German's customs and the iPhone.. Tremendous..

Since I'm a person who likes to get new things as first, I often do buy these as an import or in the country where they're already out, as I really enjoy the people's looks when I get out a new gadget or something.

My newest acquisition (SHOULD BE?) an iPhone from Apple.

As I live in Berlin, Germany, I ordered the iPhone on eBay where I found a very trustful seller. 10 days later, the iPhone came my local custom office and I was going to pick it up after paying the importing taxes. When I was about to get ready to pay, a colleague of the person who dealt the case came to us and looked on the iPhone (You have should seen his greedy glance..)

He said that his son would work at Apple, and then called his son (Wasn't it forbidden to do private calls at work?). As he spoke to his son, the other colleague found out that the iPhone is not avaible in Germany. Suddenly, he asked his colleague (who was the person which served me first) to go to the back office with him. After 5 minutes of wondering (why did they have to go to the back office?) they came back and told me that they think there's an infringment of the trademark right. They said that they have to give this case to a lawyer to clear up the situation... They'd call me in 2-3 weeks (!!!). (You should know that this colleague also asked me to take away the sealing..)

I was ok with that because there was nothing I could do anyway. As I came home, I called: Apple Germany, Apple US, Apple US Export Chief, Apple Europe and several other places related to Apple. ALL of them told me that there is no reason why Apple would "prohibit" or "prevent" people from importing the iPhone to Germany. Additionaly, I checked http://apple.com/legal/export.html for the information about the export. By the way: Apple wasn't ready to provide me a short e-mail or fax where they'd write that there is no reason why a person from the E.U. shouldn't get this product.

Today, I came back to the custom office. I asked to speak directly to the management operator. The funny thing about this was that the person who "prevented" me from getting the iPhone was there again, and said that the management operator wouldn't be there and was unavaible. When I told them I'd sue them and would do a disciplinary complaint, "suddenly" he left to get the management operator... (Nice, since when do people do teleportation?).

As I talked to her and shower her the original bill, the export rules etc., she told me that she'd understand me but still couldn't do anything.

I'm disappointed. I'm really disappointed, and I still don't know what to do against this injustice.

I held the iPhone in my hands, I was close of reaching my goal.. And now.. I'm here with incertitude.