UPDATE (16th May, 2013) : Nexus 4 is now officially available in India for 25999Rs

Here’s a story of how I managed to get my brand new LG nexus 4 phone in India for just 21500 INR.

Are you one of those people who are impatient enough to wait for nexus 4 to arrive in India? I was , and this is how I managed to get Nexus 4 in Bangalore for a cheap price. The price is so cheap that even if I sell my used iPhone 4, I would be in profit.

The order

Nexus 4 stock is available in US Google play store. But the catch is that when you try to access it from a non US IP address, this is what you get  :

Sorry! Devices on Google Play is not available in your country yet.
We’re working to bring devices to more countries as quickly as possible.
Please check back again soon.

What I then tried was to use a SOCKS proxy from http://www.hidemyass.com/proxy-list/.

But when I tried using a proxy, google detected it and blocked my request. But later I found that only some proxies are blocked and sometimes even Indian IP addresses are allowed. I did manage to access play store page with the help of my friend who has a server in the US.

After getting into the Play store page, you can order a phone using an International Debit / Credit card, but you will need to provide a US postal address.  I would have to provide the address of a friend living in the US.

The experiment

Instead of choosing a friend in US, what I did was a very risky experiment. I used a package forwarding service called MyUS.com. It was a service which I had never heard of. Also there is a risk of losing my phone and also of the device getting stuck at India Customs. But I was really curious to try such a service out. I had some spare cash earned from the ads on this blog, so I decided to take the risk.

I instantly opened their website and started registration (10$ registration fee). Then they provided me with a virtual postal address. Any package delivered to this postal address was supposed to be automatically forwarded to your Indian address. They allowed me to choose the shipment service like Fedex or DHL in their preferences page.

I then used my brand new  shiny US address on the play store site. During checkout the system showed estimated delivery 1-2 weeks. I ordered the 8GB variant which costs 299 $ plus local shipping. Which came to around 330 $. My debit card company charged me 18,750 INR. Two of my colleagues also ordered phones along with me. But they instead sent it to their friend in Texas.

After my order got confirmed, I could see 2 weeks sleepless gloomy nights hovering in front of my eyes. Every day I would spend some time to stare at the “My orders” page in Play store.

After countless hours spent on researching how to avoid customs duty, I decided that I upgrade to MyUS premium account (10$ more) so that I get full control on my package shipping. After upgrade I got more options in my shipping preferences and also a bigger discount on shipping.

Fast forward 4 more days , I open the play store page to see that the phone was already shipped. When I looked at the UPS tracking page it said that it had already reached Florida (thats where my virtual address was). The next day  I got an email from MYUS that my package was received.

My 2 colleagues who had ordered along with me got their phones stolen in Texas. Apparently the UPS delivery guy left it “at the patio” and the recipient never got it. But google was kind enough to refund the money for them.

The customs trick

I went to myus preferences page and redeclared the value of my phone to 100$, and then the description of the phone to “HTC nexus one”. I also marked my package as a gift and “for personal use only”. I then declared 0$ insurance. I had read that Indian customs officials will add the insurance value to the declared value to arrive at the final price of the device. Thats why , 0$. The whole experiment was a risky one, so I didnt mind taking more small risks.

The guys at myus were very helpful and they assisted me through every step of the process. Their live chat feature is awesome. I then asked them to ship the package immediately.The device got shipped the same day through Fedex International priority post to my Indian address and I got charged around  (35$) 2100 Rs for the shipment. The next few days were going to be spent on reloading fedex’s tracking page every hour.

Within 2 days of shipment, the package has arrived in Bangalore fedex (via Florida -> Minnesota->France->Dubai->Bangalore) office and then the package remained at customs for one day. I called up fedex customer care and they informed me that the customs official was on leave, and hence the delay. This was the biggest hurdle in the whole process since I had heard that customs officials open every package when they suspect that there are costly devices inside. But my experiment has worked. The device got cleared from customs and was out for delivery. A 100$ gift package marked for personal use doesn’t indeed attract customs… NICE !

The joy

The next day ( 4 working days since shipping from US) I received my brand new device. My experiment worked. I had received a brand nexus 4 device for a meagre 21.5 k Rs whereas the same phone on ebay.in was listed for more than 32k Rs, which added to my joy. Looking at the price, I had expected the hardware quality to be nothing special. But the build quality of the phoned turned out to be better than entire Samsung’s high end device lineup. The OS was so smooth ( jelly bean rocks) and my perception of iOS being faster than android changed forever. My iPhone 4 moved its location from my pocket to my backpack from then on. I was also thrilled at the fact that my phone will be eligible for official Android updates for atleast the next 4 updates, which was the main reason I bought my iPhone 4.

Since everything went well and I am thinking of ordering a few more nexus devices and sell it on ebay. Thanks for reading.

 

Checkout MYUS.com website here

Follow up article :

Will nexus 4 work in India ?

 

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