Electronics being shipped overseas...

I've never heard of this... I'm sure it'd be all over the US news if it was in fact happening, due to of course, christmas coming up :S

 

Why don't you get it in Germany??
Your parents send you the money over paypal and you go out and buy it.

 

Don't forget to take into account duties and brokerage fees.

And no, I've never heard of such a ridiculous thing as the US government taking apart electronics and looking for stuff.

 

That is a good point. Items bought from the USA into the EU are subject to VAT (or your local purchase tax) plus a collection fee, and this must be paid before the goods are released. On computer equipment the rate is quite high. If not paid the goods are destroyed or sold to cover costs, they are not returned to the sender.

And the different supply voltage (115V in the USA, 230V in Europe) though a lot of equipment works from both. Plus the plug will be different. Wireless networks work on different frequencies too. So it may not be quite as straightforward as you're expecting.

Warranties will be a problem too, as service agents in Germany may not fix products from the USA under warranty. Warranties in the USA are often shorter than Europe too (90 days compared to a year or more). Buying a worldwide extended warranty could solve that, but it adds a good chunk to the cost.

Probably not an issue with Mac OS-X etc but some software (notably Adobe) is packaged for different regions and won't activate from an IP address in the wrong region.

So you need to look at more than just the purchase price, you need to look at the whole situation.

 

Be careful. When a friend bought me this computer, he ended up paying nearly 3x as much because of customs duty.

 

Good news is that the power supplies that Apple sends in the US are are dual voltage. I routinely use my MacBook pro power adapter in my lab that only has 208V volt power. The power supply has a removable line cord so you just need to pick up an IEC C7 - Schuko line cord.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEC_connector#C7_and_C8_connectors

 

Basically you are being asked to pay the purchase tax on the import that you would have paid had you bought one in your country. Plus fees for collecting and processing that tax.

The government want their tax no matter where the item came from!

 

Clothes are different than computers because of the electronics. I would have your parents check with the post office before they send the package. The post office should be able to tell them what kind of duties or taxes that you may have to pay. Also they may want to consider shipping it via DHL, UPS or Fed EX.

 

Any decent electronics or computer shop should be able to help you with the line cord. All kinds of electronics use the IEC C7-C8 connector, so I bet you could even one at the local equivalent of a Wal-Mart. Most people may not know that it is called a IEC C7 plug but if you show them a picture they should be able to help you out.

I could not find a C7-Schuko on Amazon, but they do have a C7-Europlug shich should work for you.
http://www.amazon.de/Stromkabel-Eur...r_1_26?ie=UTF8&s=ce-de&qid=1227055141&sr=1-26

 

US to Germany?
Hmm...I wouldn't worry that much but then I wouldn't send something as expensive as MacBook...

But then I moved from Japan to US and moved back to US to Japan but nothing was stolen... We might lost few box and never realized it tho lol

I think account duties are for brand new stuffs. So I think you'll need to pay when you actually get that Mac.

Perhaps you could get an insurance for it?