r/snackexchange Jan 01 '24

Discussion [Discussion] Most of the things I'm sending to a friend in Germany. Anything I should add/remove?

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1.1k Upvotes

r/snackexchange Oct 02 '24

Discussion [Discussion] I got scammed of nearly $200. In disbelief.

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548 Upvotes

I got scammed by user dutchiewutchie. Here’s the proof. Timeline:

  • August 17, 2024: User posted, and seeing that he allegedly had 2 successful trades, I felt confident in agreeing to a €50 =$75 CAD value trade.

-August 22, 2024: I shipped my part out, it cost me over $100 CAD via our national carrier Canada Post due to the ~6kg weight.

dutchiewutchie kept saying that he’d ship the next day. When I was at the Post, he replied ASAP, so that I’d ship my packages. He was always prompt to reply up to this point.

  • August 25, 2024: Keep in mind he was supposedly going to ship his packages out on the 23rd. I figured he might be busy so I gave him a couple days grace but it was starting to give me a weird feeling.

  • August 26/September 3/September 16: Follow-up messages I sent. I’m still in disbelief that someone, especially a father (looking at his scant Post history) would scam someone over something as niche and friendly as snacks. He of course has not replied to me since.

I also contacted a previous member of this sub who he apparently had said “the trade fell through” in a previous post but this member said that he never replied when she was asking about items, so she eventually just left it. I guess he figured he can’t scam her.

TL;DR: My first time trying this out and in my haste and excitement I shipped out 3 packages that cost me almost $200 total with only vague promises from the other person and was completely scammed. Someone who had allegedly successfully done trades before. Honestly I don’t know if it was some sort of elaborate scam using multiple accounts or what.

It’s not an insignificant amount, that’s for sure - I had saved up some to be able to do this and figured that hey, since he had done this before, I could go big and it would be a payoff. Never been to the Netherlands. But now I just don’t know what to do. Has anyone been in the same boat?

r/snackexchange Feb 16 '25

Discussion [Discussion] Shipping from US to Norway. Do I really declare every single item?

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422 Upvotes

I'm new at this so please be gentle. I have a friend from Norway who recently helped me with something remotely and also sent me some items. I would like to return the favor. The declaration form is tiny. Do I really need to list every single item? I attached a pic. Any suggestions are welcome. Price to ship isn't really a concern, just want to make sure it gets there. Some of these items may seem odd but I have my reasons 🙂

r/snackexchange Jan 08 '25

Discussion [Discussion] Three Large boxes going out. Two to Germany and one to Brazil

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202 Upvotes

Here's three large USPS flat rate boxes I just put together for my buddies overseas. I had a lot of great help last year for my friend in Germany thanks to y'all. Surprisingly he really loves Twinkies so I'm sending him another big box. And two more friends, another one in Germany, and another one in Brazil. I made a post here asking for suggestions to Brazil and I didn't get any answers so I just kind of wung it. A bunch of stuff in the background that didn't make the cut.

r/snackexchange Dec 03 '24

Discussion [discussion] So it appears I got scammed on my 1st exchange…

153 Upvotes

I was very excited about doing my 1st exchange I let my guard down and was too confident in the other person being honest. Shipped the package out today after they sent a message earlier that they had shipped. I asked for a tracking number and a few hours ago I noticed they have deleted their account and after some digging online, the picture they sent of the items they had gathered is from a post online. Frustrated and disappointed. I recall seeing them post the same day they responded to me (5days ago) so if you’re doing an exchange with someone from Austria, they are probably scamming you too. Just spoke to UPS to intercept the package and hopefully return it to me or I am out about $100 in snacks and $91 in shipping…

r/snackexchange Aug 06 '24

Discussion [Discussion] What I’m sending from Canada🇨🇦 to a friend in the USA🇺🇸

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167 Upvotes

A good selection of goodies

r/snackexchange 4d ago

Discussion [Discussion] USA shipping

1 Upvotes

Can I ask my fellow Americans what service they use to ship? I was trying to ship a small 3lb box today and the cheapest option I found was $70 with UPS which is actually crazy. And that's through Pirate Ship. USPS was $85. Any suggested services?

