Customs charge

[HonestFlames]

"Your item could not be delivered due to a customs charge"

DAMNIT!

Been waiting (im)patiently for me uIEC/SD to arrive, only to be met with a demand for over £16 due to customs charges.

No choice other than to pay it and I suppose I should have expected it, but it still sucks.oh:

 

[thecellartroll]

If thats coming by Royal Mail your customs charge is £3 and the RM snakes are taking a £13 "admin" fee from you...

 

[AndyLandy]

If thats coming by Royal Mail your customs charge is £3 and the RM snakes are taking a £13 "admin" fee from you...

When did it go up to £13?! It was only £8 the last time and I found that obnoxious enough!

 

[StrontiumDog]

It still is £8 ...

Quote "Letters or parcels from abroad sometimes have a Customs charge – for example VAT, or fees for tobacco or alcohol. Occasionally there’s an £8 handling charge." ... unquote

There's nothing "occasionally" about it, they apply the charge no matter what.

Interestingly enough, the HMRC website clearly states that if the chargeable duty is that of £9 or less, it is waived on all goods brought from outside the EU

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/customs/post/buying.htm - See Tax on goods brought from a non-EU country section.

 

[Templar]

Why you didn't ask the seller to mark it as 'Gift'? I dunno if that'd make any difference in customs.

 

[StrontiumDog]

Why you didn't ask the seller to mark it as 'Gift'? I dunno if that'd make any difference in customs.

Can't as thats tax evasion. It was brought from a company and as such it is illegal to mark the customs form as a gift - company can be fined or even closed down.

"Gift" is only for person to person mail/packages.

 

[fitzsteve]

And they still tax you on 'gifts' the only way is to ask them to put a lower value and thats even more tax evasive :dry:

 

[thecellartroll]

It still is £8 ...

Apologies for the misinformation. I'm sure I read somewhere that RM had increased the handling charge to £13.

Still, £8 to take a payment?! FedEx charged me nowt when I had to pay a customs charge through them.

 

[D.B]

The £8.00 fee is actually the shipping charge for Customs to post it on to you after they have pawed it to death in every manner they can. Rather annoying that had they not intervened in the first place, the shipping would already get it to your door. So you do the honourable thing & declare it for a 10% Import tax + 20% VAT & they slap the £8.00 re-ship fee from Coventry & add VAT on that too. - Cheeky sod's.

As thecellatroll says, if Fed-Ex or UPS are involved from shipping, yes, you just pay then the Duty via them & there isn't a rogue £8.00 + VAT charge applied.

 

[tokyoracer]

I got hit BADLY by customs charges just a few weeks back. If you go on the HM Revenue and Customs site you can download a form to re-claim the money back, however you must have a legitimate reason to do this. If it was a personal transaction then you do since it is a gift. However if it's a company bought item then sadly there's no escaping the fee.

 

[Tajmaster]

I got an A1000 from Canada recently, I didnt know Id have to pay a customs charge (£33 I think it was), its certainly put me off buying from outside of the EU The seller was great (not his fault at all of course), customs duty is not

 

[BLTCON0]

The £8.00 fee is actually the shipping charge for Customs to post it on to you after they have pawed it to death in every manner they can. Rather annoying that had they not intervened in the first place, the shipping would already get it to your door. So you do the honourable thing & declare it for a 10% Import tax + 20% VAT & they slap the £8.00 re-ship fee from Coventry & add VAT on that too. - Cheeky sod's.

As thecellatroll says, if Fed-Ex or UPS are involved from shipping, yes, you just pay then the Duty via them & there isn't a rogue £8.00 + VAT charge applied.

That would be unconstitutional here and I'm surprised it isn't there.
Esp. the VAT on the £8.00 'forced' shipping fee is absurd - as if it's a service one asked for! At least is a proper receipt given?

Our customs have been a bit creative - you get the item straight away with a small 'quick customs clearance' fee of about EUR 4, no VAT or anything, fee is collected by the deliverer. If you opt not to pay it, the item goes back to customs for a 'proper check', so with the item just behind the counter you're tempted to quickly pay the EUR 4, take the item and vanish.

 

[robinsonb5]

I found an Altera DE1 board on Evilbay the other week - in the States.

Friday 20th: Received a ParcelFarce customs charge bill, so dutifully went online and paid my £14 VAT and £8 handling charge.

Monday 23rd: Received another customs charge bill, so checked that the payment had gone through OK, then phoned up. "Oh, that's all gone through OK - it should be with you tomorrow." 10 minutes later it arrived.

