royal mail charges for handling import!

u751904

I bought some cosmetics via the internet for $27 including postage. I got a charge of about £10.50 to pay to receipt the package. £8 of which was a royal mail handling charge. The rest was VAT. Ok I accept I am going to have to pay something. But a)there is no mechanism that I know of to declare the purchase and pay the costs up front. and b) £8 is far too much. What are the royal mail thinking of. I am failing out of love with this organisation. They are not in the same world as the rest of business as far as I am concerned. Has anyone else had this scenario. there is a tel no on my royal mail sticker so I might well protest for what good it will do. The final point which is I suppose fortunate is that they apply the charges inconsistently. Some overseas purchses don't get an import duty. Perhaps the chancellor is scraping the barrel a bit. Z

barnabee

Totally agree that Royal Mail charge a ridiculous handling fee regardless of the size or weight of the package and the type of packaging used. They advertise the fee here

The £8 charge is made to

cover the costs for operating the postal customs depot, handling the package for customs examination, and, if required, opening, repacking and resealing the package if, for example information is missing from the declaration.

I work for Royal Mail and, whilst I love my job, the way they treat some of their customers to make money is disgraceful.

MarkyMarkD

There is obviously a fixed cost element to the processing of these things for Royal Mail. It might seem fairer to charge - say - a lower fixed cost plus a percentage of value, and that could collect the same amount of income. But at the end of the day, you shouldn't buy things from abroad to save money, if you don't bother understanding the implications of import duty and the Royal Mail charges associated with them.

The_Pedant

Unfortunately, I've found that pretty much all the delivery companies pay comparable (if not higher) handling fees!

I'm pretty sure I had an order worth about £25, delivered via UPS that was collared for about £15 of charges a few years back :eek: Off the top of my head, I think the handling charge was about £12.

Yes, it's a nasty shock when you get them but it certainly makes you think twice the next time before ordering that 'bargain'.

isplumm

Hi,

I would defend RM here ... I think the £8 charge is not very much at all ...

By the sounds of it, it has had to wait for customs clearance, which means it has to go through a completely different process to normal import traffic.

So it has to go to a customs clearance area (which be a different building / site), then stored, extra paperwork created, then once cleared, has to be put back into the normal process ... all this costs money, so someone needs to pay for it .... why should RM?

By the way, I find it a bit depressing that there is a RM employee slagging them off ... I certainately don't think they will be making much money out of this.

Mark

custardy

isplumm wrote: »

Hi,

I would defend RM here ... I think the £8 charge is not very much at all ...

By the sounds of it, it has had to wait for customs clearance, which means it has to go through a completely different process to normal import traffic.

So it has to go to a customs clearance area (which be a different building / site), then stored, extra paperwork created, then once cleared, has to be put back into the normal process ... all this costs money, so someone needs to pay for it .... why should RM?

By the way, I find it a bit depressing that there is a RM employee slagging them off ... I certainately don't think they will be making much money out of this.

Mark

to add to this,the customs items do not return to the mail stream
they are handled seperatly all the way to the delivery offfice and tracked all the way

isplumm

Hi,

Thanks for this .... I haven't worked for RM, so assumed it was same process as DHL.

Mark

deanos

DHL seem to charge a fair fee, Royal Mail are making a good profit out of it me thinks

What is the administration fee?
The fee for business customers is £10 or 2% of the shipment value, whichever is the greater. The growth of Internet shopping has led us to introduce a different administration fee for private individuals. This is because net shoppers are usually buying infrequently and purchasing low cost items such as CDs, DVDs or software. We felt that low usage such as this merited a different fee structure. We charge £1.25, or 2% of the shipment value, whichever is the greater. This compares very favourably with our competitors and we are, as far as we are aware, the only air express carrier who has introduced a special rate for private individuals.

This is not unfair to our business customers as they have a choice. If they are importing on a frequent or high volume basis they can choose to open their deferment account with Customs. Many however find it more cost effective and administratively convenient to use the DHL facility. Rates for both groups have been calculated according to cost in man-hours, financial pre payments and allowance for credit facilities.

http://www.dhl.co.uk/publish/gb/en/information/shipping/about_duty_and_vat.high.html

custardy

ups charge £11.45,therefore they must be making more profit.....................

deanos

custardy wrote: »

ups charge £11.45,therefore they must be making more profit.....................

Yes even more than RM