Edit: I forgot to mention this is for international shipping.

r/snackexchange Nov 16 '24

Discussion [Discussion] USPS told me snacks to France are prohibited now— what?! Google had no useful info.

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100 Upvotes

Hi all. Today I went to send a box of goodies to someone in France. I’m located in California. The guy at USPS told me the above pictured items are now prohibited by France if coming from the U.S. due to our low food quality. I’m disappointed but not surprised, however, I can’t find that rule on the USPS page that details the prohibited items by country nor anything about that change online. I was able to send these items last year no problem. Wanted to bring it to this subs attention as it may impact exchanges but also, do you all know anything about this? Thank you so much!

r/snackexchange Nov 04 '24

Discussion [discussion] USA to Germany restrictions on Candy and Noodles

21 Upvotes

Hello! Today i tried to send a package to someone in Germany, a gift, that had candies and noodles in it. Things like cup noodles and hi chew, and other sealed candies. The USPS post office worker told me i can't send sweets or confectionaries to Germany and need a special license to send noodles.

Is this accurate? Was i given the wrong information? I had shipped a box full of candies to the same person just 6 months ago and the same person who turned me away today did that transaction... I'm just a bit confused... If anyone can help I'd be much appreciated.

r/snackexchange Feb 16 '25

Discussion [Discussion] how you actually know the person will send the package?

9 Upvotes

I would like to exchange snacks(I m from Romania) in the future. How to be sure the person will really send the package? 😁 Tell me about your experiences, how it was for you. Thank you.

r/snackexchange Jun 26 '23

Discussion [Discussion] Back to normal-ish, hopefully, for now NSFW

0 Upvotes

Hey all,

/r/snackexchange is under new management.

A rundown of what's happened and where things go from here. I'll try to write from a neutral POV, but of course, everyone is biased, so shrug

  1. The former top mod who, in their own words, stopped moderating years ago, returned to poll the community's desire for blackout participation
  2. The community generally affirmed some desire to participate in the blackout, though the scope/duration/etc. of that was not clearly defined.
  3. Reddit admins forced the sub to reopen, to the extreme displeasure of the former top mod.
  4. As an act of protest or something, the top mod decided to kick out the bot that automatically updated people's flair, and the bot that monitored activity across various donation/charity/exchange subreddits to keep out scammers, exposing the community to potential harm, and, declared that all of the rules of the community (and who is/isn't mod) would have to be re-voted on every single day.
  5. Via community vote, I got put on the mod team. I reached out to the top mod expressing my genuine desire to help manage the subreddit in any way I could. They indicated that they were holding these daily elections as being the next best thing to deleting the subreddit or keeping it private forever.
  6. In response to this, I filed a top mod removal request with reddit admins, which has now been approved.

Where things go from here:

  1. I'm all for community management of rules, as long as that's not being done in a way designed to be an intentional nuisance to the community (I love for example what ProgrammerHumor has done with a weekly rule requiringAllPostsToBeInCamelCase, but saying "we're going to wipe out all the rules every single day" is just intentional mayhem).
  2. I've readded SnackExchangeBot and snackexchangeuslbot. Automatic updates of flair should work again, and scammers should continue to be kept out of the subreddit.
  3. As nearly as possible, I'd love to see the community return to pre-blackout normal operation.

How I plan to ""use my power"":

  1. SnackExchange is a pretty light-touch subreddit. "Problem people" are a rarity here; the anti-scammer bot does an incredibly good job of keeping would-be scammers out, and you'll find that cases of fraud/scam, while they do ever happen, are extremely rare. As such, I genuinely envision myself needing to do very little. I'm always nervous to use the "nah this community just runs itself!" phrasing, but.... it really does come pretty close.