Tuesday 24th: Received *three* further bills.

Wednesday 25th: Disappointed to find that only one superfluous bill arrived.

Thursday 26th: Only one again. Phoned to ask what gives, was informed "You're *far* from the only one, sir, these are sent out on our behalf by a third-party company and we're doing everything we can to fix the glitch."

Friday 27th: Received yet another in the post!

So I'm waiting to see what next week brings!

 

[RED IMPACT]

This may help:



Had this on a parcel I received last year. :dry:
http://imageshack.us

 

[TickledPink]

The £8.00 fee is actually the shipping charge for Customs to post it on to you after they have pawed it to death in every manner they can. Rather annoying that had they not intervened in the first place, the shipping would already get it to your door. So you do the honourable thing & declare it for a 10% Import tax + 20% VAT & they slap the £8.00 re-ship fee from Coventry & add VAT on that too. - Cheeky sod's.

As thecellatroll says, if Fed-Ex or UPS are involved from shipping, yes, you just pay then the Duty via them & there isn't a rogue £8.00 + VAT charge applied.

That would be unconstitutional here and I'm surprised it isn't there.

Simple answer to that is that the UK doesn't have a written constitution.

 

[BLTCON0]

Simple answer to that is that the UK doesn't have a written constitution.

Didn't know that.
Just got back from some interesting wikipedia reading

 

[HeZoR]

I made a mistake and bought through evilbay from Switzerland a Roland GR-55 guitar synthesizer. The problem is that although Switzerland is in Europe, it is not in the European Nation oh:

So i got a bite call from the customs asking me for an invoice or a paypal transaction for the item, though all documents were included with the original price paid and shipping costs and declared as merchantised from the seller oh:
The guy from the customs told me that I'd have to pay the VAT 23% charge for items 45-150e (less is free), and for 150-... VAT plus extra duty taxes. Plus there could be more to that added.

I have no idea what will happen next, but I declared the item as not received(INR) as almost 20 days have passed, though I contacted the seller and he answered only on his direct mail(not evilbay), he send me all the docs included in the package(courier declaration and ebay aunction receipt), and he said he can accept returns, but has no money to refund me now, and I'd have to trust him until he'll sell it again!
Also I'll have to pay the shipping costs.

I've sent over the attached docs as an e-mail to the customs guy, though I didn't write "Diasafisi xxx" as he wanted.
I've now opened a dispute and wait what happens next. If i get a tax about 130-200e as I estimate, I'm not going to sign anywhere and I hope it returns to the recipient for a full refund later.

 

[TickledPink]

Thankfully I've never been hit for customs yet. My understanding was that, although there is VAT, there is no duty on computer hardware imported into the UK.

I tend to restrict my activities to importing from the likes of Dealextreme and PriceAngels. I keep my transactions low level and order items in limited quantity so it's not worth customs hitting me for VAT.

 

[UberFreak]

Oh dont get me started on this issue...

A year ago I found out the really hard way that I should never, ever agree to shipping by courier.
All companies here (UPS, DHL, FedEx) charge a ridiculous "customs handling fee" for every package they deliver, no matter what value it has! (is this the same in other countries?)

I bought a Spectrum 128 +3 from the UK which was sent via FedEx as it was over 2Kg.
It was bad enough that tax is calculated on value + shipping but the additional FedEx fee nearly doubled the price!
On top of that, the seller thought it would be a good idea to declare a much higher value on the package (maybe to get more out of an insurance claim?), which made things much much worse for me.
Since I cant name the price, lets just say it ended up being 3 digits!!!!

At first I was so angry that I just told FedEx to return it.
But then something snapped inside me & I told them to deliver it anyway...
When the delivery guy arrived & asked for the tax money, I asked to see the package first.
When he gave it to me, I put it on the floor & jumped on it a few times, really hard.
The poor guy didnt see that coming!
Then I said "here, its broken. I'm not paying anything!".

I'm quite sure I'm on the FedEx blacklist but will never know since I have no intention of ever using them...

 

[Mr B]

I made a mistake and bought through evilbay from Switzerland a Roland GR-55 guitar synthesizer. The problem is that although Switzerland is in Europe, it is not in the European Nation

Uh, what, wait. Aren't Grece included in the Schengen Agreement? I know i don't pay import taxes and so on for stuff from the swiss alps... (I'm in Sweden.)
B!