ACA 500 plus not working

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Don't Panic. Please wash hands.
  • It is "defective hardware", so declaring a remaining value of 5,- EUR is the way to go. The Brasilian document of paid fees is probably good for returning it to you.

  • Jens,


    Here in Brazil, this process demands time and it is complicated, unfortunately....and must be done within 180 days after purchase.


    Please read this...


    In cases where goods purchased from abroad arrive in Brazilian customs territory with defects or flaws, it is important that the Brazilian company has knowledge of the procedures related to the replacement of imported goods.

    The request for replacement or repair of goods must be filed with the Federal Revenue unit that carried out the import dispatch within 90 days, counted from the date of customs clearance. There is a possibility that this period may be extended to 180 days in special cases that are duly justified before the RFB.

    The substitution of goods occurs through a process called Temporary Export. In this regime, the RFB authorizes the export of an asset, understanding that it will return to the country within a specific period, authorizing its reimportation without paying taxes. In order for the Temporary Export regime to be characterized, the substitution or repair purpose must be mentioned in the RE (Export Registry). It will also be necessary, before the goods leave the Brazilian importer, that a LI (Import License) be registered so that it is linked to the Export Registry, characterizing the operation in question.



    I think it is much easier to send as a gift....I will take the risk to pay the taxes again, but if you declare a low value when returning to me, i think it will be ok.


    What do you think?

  • What do you think?

    I think it's always better to have paperwork in line with reality. This makes answering questions much easier. I'm happy to declare "zero payment due" with the return, but we can't deviate from procedures that have been introduced because law required us to do so. This includes declaration of value: If we ship back a working ACA500plus, the declaration must be for it's full value for two reasons:


    1) the goods actually have the value, and you've made the payment back then


    2) insurance! If the parcel gets los, the insurance will sneak into all paperwork to find anything that helps them not to cover the damage. If the declaration is lower than the value of the goods, they will gladly choose the lower value. So this may backfire badly.


    I highly recommend to go with standard&lawful procedures.

  • Just for record....


    I am a huge fan of Amiga Commodore for almost 30 years. But for me it is very hard and expensive to keep this hobby. Here in Brazil, due high taxes about 60% over imported produts and the exchange that is 6 for 1, one dolar=6 Brazilian Real, turns insane those operations of buying Amiga products nowadays. In 90´s were much easier, people that lives in USA, must remember the Software Hut company. I bought several Amiga items from softwate Hut at that time. Good times. Cheaper and easier to acquire than today. Thanks to Icomp and other few companies, Amiga is still alive. I own a lot of Icomp products, but hardware failure is not an option to me, costs me a lot of money.. So, every day I cross my fingers to not have this kind of problem. That´s why my concern about new Amiga products. Fortunately Icomp manufactures good products, but failures can occur. It is inevitable. But even with all care I dedicate for keeping away from hardware failures, unfortunately they still can happen. As what happened with the ACA500 plus.

    I have a dedicated space for my Amigas.....Use Panamax power conditioner to keep constant and controlled voltage of 120V 60HZ and use them almost every day.....That´s it.


    Thank you for your time

    Francisco Jr

  • Sorry, but that's a plain lie. There is literally *always* somebody available to accept a parcel.


    We have video surveillance for the front area of the house - there was no attempted delivery yesterday between 10:40 and 10:45.

  • Item summary

    RR042581765BR BRAZIL GERMANY On route

    Activity summary

    19/01/2021 10:01 Posting/Collection BRPR095
    21/01/2021 00:16 Arrival at outward office of exchange SAO PAULO
    26/01/2021 11:24 Departure from outward office of exchange SAO PAULO
    28/01/2021 17:55 Arrival at inward office of exchange FRANKFURT/M
    28/01/2021 17:55 Held by customs FRANKFURT/M
    02/02/2021 11:54 Arrival at inward office of exchange FRANKFURT/M
    02/02/2021 11:54 Departure from inward office of exchange FRANKFURT/M
    02/02/2021 11:54 Unsuccessful delivery IPZ Frankfurt Payment of charges/Item being held, addressee being notified
    02/02/2021 12:14 Arrival at inward office of exchange FRANKFURT/M
    02/02/2021 12:14 Held by customs FRANKFURT/M
    02/02/2021 20:33 Departure from inward office of exchange FRANKFURT/M
    03/02/2021 10:43 Unsuccessful delivery 745036737300 Addressee not available at time of delivery/Attempted delivery today
  • Only the sender can start an investigation. However, this looks like it's still held in customs somewhere, maybe we're getting a letter about this at some point. Wouldn't be the first time if tracking says that it's out for delivery, but in reality it's being held and handled by customs all the time.

  • Customs fun! With a little bit of extra Covid-19 sweetness.


    Customs held the parcel, and sent a letter with Deutsche Post to tell me that the parcel must be picked up within 7 calendar days. The letter was dated February 8th, and arrived on February 12th - last Friday after customs phone hours were already over. So I called them yesterday, hoping I could keep someone from sending the parcel back to Brazil.


    No answer all day yesterday.


    I called again today, and luckily, got a nice lady on the phone who was more than willing to help. She fished the parcel out of the pile of to-be-returned parcels (which was about to be picked up) and now holds it longer than they actually have to.


    The Covid-19 part is "good and bad": The bad part is that Deutsche Post is using Covid-19 as a general excuse to save money and don't deliver mail in time. The delayed letter resulted in this parcel almost getting sent back to Brazil, and Deutsche Post does not feel responsible for it.


    The good part is that customs are now offering a mail-in process for declaration, so I do the paperwork remotely, then send them a waybill, so they can send the parcel. This saves me a buttload of time, as driving to the customs office is about 2.5 hours round-trip. Happy to pay the shipping within Germany instead.


    I'll keep you posted.

  • This is what will be returned. The original package , the invoice, the aca500plus and the DIT

    Thanks for including this picture - it helps finding the correct invoices. You're including the invoice from December, yet sending back the unit that you've bought a month earlier. Since I am sending all our shipping documentation to the customs office - including the delivery note with pictures of the unit and the exported parcel - my numbers wouldn't have matched with what's in the parcel. Now I had the chance to send the correct outgoing invoice RG19-3860. We have all chances that this passes without further problems.

  • The last reply was more than 365 days ago, this thread is most likely obsolete. It is recommended to create a new thread instead.