Paying customs dues at port

[FigmentSpark]

It does seem odd that US Customs would get a copy of your bill, as many people would have gone over their limits with tips, excursions and other 'little' things. I wonder if you were flagged randomly, then flagged again because you'd been flagged once?

Also, I would think that most "major" purchases would have been made in ports, which would not be reflected on the DCL bill.

 

[chrisnb]

They only had the bill 1 time , and after we were flagged it took a few minutes for someone to escort us, so maybe they printed in that time.
we were escorted in 2015 wife and I
2016 we had 2 kids with us just walked off total bill was around 5k
2017 we had kids escorted total bill around 5K
so maybe just random and i got lucky twice?