hey if we stop buying beans, then customs wont find them, and eventually stop looking for them.
Don't think that's really going to happen. If nobody really orders beans, then not only will most of the seedbanks fold, so will most of the smaller breeders!
Part of it may be better scanning equipment, but I think the biggest reason so many are being caught now is because so many more people are growing now and ordering these from abroad.
More packages coming in = more chance for interception of any one package, and then once intercepted, more likelihood for wise customs agents to recognize similar packages from the same shipper.
For this reason, as I mentioned in the other open thread on this topic, I think its pretty likely that all the customs agents already know what the Attitude packages look like. Attitude is only shipping so many ways, the packages are probably all coming from the same shipping location, and customs aren't complete idiots. With so many Attitude orders already intercepted, and so many coming through every day, they pretty much HAVE TO know by now what they look like. So I think their "stealth" probably doesn't matter so much.
The upshot of this is that if they keep seeing high interception rates, its going to hurt their business, and Attitude is either going to have to change how it ships it packages, stop offering a free re-shipment guarantee, increase its prices, or some combination of the above.
Higher prices will translate into overall fewer orders (ie fewer people who can afford them, and of the ones who are ordering, fewer beans per order). This not only hurts seedbanks, but also breeders, especially smaller less established ones.
i mean even a bean thief at customs will get sick at looking inside packages and not finding any beans. unless all the packages coming from the uk have beens in them.
Obviously the latter isn't true. Plenty of stuff comes in from the UK (plus other countries), that is perfectly legitimate.
If you think about it, any bean "thief" at customs would quickly accumulate more beans they could possibly use in a lifetime. All they'd have to do is seize 1-2 orders a month out of probably dozens or hundreds going through their facility and pretty soon they'd have a collection of dozens of packs; more than any one individual could possibly grow.
I think the "answer" to this problem from a buyer's perspective is to mix up the orders. Orders coming from countries other than England and Holland are probably a bit less suspicious. Multiple smaller packages mean more chance of at least some of them getting through. Small letter-like packages are probably the most "stealthy" in the sense that more of those probably run through customs than anything else, and they can't possibly all be hand-inspected.
I can imagine things sellers could do to tip the odds a bit more in their favor, but I think its inappropriate to post about them.