Inbound Out of Customs means your package has been released from US Customs to the US Mail Service. uu. and it is being delivered to you. if the term is outbound, that would mean the package you sent has cleared customs and is on its way to another country.
what do customs do?
what exactly happens to your package or mail while it’s in customs, what happens behind those closed doors.
In the last year, about 650 million pieces of international mail passed through customs to enter the United States, coming from foreign countries. Nearly all of this vast amount of mail is accepted in the United States through one of its five International Service Centers (ISCs). The five ISCs are located in New York, Miami, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.
International Service Centers (ISCs) distribute and forward international mail received from a designated service area to specified foreign countries or incoming offices of exchange. Each center has been recognized for its global leadership in international mail processing with an International Postal Corporation (IPC) Certificate of Excellence award. Based on a common global standard for excellence in mail processing, this award is a months-long process that involves an operational survey, pre-certification, and the actual certification process.
the ipc is an association of 24 postal operators in europe, north america and the asia-pacific region. ipc provides its members with systems and programs that ensure efficient and competitive delivery of international mail.
does the customs clearance process work?
In most cases, international mail ends up arriving at airports aboard certain incoming commercial flights. when this happens, on the ground we have something called ground controllers (here, it depends a lot on what time the mail arrives and different other factors, but these ground controllers are usually employees of the airline that delivered the mail or, in other cases, outside contractors employed by the airlines).
These people are tasked with unloading receptacles containing mail and packages from inside aircraft. then these same people take the mail and take it to these isc centers that i mentioned earlier. While all of these operations may seem trivial, they are actually very important and must be performed with a high degree of security.
employees of the us mail service. uu. they are there to check and monitor the status of these international mail receptacles. and they have to do it by completing reports that have come to be known as ramp reports. Based on these documents, anyone can find instant information about the mail, such as when it was sent, when it was scanned, and when it was assigned to a certain flight in its country of origin. Alongside this, you can also find the country you came from, the airline you arrived on, and the exact contents and number of containers that are supposed to be brought to the isc.
The mail then goes through a screening process, x-ray machines, and the like, to make sure it doesn’t present any danger to the postal workers who handle it, and ultimately to the people who receive it. it’s. this is done in secure buildings and with the utmost care. And as I’m sure you all know, no one can open your mail, that’s confidential and opening it and breaking that trust is actually a federal crime. therefore, verifying your mail does not mean verifying the actual content of that mail, but rather the technical aspects of the shipping process and the security of the packages.
then and only then does the mail enter the final phase, where it is approved for final delivery and can reach its original destination. If irregularities are found on ramp reports or envelopes, or if postal workers find that the mail is eligible to pose certain risks, this process may take longer.