Charged over £14 for a custom charge ?

[onewheeldave]

Making a false customs declaration is shady, regardless of whether they approve of the charges or not. I've imported various things from the states and in one cases the US company (which clearly did a lot of exports) had a very prominent page explaining customs and courier charges and giving examples which made if simple for the customer to work out if the overall cost was worth it (for some low value items it just isn't). That's a more ethical way of dealing with it than falsely declaring commercial exports as gifts.

 

That's not possible- the only way you're going to find out what the UK customs charge on a given item, is to order it and see what they charge

 

It's a lottery- sometimes an item gets no charge, other times the same item gets a charge.

 

Now the UK couriers, and, by the sounds of it 'royal'mail too, have got in on the act and charge to escort your item through customs, it's even more of a shoddy lottery.

 

If it were possible to know exactly what charges an item from the US would incur, without several hours research on various obscure customs/courier/royal mail sites (info on which is generally far from easy to find, and, often innacurrate) then they would be no problem.

 

---------- Post added 21-02-2013 at 19:38 ----------

 

Making a false customs declaration is shady, regardless of whether they approve of the charges or not.

 

That's your opinion. Personally, I don't consider it shady. I do consider couriers holding peoples item for ransom to be shady though.

 

Incidently- this did happen to me in the days before I stopped ordering items from the US due to being fedup with getting ripped off by the couriers/customs.

 

After a few phone calls, I established that the courier company had no right to hold items hostage, and, that by paying the customs charge only, i could receive the item, and the couriers would have to bill me for it later on.

 

This suggests that customers can demand to have their item delievered (as long as they're paid the customs fee) and, perhaps simply refuse to pay the courier component?

 

Obviously, if these charges have any basis in law, the customer would be open to getting solicitors letters/court case- however, having watched what's been happening lately with private parking companies and their fake invoices/fake solicitors letters, I wonder if the courier companies threats might be equally unfounded in actual law?

 

If someone decides to test this out, please do post the result.

[andygardener]

That's not possible- the only way you're going to find out what the UK customs charge on a given item, is to order it and see what they charge

 

It's a lottery- sometimes an item gets no charge, other times the same item gets a charge.

 

Now the UK couriers, and, by the sounds of it 'royal'mail too, have got in on the act and charge to escort your item through customs, it's even more of a shoddy lottery.

 

If it were possible to know exactly what charges an item from the US would incur, without several hours research on various obscure customs/courier/royal mail sites (info on which is generally far from easy to find, and, often innacurrate) then they would be no problem.

 

The only lottery is that customs declarations are manually written out so the system isn't automated (hence the couriers who operate it need to charge a fee as it's time consuming) so many items that should have duty payable get missed. Compaining about not being charged every time seems a little churlish. It would be hard for anyone to find out from the thousands of import duty rates what every given product from any given country will cost. It is not hard however for an exporter to find out what their products will be charged at to their main export markets and put it on their site, as the company i dealt with had done.

 

That's your opinion. Personally, I don't consider it shady. I do consider couriers holding peoples item for ransom to be shady though.

 

Incidently- this did happen to me in the days before I stopped ordering items from the US due to being fedup with getting ripped off by the couriers/customs.

 

After a few phone calls, I established that the courier company had no right to hold items hostage, and, that by paying the customs charge only, i could receive the item, and the couriers would have to bill me for it later on.

 

This suggests that customers can demand to have their item delievered (as long as they're paid the customs fee) and, perhaps simply refuse to pay the courier component?

 

Obviously, if these charges have any basis in law, the customer would be open to getting solicitors letters/court case- however, having watched what's been happening lately with private parking companies and their fake invoices/fake solicitors letters, I wonder if the courier companies threats might be equally unfounded in actual law?

 

If someone decides to test this out, please do post the result.

 

If you don't wish to pay the handling fee then you can import the item yourself, either in person or via a freight forwarder. It would probably cost a lot more than a tenner though.

[onewheeldave]

. Compaining about not being charged every time seems a little churlish.

 

That's why I'm not complaining it that I was complaining about the fact that it's virtually impossible to know it advance what charges will be added on by customs and couriers- it's a shoddy system that needs sorting out. I don't see why paying customers should be paying whatever random demands those companies tag on in the meantime.

