threadless.com

fluffyhelen

I received my order quickly for my $5 t-shirts and they're fine, well... apart from now being a bit "cheap" looking but that's another issue altogether.

The kicker came when I had a notice through that I owed £20 in customs charges to go pick up my parcel! $5 t-shirts now jumped to £15 a piece! Not impressed. Nowhere on their website does it warn about customs charges and I had no idea until yesterday that shirts would even fall under this. I have ordered other things from America (clothing!) without an issue.

This might be common knowledge but I had no idea. :mad:

pinkshoes

I thought you had to pay an import tax on all goods coming in???

Oh, according to HR Customs:

2.3 Are import duties and import VAT always payable?

No. Customs duty is waived if the amount of duty is less than £7.
Import VAT is not payable on:

• commercial consignments eg goods purchased over the internet with an intrinsic value not exceeding £18, but this does not include alcohol, tobacco products, perfume or toilet waters
• gifts, excluding alcohol, tobacco, perfumes and toilet waters, with a value not exceeding £36 and which comply with the rules shown in paragraph 2.4.

How many t-shirts did you buy? If it was just $5 then according to the above, no import duty payable!

Helix

Why would it be the responsibility of the website to inform you. They are mainly targetted at a US audience although they do accept international orders.

If they were charging you in £ and then you were charged customs fees then I would understand but its clear that the items aren't coming from the UK. Therefore you should be charged customs if the total comes to more than £18. Due to the large numbers of items that go through customs then they do miss applying the charges to some items but its just luck whether this happens, which could have been why you haven't been charged before unless its was under £18 of course then you wouldn't have any fees to pay.

custardy

fluffyhelen wrote: »

I received my order quickly for my $5 t-shirts and they're fine, well... apart from now being a bit "cheap" looking but that's another issue altogether.

The kicker came when I had a notice through that I owed £20 in customs charges to go pick up my parcel! $5 t-shirts now jumped to £15 a piece! Not impressed. Nowhere on their website does it warn about customs charges and I had no idea until yesterday that shirts would even fall under this. I have ordered other things from America (clothing!) without an issue.

This might be common knowledge but I had no idea. :mad:

nowhere except..................

Why was my order charged at customs fee when it was delivered?
Any international order may incur a customs fee. This is also mentioned in the third step of the checkout process. This fee is being charged by your government, not Threadless.com. We apologize for any inconvenience, but we have no control over the customs authorities in your country or any other. Contact your local customs office for more information about customs fees and duty taxes

http://www.threadless.com/help#Why_was_my_order_charged_at_customs_fee_when_it_was_delivered