional seller have a two year warranty. It's built into French law. In EU law more generally, all NEW goods, even floor models, have a legal minimum two year warranty, though each country is free to do more than that if they wish (England and Wales, it's 6 years). That warranty is with the SELLER, so if you have any warranty issues it is the seller's responsibility to fix it.

e.g. If you buy online from Thomann in Germany, any warranty issues must be dealt with by Thomann (and not any other store, or EBMM, or any of their distributors) even if you live in Portugal or Finland.

However, those laws obviously will not apply to sellers outside the EU. You really need to check out what the local regulations are for the seller in question.

e.g. If somebody in Europe buys from a US seller, the US laws apply. In general that means you must return the instrument to the seller, or EBMM if they so agree, often at your own cost if there are any warranty issues. This is a VERY important point for anybody wishing to buy a instrument from the US and ship to their own country. Also note that EBMM dealers are not generally allowed to sell new instruments outside of their country as a condition of their contract with EBMM (same applies to many other brands, though shipping within the EU is possible subject to what I wrote above).

So, whether the warranty still applies to floor models, as I said, in some countries that may be the case, in others it will not be.

 

[kasperbauer]

Thanks for the feedback! The aspect which I hope can be addressed by EBMM is whether they are providing the export certificate to the overseas dealers. There must surely be a policy in place, and, if not it would surely ensure there weren't issues later on. I did try contacting EBMM a few days ago, but no reply as of yet, also seems they are not accepting Yahoo as an email source for this forum (so mayeb they never saw the message direct to them). I am serioulsy considering purchasing a EBMM, but the CITES issue concerns me, because of the potential for moves between countries. Cheers, Kasperbauer

 

[beej]

I think you're best to contact them directly. All we can do is speculate.

If your email is being flagged as spam, which it might be, I would consider calling them directly.