Royal mail customs charge is morally wrong let's fight it

sanibel686 · 18 July 2015 at 10:23AM

I just participated in a Massdrop headphone purchase which cost me $24.99 (around £16.60) I got the dreaded card of death asking for £3.18 VAT and £8 "fee"

So my £16.60 headphones ended up costing me £27.78!!

I have no issue with paying VAT on imports but the £8 fee charged by Royal mail is totally out of proportion with the real cost of collection and what a commercial rate would be if they had to compete in a free market situation. In my view it is therefore a monopolistic license to print money at the very least and divisively designed from the very beginning.

How can it be morally or ethically correct for a government to allow a company to charge it's citizens more in collection fees than the actual duty raised? Of course it's because "they are all in it together" and the money ultimately washes back to them.

Based on the moral stance that any fee should not exceed the duty raised then there could be two solutions to this in the short term, even pending the catch up of technology.

1, raise the import threshold to from £15 to £40 so that the minimum collectable duty would be £8 ie the same as the current fee.

Or if royal mail is just too greedy to stomach option 1 then;

2, introduce a sliding scale for items between the value of £15 & £40 so that a £15.01 item for example attracts a fee of just £3 to collect the duty of £3.

Is this a fight that Martin might like to add to his list!!

marliepanda · 18 July 2015 at 10:43AM

Arrange to do your own clearance. Drive down, fill in the forms yourself.

I personally will continue to pay the £8.

aseros · 18 July 2015 at 10:46AM

Decided to sign up just to respond to your idiocy:

1. All companies charge some sort of fee for this (Royal Mail, Fedex etc.). It takes a LOT of effort to deal with the processing. It has to be charged somewhere. If you were not charged, it would only be added to the cost of postage. This is a free market.

2. You do not have to order from overseas if you do not want to. I used to sell power tools, it was so funny to see people order tools from overseas thinking it was cheap, only to be hit with huge bills when it arrives.

3. Martin won't take your case on because, for a start, the charge is fair. Secondly, he is an affiliate marketer, nothing else. He makes his money by 'pretending' he cares for consumer interests when, in reality, it is so he could make money. But, I am sure most people knew that anyway.

dj1471 · 18 July 2015 at 10:50AM

You'll find that all courier companies charge more than £8, so pretty much all your arguments don't work.

It isn't Royal Mail's fault you imported goods from outside the EU without checking the associated costs. Why should they bear the cost of collecting the duty from you and passing it onto HMRC?

sanibel686 · 18 July 2015 at 11:00AM

You've all pretty much missed the point.

I have no issue in paying an £8 fee and £8 duty on an item that cost me £40. What I have an issue with is paying more in fees than in collected duty.

As for the idiot who said this was a fair fee ad that Martin doe not care you should be ashamed of yourself.

marliepanda · 18 July 2015 at 11:08AM

sanibel686 wrote: »

You've all pretty much missed the point.

I have no issue in paying an £8 fee and £8 duty on an item that cost me £40. What I have an issue with is paying more in fees than in collected duty.

As for the idiot who said this was a fair fee ad that Martin doe not care you should be ashamed of yourself.

So the person filling in the forms and doing the import for you deserves less money when it's a lower item? There are fixed costs, hourly wages etc for people doing it. Low value items don't get processed quicker or with less effort.

Get a grip and don't order low value stuff if you have such a problem.

dj1471 · 18 July 2015 at 11:10AM

sanibel686 wrote: »

You've all pretty much missed the point.

I think you've missed the point.

It costs Royal Mail the same amount to collect 1p of duty as to collect £1000. They have to employ people to collect that charge, in buildings that need to be heated and lit, plus do all the associated admin like printing the card and making the payments to HMRC. Royal Mail are entitled to recover the cost of this and a flat fee of £8 is not unreasonable.

InquisitiveMind · 18 July 2015 at 11:36AM

sanibel686 wrote: »

You've all pretty much missed the point.

No, you've missed the point, and a pair of headphones that cost $25 will be an utter load of tripe.

sanibel686 · 18 July 2015 at 11:42AM

OK OK just open your brains up and think for yourselves for a moment instead of jumping in with the same old rhetoric.

1, royal mail say that they only "sample" incoming parcels for value, but, I have never heard of someone being "missed" with a parcel marked £1000! so my assumption is that they view them all.

2, If I buy a £14 item it goes through the same check but is passed on with no charge. All I am saying is that the same system is in place but the threshold is raised so that the fee doesn't outweigh the duty.

3, In France, Germany etc the threshold is 150 euros we are being taken for a ride in the UK

sanibel686 · 18 July 2015 at 11:48AM

InquisitiveMind wrote: »

No, you've missed the point, and a pair of headphones that cost $25 will be an utter load of tripe.

Dear "inquisitivemind" may I suggest that you havent got one:rotfl:
Go take a few million years to evolve into a homo erectus:T

The headphones in question were Brainwavz s1
They are of course no match for high end phones but critically acclaimed as leaders in the sub £75 bracket so for $24.99 a fantastic deal. I would not insert tripe into my ears it's too slippy and smells after the first few weeks.

aseros · 18 July 2015 at 11:52AM

1. They do look at the value of parcel. In either case, it is HMRC that inspect the parcels that come through, not Royal Mail. As far as I know, Royal Mail inspect almost every single parcel.

2. You knew what the charges would be in advance. You had the opportunity to check them. If you do not wish to pay those fees, don't buy abroad. In addition to this, EVERYBODY is charged the same fee. It is £8.00 if you purchase something for £15.00. It is £8.00 if you important £2,000 worth of goods. It is the same. The same amount of effort goes into declaring that parcel and paying the fees. If you did it all yourself, it would cost a hell of a lot more than £8.00. So, be thankful Royal Mail are charging a low rate.

The £14.00 would not go through the same process. There will be no paperwork to fill in. No need to collect taxes from you, nothing. Remember, part of the £8.00 is for the fact that Royal Mail have paid the tax on your behalf in order to 'speed' up the process.

3. You are wrong about Germany and France. You have to pay VAT when you import, exactly what you are paying when you import into the UK. You only pay DUTY over €150. VAT is always chargeable. Nobody is being taken for a ride. The process is the same.

Not happy with the process? Order from within Europe.

And finally;

You still got the headphones cheaper than if you purchased them in the UK. Why complain?

Royal mail customs charge is morally wrong let's fight it

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