Problems with buying from Japan using Buyee

[mmaseda]

I recently purchased a SE/30 grayscale neck board and harness off of Yahoo Auctions using the Buyee proxy buying service. Everything went fine until the board and harness reached the Buyee warehouse. I got an email saying they were no longer allowed to ship items with semiconductors substrates to the US. I questioned the term semiconductor substrates and was told the board had them. The board does have 3 transistors and a few diodes but I don’t consider them semiconductor substrates. To me a semiconductor substrate is something like a wafer. I asked them again about this and was told my board contained semiconductors substrates and I had 3 options. 1 Dispose of the shipment. 2 Remove the substrates and ship the rest of the items. 3 send the items to a local address. They would not allow the items to be returned to the seller. I settled for option 2 which is to remove the substrates and ship the rest of the items. I could not get them to tell me if that meant to just remove the transistors and diodes or discard the entire board and only ship the harness. The board is current in transit to the US and should be here on Tuesday. Let’s see what I receive.

Manuel

 

[Paralel]

What a strange problem. When did this new restriction begin?

 

[mmaseda]

From what I can tell it was earlier this year. Here is an email I found.


Dear Customer,

This is the Buyee Customer Support.
Thank you for using our service.

Regarding your concern, under Japan's export control regulations, certain semiconductor-related items are treated as prohibited items. These include, but are not limited to:

Semiconductor manufacturing equipment and related devices
Semiconductor substrates
Power control semiconductor devices

In practice, whether a specific item is legally exportable depends on its technical specifications, performance, and intended use. However, making such determinations requires specialized technical expertise and official verification, which we are unable to perform on an individual item basis.

Under Japanese regulations, whether such items are exportable depends on their specifications, performance, and intended use. However, as these technical distinctions require specialized knowledge and official verification, we are unable to individually assess whether each semiconductor-related item is subject to export restrictions.

For this reason, we treat semiconductor-related devices as restricted items and do not support their purchase or export, even though some products may not necessarily be prohibited under the regulations.

Thank you for your understanding and cooperation.

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any other questions or concerns.

Sincerely,
Johnson
Buyee Customer Support Team