Royal Mail question with regards to hangling customs

misterthankful

Hi everyone,

I bought three orders from America (a DVD boxset, a game, and a couple of Blu-Rays) and received three e-mails at the same time saying they were dispatched. A few days ago I received a customs card to pay for an order (Ref. No: 44) which I did...even though all three orders were sent at the same time with the timeframe providing that day to be the limit I didn't enquire. Now today I received two more customs cards for the other two orders (Ref. No: 43 and 45)...

My question is if Royal Mail charges an £8 handling fee why the hell am I paying £24 handling fees when they received all of them together literally at the same time with absolutely no sifting through or separation of the items? I'm happy to pay the £8 handling fee (well, content would be a better word) but find paying £24 to be ridiculous when they didn't have to fill out the paperwork on three separate occasions, and rather took all three at the same time while attempting to extort me with this high price.

EDITED: Subject should say 'handling'

Keith

The fee is per item.

You were sent 3 items, so got billed for 3 fees. RM aren't going to sort the mail into piles and then just say "Misterthankful had 3 items, so that's the customs charge + a single handling fee"

custardy

all the items together would be one package
i think many people have no comprehension of the sheer volume of items RM handle
its not just a couple of packets handed over by some american guy
the mount pleasant office (which handles near all the international items for RM) covers 7.5 acres and is one of the largest offices in the world

DCFC79

Extort is the wrong word, i think its the norm is more appropriate, its common knolwedge that if you buy items from america and are over a certain limit then you pay a fee. RM are a business so they have tyransport costs etc to pay

misterthankful

Keith wrote: »

The fee is per item.

You were sent 3 items, so got billed for 3 fees. RM aren't going to sort the mail into piles and then just say "Misterthankful had 3 items, so that's the customs charge + a single handling fee"

Except they didn't have to sort through parcels to find mine...in that case obviously one would expect separate fees. In this instance all three were together and were literally handled at the same time. It wasn't misterthankful >> Johnny Jeffandcream >> Misterthankful, it was Misterthankful x3 thus they did not have separate paperwork nor any additional actions which would make separate fees understandable. No, they did the same amount of work as they would do with 1 package and filed their paperwork for these three together as they were together.

misterthankful

custardy wrote: »

all the items together would be one package
i think many people have no comprehension of the sheer volume of items RM handle
its not just a couple of packets handed over by some american guy
the mount pleasant office (which handles near all the international items for RM) covers 7.5 acres and is one of the largest offices in the world

I'm very much aware hence why I would never complain if they were separately handled but the point is my three packages were together, (not separated by any other people's orders) and thus the paperwork required only needed to be done once for me with no additional work necessary (which would then make additional fees understandable).

misterthankful

DCFC79 wrote: »

Extort is the wrong word, i think its the norm is more appropriate, its common knolwedge that if you buy items from america and are over a certain limit then you pay a fee. RM are a business so they have tyransport costs etc to pay

I never said otherwise and my issue isn't with the existence of handling fee costs.

Keith

misterthankful wrote: »

I'm very much aware hence why I would never complain if they were separately handled but the point is my three packages were together, (not separated by any other people's orders) and thus the paperwork required only needed to be done once for me with no additional work necessary (which would then make additional fees understandable).

If they were all together then they were bundled as one item, as you describe 3 seperate packages arrived in this country, you said yourself they were processed one a few days ago and two today.

misterthankful

Keith wrote: »

If they were all together then they were bundled as one item, as you describe 3 seperate packages arrived in this country, you said yourself they were processed one a few days ago and two today.

No they were processed at the same time and all the packages were together; they may not be in the same box but they were stuck together and received together and even their reference numbers are consecutive. The reason I got the middle one a few days ago had nothing to do with their processing times; it was to do with delivery of the customs card. But processing-wise, they were done at the same time and they were done together - received together, processed together - thus the £8 handling fee should have only been for the one-time paperwork used as they only did it once, not thrice.

Keith

10,000 items arrive in the UK
3 items are addressed to you

Do you expect Royal Mail to process all the items into little piles, find that 3 are for you and send you one processing fee?

Ivory_Tinkler

misterthankful wrote: »

No they were processed at the same time and all the packages were together; they may not be in the same box but they were stuck together and received together and even their reference numbers are consecutive. The reason I got the middle one a few days ago had nothing to do with their processing times; it was to do with delivery of the customs card. But processing-wise, they were done at the same time and they were done together - received together, processed together - thus the £8 handling fee should have only been for the one-time paperwork used as they only did it once, not thrice.

How do you know 100% that they were processed at the same time and done together?