Charged over £14 for a custom charge ?

[Random Shout]

I have ordered from America before and never been charged extra for a custom charge, I ordered a CD and T-shirt from an official band website but this time, they are charging me over £14 just to get the parcel ! I did not notice anything on the website that there was going to be an extra charge, I had already paid for the shipping which was almost $14 (like always). Since when did the Royal Mail started to do this ?

[truman]

You have to pay VAT and Duty on imports over a certain amount...it's not the RM charging you but Customs and Excise (or whatever they're called today)..RM may well have paid it for you but will want re-imbursing..

[kermit103]

Maybe it was luck that your other orders got through without customs charge, It is not Royal Mail it is HM Customs

[cgksheff]

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/customs/post/internet.htm

 

http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsPortalWebApp/channelsPortalWebApp.portal?_nfpb=true&propertyType=document&_pageLabel=pageTravel_ShowContent&id=HMCE_CL_000014#P18_1591

 

I think that the limit did change on 1st January.

Edited February 20, 2013 by cgksheff

[geared]

Royal mail and other couriers whack their own charge on top, to make abit of money out of you.

 

I've been in a similar spot, where the customs charges were a couple of quid and the courier 'fee' was a tenner

[Random Shout]

Yes, I now understand that it's HM customs that have charged me and not Royal Mail. I have ordered at least 10 times to America before and never been charged this is what I can't understand they must be getting super strict with custom charge now days.

 

Yeah I'm guessing then I must have been very lucky before then.

[Resident]

RM will be charging you. Look at the document they sent you. I bet there's a "handling" charge. That has nothing to do with HM Customs. That's RM's greed.

[Happ Hazzard]

A lot of people will put "gift" on the customs label which means you don't have to pay import duty.

[Guest]

I have ordered from America before and never been charged extra for a custom charge, I ordered a CD and T-shirt from an official band website but this time, they are charging me over £14 just to get the parcel ! I did not notice anything on the website that there was going to be an extra charge, I had already paid for the shipping which was almost $14 (like always). Since when did the Royal Mail started to do this ?

£8 of that is a Royal Mail handling fee.

 

If your parcel's value (including postage) is over £15, you stand a chance of being hit with import VAT. If the value is over £135, you can add customs duty to that. You've been lucky not to have had a parcel hit by customs before; not all parcels are examined, but they do seem to be cracking down a bit of late.

 

The change to the regs in January was that the value for 'gifts' was reduced from £40 to £36.

 

Good luck getting a non-shady shop to mark a purchase as a gift. Most say they won't in their T&Cs.

[AdamSmith]

always get the shipper to mark it as "samples no commercial value" on the box / packet, ask them to supply a nominal invoice with $5.00 on it with the package.

no duty or vat will be charged.