my friend sent me a gift worth $70, i was charged £33 customs advice please.

blaque*angel

my friend sent me a gift worth $70, i was charged £33 customs.

i thought low value gifts do not occur such outrageous prices?

any help/advice will be appreciated. who do i complain to?

thanks

cyberbob

Any gift worth over £39 ( or around that i think)or £19 if it is a purchase will inccur customs charges (depending on the item some are exempt from vat) you will also have incurred a fee from the carrier Royal mail normally charge about £8 for dealing with customs for you. You were a bit unlucky as a lot of things skate through customs without being charged. Although it seems if you use a carrier like Fedex you always get charged So anything coming in you need to be prepared for that.

£30 sounds a bit High I would have expected about £20 -£25 for that but without knowing all the details its hard to get an accurate figure. You could phone the HMRC to clarify the costs. You should though have got a receipt breaking down the costs

flea72

if being sent from the US, then there is no such thing as a gift - do you mean you are referring to it as a gift, so you can try and dodge customs, as this is a myth that it allows parcels to bypass the customs fees

however, you dont pay fees unless the item is over £35 in value (including postage), so with the exchange rates as they are at present, something that is $70 would put you over the limits, even before you add in postage.

£33 does seem steep though, for something only valued at $70, did the parcel come via UPS/parcelforce, as they have huge admin fees?

F

martindow

VAT would also be payable on the postage cost but 33 pounds does seem high. OP can you give us a breakdown of the 33 pound charge?

blaque*angel

flea72 wrote: »

if being sent from the US, then there is no such thing as a gift - do you mean you are referring to it as a gift, so you can try and dodge customs, as this is a myth that it allows parcels to bypass the customs fees

however, you dont pay fees unless the item is over £35 in value (including postage), so with the exchange rates as they are at present, something that is $70 would put you over the limits, even before you add in postage.

£33 does seem steep though, for something only valued at $70, did the parcel come via UPS/parcelforce, as they have huge admin fees?

F

excuse me? it was an individual earring from my friend with a value of $70. what do you mean theres no such thing as a gift????


i lost my earring that i got from america and she replaced it for me!!!
i dont see why i have to explain in details..
yes it came via parcelforce!

blaque*angel

martindow wrote: »

VAT would also be payable on the postage cost but 33 pounds does seem high. OP can you give us a breakdown of the 33 pound charge?

VAT £25

CLEARANCE FEE £8

Thanks...

flea72

blaque*angel wrote: »

excuse me? it was an individual earring from my friend with a value of $70. what do you mean theres no such thing as a gift????


i lost my earring that i got from america and she replaced it for me!!!
i dont see why i have to explain in details..
yes it came via parcelforce!

you need to explain, because unless you can prove to customs that you have paid no money for the item, then it cant be classed as a gift. the higher the value of the gift the more likely customs will put a stop on it

the term gift for customs reasons, would be something that was considered minimal in cost, and therefore it shouldnt need a value declared on the parcel, because there would little monetary loss, should it go missing

you wouldnt be charged £25 VAT on something worth $70 - what is the actual breakdown? ie, import tax, handling fee, and VAT

if you have been charged £25 VAT, then the item is worth alot more than $70

Tbh one earning, sent through the postal system would not be flagged by customs, espec if being sent by a friend, as they would just put it in a tiny envelope and have sent it airmail

so it was either sent direct by the store, and might have had branding on the parcel, or the item was insured for a value greater than $70 - in which case, it isnt a gift

F

blaque*angel

why do you not ask questions??

you are making assumptions, it was NOT sent by the store!"! it was sent by my friend AS A GIFT!! I did not pay for the earring, she replaced it as it was my birthday present!!

the charges that were on the parcelforce letter are listed in my post above.
i'm not on mse to dispute nor argue. someone from parcelforce has sent me a private message which i will follow up on..

my advice to you is get FACTS And STOP !!!UMING!!

alfiesmum

Advice from my 7 year old....chillax.

Dizzie77

Blaque*angel - I have to say that your attitude isn't going to get you a lot of help...!!
Maybe you need to phone HMRC and ask them about why they have charged you to receive a gift?

As I see it, Flea was trying to help and you have been quite abrupt.

jamesbrownontheroad

Blaque*angel ... you can bang your head against a wall, or you bang you head against the people in this forum who might be able to help you. Doing neither will help.

We are in the exact same situation. My partner is American, and every couple of months her parents send us a 'care package' with keepsakes, clothes, wild rice etc from their home in northern Minnesota. This morning Parcelforce sent us a similar letter, advising us we'd need to pay £42.64 VAT and £13.50 in clearance fees on the most recent parcel.

It sucks to high heaven because my girlfriend's family is not wealthy, and they save for several months just to put these parcels together and to pay the pretty uncompetitive USPS shipping rates (there isn't much choice for shipping carriers in their part of northern MN).

VAT is charged at 17.5% on all imports, and for the purpose of HM Revenue & Customs that value includes the postage. You need to understand that the advice given above: there is no such thing as a gift in terms of customs. The VAT will normally be calculated on the declared insurance value of the package on the shipping label (in our case. £42.64 is 17.5% of £243.66, which would suggest my partner's mom wrote a declared value of $400 on the shipping label).

The Parcelforce Clearance Fee is another matter entirely. They can charge whatever they like for this part, although if you Google "Parcelforce HMRC" you might find some other forums where people have successfully claimed this back retrospectively or, intriguingly, only paid Parcelforce for the VAT charges and still had the parcel delivered.

You have three options.

1) Do nothing. The parcel will be returned to sender in about four to six weeks. Or it might be disposed of. Who knows.

2) Write to the following address, requesting that the parcel is recalled to HMRC and re-assessed for value: include as much documentary evidence of the value of the item in the parcel as you can. If your friend in the US still has the receipt, ask her to scan it and email it to you.

UK Border Agency
International Postal Hub
Sisken Parkway West
Coventry
CV3 4HX

3) Pay the charges, have the parcel delivered and then attempt to reclaim the money by writing to that address, including the same documentary evidence and all available labels from the outside of the parcel to help identify it.

For more information on these processes, speak to HMRC Customs directly 0845 010 9000 (or non-0845 on 029 2050 1261) and choose option 4.

PS. If the Parcelforce employee who Blaque*angel has said messaged her privately would be so kind as to contact me in a similar manner, I'd be grateful for any further advice / comments on our situation, although I appreciate there is only so much anyone can do in this situation. Thanks in advance.