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Comment by flak48 | Hacker News Reader

Reminds me of the time I ordered a $5 nano drone from AliExpress, and after 2 months Indian customs sent me a very threatening ‘show cause’ notice demanding I pay $50 as a fine and appear before the customs officer or whoever to explain why I should not be prosecuted for the illegal importation of illegal goods (no drone with the letter of course). I opted to ignore the matter

I remembered growing up with a the children of a customs officer. Every now and then he would show up with boxes of confiscated pirated movie / game days discs, asking us to pick what we wanted before he was going to return the rest of lot to presumably be ‘destroyed’.

So I’m reasonably sure some some customs officer’s kid ended up enjoying the $5 drone I ordered. The circle of life I guess?

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> I remembered growing up with a the children of a customs officer. Every now and then he would show up with boxes of confiscated pirated movie / game days discs, asking us to pick what we wanted before he was going to return the rest of lot to presumably be ‘destroyed’.

At this point I'm pretty convinced a lot of Indian institutions are just cargo culting things they saw in the west. [0]

Can you imagine how better and more productive Indian society would be if some of these bureaucracies were just abolished? Superpower by 2030?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult

You linking to a definition of cargo cult (which everyone already knows) does nothing to substantiate your notion that Indians are merely cargo culting the west by having customs officers.

> everyone already knows

https://xkcd.com/1053/

2016-18 i think i ordered a bunch of crap from aliexpress just because it was possible and i got really good experience with refunds for no delivery and such. i bought tonnes of garbage but it was a nice experience.

then the banhammer dropped and i haven't touched it since. are we still able to buy from aliexpress today?

edit: just to see if i could, i have bought plastic hooks worth 6 INR from aliexpress. they got delivered. mind=blown

How were you able to buy the Hooks? To me the aliexpress site show “not delivering to india” for any item I pick. Any workaround?

I guess op meant before the Indian Chinese border conflict.

I guess it's not possible from india now.

I too bought a good winter jacket for 1600 still great after 5 yeats

i have literally written 2016-18 so... yeah.

> i have literally written 2016-18 so... yeah.

the thing that makes it confusing is that first you mention 2016-2018. Then you say you wonder if it is possible to order from AliExpress still. Then you add an edit saying just to see if you could you placed an order.

That's why it's easy to read your edit as saying that you placed an order today. Which then gets confusing when you say they got delivered :p

wait when did you order it and when did it arrive oO. Your comment reads as if you ordered it one hour ago and it arrived within minutes lol

always around 30 days-ish. sometimes 50 days

No, you can't order from India anymore and sadly there is no alternative.

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