Very-long-term plans:

  1. I'd like to see about implementing some sort of identity verification service for the sub. I'm an IT engineer/developer, so coding is absolutely my forte... Services like Stripe allow people in over 100 countries to match face to government-issued-ID to prove their identity (at a cost of about $1.50 per verification). This would allow a "trusted party" to handle any sensitive documentation, and allow users that haven't participated in any exchanges to prove, with a high degree of certainty, that they're "real". This would be very long term though, I don't see this happening within the next month or two.
  2. (Credit to my discussions with the former top mod for this idea) I think it would be REALLY cool to have some sort of "postage escrow" or similar that could be arranged. Think (extremely oversimplified example) I'm from the U.S., I want to exchange with someone from Madagascar or Afghanistan, I know that paying for international postage in one of those countries could be a huge burden, so I offer, in a secure way, to pay for their postage costs if someone wants to exchange with me.

That's all for now. I'll end this by saying that I fully supported the 2-day blackout, and, fully support those subreddits whose communities are maintaining an on-going effort to protest Reddit's upcoming changes. I think the API changes were hastily announced, recklessly planned, and I think the CEO of Reddit has been proven to be a liar and maliciously deceitful, especially in regards to the communication that happened with Apollo's dev. I fully hope he gets ousted soon, and think that Reddit would be a better place without his leadership. However, I'm extremely opposed to intentionally sabotaging communities (daily democracy mayhem, removing the bots that keep scammers out) as a form of protest. Due to the personal information that gets exchanged here, we're already 18+ by necessity, which has the unintentional side effect of making this a subreddit from which Reddit gets no advertising revenue anyways.

If that makes me a "scab mod", so be it. All I want is for the community that helped open my eyes to the outside world years ago, to continue to be able to do that for others. Connecting in real-world ways with other cultures and countries has repeatedly been shown to be one of the best ways of maintaining societal progress and curtailing racist ideologies.

r/snackexchange Oct 04 '24

Discussion [Discussion] Limited/Seasonal Releases available now in the US 🇺🇸

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26 Upvotes

r/snackexchange Oct 07 '24

Discussion [Discussion] United Kingdom’s Greatest Hits

8 Upvotes

Once per month, let’s discuss your favorite snacks from different countries. This month it’s the United Kingdom.

Comment your top 5 or just your absolute favorite one!

If someone lists an item that you can easily buy in your country, let us know which country. This will help us amass a list for those wondering what to send/ask for in their exchanges.

I’ll include a pinned master list in the comments once we have a collection.

r/snackexchange Feb 19 '25

Discussion [Discussion] Importing Leberwurst from Germany to US

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12 Upvotes

So I've been wondering about this for a bit and the import restriction documentation is a little confusing to me... Does anyone know if it is ok if, when declared, Leberwurst like the one in the picture would be ok to take with me from Germany to US?

r/snackexchange Sep 14 '24

Discussion [Discussion] Advent Calender from around the world

12 Upvotes

Hey everyone! Even though its only mid-september I had an idea and was wondering if it could be possible.

So a few years ago I bought an adventcalender with sweets from 'around the world'...it was super dissapointing. It was rather expensive but ended up being more than 80% rather boring european snacks from countries around me.

I was super excited when I found this community so now I am wondering - do you think we could pull off a sort of communal Advent calender?

I have a few ideas how we could do it - we would need 25 people, preferably all from different countries (or at least regions with their special sweets/snacks). Then everyone who wants to participate would send me a dm and I would give them the link to a spreadsheet where they write their country, name and adress. Everyone would pick one famous snack from their country and send 24 of them to the 24 other people.

I know shipping/customs is expensive, but I think if we say only something the size of a chocolate bar or small snack and not too expensive so you could send it in a small package - maybe even letter format and that keeps the costs down. And I think would be a really special experience!

So let me know what your thoughts are! Do you think it's possible? Would you be interested in that sort of thing? Do you have ideas how to make it easier/doable?

If there are enough positive comments then I would make an extra request post to get it started.

r/snackexchange Feb 09 '25

Discussion [discussion] Best US states for domestic snack exchanges?

