We paid for all customs duties in advance in originating country and owed no extra duties upon arrival of our household goods in Istanbul. However our Turkish moving company Ozgur International still demanded a customs deposit of 1,600 Turkish Lira. Later after months of phone calls they admitted they just needed the money as business has been slow. Is this or similar experiences typical in Turkey? How can we get the money refunded?

If the money has nothing to do with the Turkish customs, they ripped you off basically unless the items were imported as "temporarily". The company needs to send you the official customs receipt for the amount as a proof otherwise threat them to take them to court. I don't know how much it would help to get the money back but you can still try I suppose.

We have been calling Ozgur International since November, and they claim they dont have the money. After talking with other expats, EVERY Turkish moving company that an expat uses finds some way to extract far more then the agreed upon price. Do they do the same to Turkish people? For those of you moving to Turkey, plan on getting ripped off. Turkish people have explained to me that in Anatolian culture extracting more money or not paying a bill is how they do business. Other expats have said Turks are barbaric to do business with. Does this mean that you never trust a Turk? At least never use this moving company.

Turkish people are barbaric???? It is unfair to put all Turks into the same boat. I suggest you change the racist expat friends you have.

I am quoting european business people who have been ripped off doing business with Turks. If you read my post more carefully I said: "Turks are barbaric to do business with". This was stated by a web developer in Turkey who never got paid for months of work in Istanbul. There is nothing racist about that statement. I spent $10,000 moving to Turkey, I am outraged I was tricked into ANOTHER 1,600 TL. The point of these posts are to let ANYONE from whatever country or nationality know that OZGUR INTERNATIONAL and other moving companies in Turkey will find a way to charge far more then agreed upon. Has this happened to you Modaboy? If the companies only do this to foreigners, then perhaps it is them who are racist? If you know of companies that can be trusted there are many people moving to Turkey who would like to know their names. Please reply with as many as you can. Thanks.

Sorry,


Should have said racist business people you know as no matter how much you rant, you can not say all Turks are out there to rip you off.
If you disagree then I would suggest you leave Turkey.

Whoa, easy Modaboy. We can see "bssalter2" is frustrated with the moving company, and probably rightly so. Let's just not get ahead of ourselves.

I don't know if that's going to be any consolation, but we were ripped off by a British moving company, have been the victim of a major cock up by DHL and got tangled in Turkish customs red tape.

In another incident a Turkish moving company made a stupid mistake (resulting in our stuff ending up at the customs with completely wrong paperwork), which they tried to clear up by asking money from us so that they can bribe the customs people. In the event, we found another company, which cleared the customs issue (they said w/o bribes, but who knows) and even then it costed loads in customs taxes, duties and handling charges. The company that finally cleared the customs thing was "9 Ekim", you can find them online.

The truth is, customs procedures are a mess, customs issues are routinely handled via bribery (every year there is a major police operation against customs officials) and many moving companies prey upon the hapless victims.

As for the issue of whether Turks are reliable, that depends, I suppose. Just like anywhere else. However, those Turks who said "in Anatolia, rip off is the daily routine" were a bit carried away with self-flagellation.

And "love it or leave it" doesn't sound very nice, does it? Maybe we should cool it a bit?

laxula, don't feed into modaboy's bs. he does this on every forum as he truly has nothing better to do. just ignore him!