 

If you don't wish to pay the handling fee then you can import the item yourself, either in person or via a freight forwarder. It would probably cost a lot more than a tenner though.

If you don't mind I'm much more inclined to follow the 'use the advertised service and investigate whether there's actually any legal requirement to pay the apparently random extra charges' route

[adamf]

Why?

 

You have chosen to import and to use a shipper that appoints Royal Mail as your agent.

It costs the Royal Mail the same regardless of the value.

 

These charges are not secret and anyone importing can easily do their sums to see if it is worth it.

 

It's a rip-off because the supposed cost to RM of customs clearance is an overhead that should be covered by the postage the sender paid (which is shared between countries for international mail). And no, you the buyer hardly ever get to choose the UK carrier.

 

---------- Post added 21-02-2013 at 21:24 ----------

 

£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.

 

Another rip-off. The limit should be automatically adjusted for inflation.

[andygardener]

That's why I'm not complaining it that I was complaining about the fact that it's virtually impossible to know it advance what charges will be added on by customs and couriers- it's a shoddy system that needs sorting out. I don't see why paying customers should be paying whatever random demands those companies tag on in the meantime.

 

If you don't mind I'm much more inclined to follow the 'use the advertised service and investigate whether there's actually any legal requirement to pay the apparently random extra charges' route

 

Each company has published customs clearance fees, they are not random. It is your responsibility to pay the clearance fee and any vat/duty/excise that you owe on goods you import into the country. The "random" part is duty, but as there are tens of thousands of duty levels depending on what you are importing and from where it makes sense to check the level of duty on what you are importing before importing it.

[Eric_Collins]

Load of BS this and its so so random on who they charge. I bought an Apple Mac mini external 1tb hard drive from Iomega USA for $50 USD and $25 shipping over christmas. On entering the UK customs added £26 charges, the item was marked correctly with value,contents and merchandise box ticked.

 

I bought another item from America which arrived a week ago, this was an afganistan bring back of an Australian army desert set. The suit again was $50 and $34 shipping for a week mail service. This item was also market correctly with value , contents and merchandise boxed ticked. However I didn't pay any charges at all on this item.

 

Random is it seems.

 

The ONLY place I never get charged customs is China /HK where they fiddle the customs tickets even when you don't ask.

[cgksheff]

Why should the wishes of an individual supercede the laws of a country?

 

Why do individuals think that their ignorance should somehow grant them their wishes?

 

If you want to import, there are regulations that apply.

Whether you like it or not.

[adamf]

After a few phone calls, I established that the courier company had no right to hold items hostage, and, that by paying the customs charge only, i could receive the item, and the couriers would have to bill me for it later on.

 

This suggests that customers can demand to have their item delievered (as long as they're paid the customs fee) and, perhaps simply refuse to pay the courier component?

 

Apparently that used to work with Royal Mail and Parcelforce, but I tried it recently and the corrupt officials got the more recent Postal Services Act rigged so they can hold your parcels hostage for the clearance fee now.

 

---------- Post added 22-02-2013 at 09:54 ----------

 

Why should the wishes of an individual supercede the laws of a country?

 

Why do individuals think that their ignorance should somehow grant them their wishes?

 

If you want to import, there are regulations that apply.

Whether you like it or not.

 

Why should the government gouge ordinary people on personal imports? There are bigger fish to fry.

[onewheeldave]

Apparently that used to work with Royal Mail and Parcelforce, but I tried it recently and the corrupt officials got the more recent Postal Services Act rigged so they can hold your parcels hostage for the clearance fee now..

 

Thanks for the links. I'm confused though, from your livejournal; link it sounds like you got your item without having to pay the royal mail charge?

[adamf]

Thanks for the links. I'm confused though, from your livejournal; link it sounds like you got your item without having to pay the royal mail charge?

 

That livejournal article has nothing to do with me. I just came across it a while back and found it interesting. The guy who wrote it did succeed in paying only the customs charges (not RM's fee), but that was in 2010 and the law has apparently been rigged since then.