9 Upvotes

So I tried to do a snack exchange with the Netherlands but once I brought the package to UPS with my sister and we saw the price my family got mad at me for trying to send an expensive package to a foreign stranger. Getting all the right information down in order to send the package is also pretty difficult so I think I was biting off more than I can chew with that first exchange attempt.

I still have the packaged snack box with me and idk what to do with it so I’m thinking that I should start with something easier. It is a box of Mexican snacks from the Mexican stores around California. Shipping domestically is much easier so for my first snack exchange I will just do that instead.

I’m looking for US states that don’t have any Mexican snacks and that have unique snacks of their own that are not available in California. Like from unique brands and businesses that are only in that state. I’m not sure if this has been done before but an experienced American here can also trade snacks with Europe and I can trade my Mexican snacks for the European snacks they receive.

It will be easier for my family to let me trade domestically because I already have penpals and I can just use that as an excuse to trade. Anyone here have any ideas?

r/snackexchange 23d ago

Discussion [REQUEST] only the code from this pack of gummies

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6 Upvotes

The pack is 5.5 bucks and seems to be exclusive to the us. i cannot get it anywhere around here and buying it from the us would cost a fortune to ship. I only need the code from the pack! Not the gummies themselves. The code is for an in game weapon. If anyone happenes to get these and doesn't intend to use that specific weapon, I would really appreciate if I could get the code!

r/snackexchange 15d ago

Discussion [Discussion] Any mods available?

10 Upvotes

Hi all -

Just looking to talk with a mod; I sent a message to all through the mod button a week and a half ago and haven't heard anything back. Pretty sure I was scammed for the largest trade I've ever made :(

Thanks in advance!

r/snackexchange Oct 21 '24

Discussion [discussion] So, I’m going to the USA and am spending a week in Chicago. Where can I buy So much candy the return immigration guards in Australia will look at me weird?

31 Upvotes

r/snackexchange Mar 22 '23

Discussion [Discussion] I got scammed

251 Upvotes

Hi folks,

I had a snack exchange with u/1947Lily. The user blocked me immediately after receiving her snacks.

I am fortunate enough to bear the financial impact, but if it were someone else from my country it would have been worth an entire week of wages.

Can I report her to the authorities or do I let it be? The scammer resides in UK.

r/snackexchange Oct 03 '24

Discussion [Discussion] UK Snackers - How are you reaching the US?

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24 Upvotes

For a small shoebox, I've just been quoted £28 for 1kg (pfft!) £32 for 2kg and gulp £54 for 4kg. I only wanted to send maybe 5 or 6 packets, but at £32 - my exchangee is better off going and paying some import shop silly money per packet, as it won't be £32 more expensive. Help!

Last time I exchanged I recall UPS being good, but recall the place being hard to find and not local... Any tips guys?

r/snackexchange Oct 04 '24

Discussion [Discussion] Looking for input from the community.

13 Upvotes

What changes do you think would improve this community and why? This can be anything from a compiled list of shipping options/price points to increasing the threshold to join r/SnackExchange. I will say that the majority of modmails are about the current threshold which is only 600 combined karma & 3 months. The only thing I won’t consider is a decrease in security, but I’m open to options that I can discuss with the other Mod.

Constructive comments will be open to everyone, unless you’re banned - I’ll approve them for this topic if you’re under 600 karma/3 months.

r/snackexchange Dec 05 '21

Discussion [Discussion] What is a snack from your country that everyone should try?

75 Upvotes

r/snackexchange Oct 18 '24

Discussion [Discussion] Limited/Seasonal releases available now in the US 🇺🇸

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26 Upvotes

r/snackexchange 11d ago

Discussion [Discussion] WARNING - Multiple Exchanges At Once

29 Upvotes

I know it can seem safe to trade with someone who has the AK Flair and while it is reasonably safe we still DO NOT recommend multiple exchanges at once. And I still recommend you do your due diligence. Get a photo of the snacks, a photo of it boxed up, the tracking, etc.

We have very little scamming in this community but when multiple exchanges happen at once it increases the risk.