Claiming back customs charges

boombap

Hi there,

After some advice on the following from you good chaps...I bought some goods from the US which, including shipping came to US$190.

As seems to be case more than ever now I've been asked to pay customs duty. The letter from ParcelForce gave the full amount as approx £65 - £44 VAT; £13 customs duty and £8 handling fee.

I was pretty perplexed at the bill as it doesn't take a maths wizz to work out that is excessive for something costing $190 (which is about £125). I thought that the customs people might have goofed up and thought that the amount was £190 (pounds not dollars) but even using that figure the VAT amount doesn't seem correct.

Anyhoo, I paid and collected it from the depot earlier and was very miffed that for some reason the seller has put on the customs declaration that the value is $316! Inside the plastic wallet there's a copy of the invoice which states the correct amount but not on the front of the package.


Has anyone else had anything like this before? I'm going to give Customs a call tomorrow but I fear that they'll dismiss my request for a partial refund.

I'm guessing that the seller must have got mixed up and mistakenly put the wrong amount on. I can't see what they'd gain in a putting falsely high amount on the customs form. I guess if it goes missing in transit then they'd be able to claim the higher amount on insurance but surely the chances of that are slim and the chances of irked customers high. The seller is a wholesaler of the particular item and it was bought from his website. Just thought I'd add that in case anyone's wondering if I won it cheaply on auction and the $316 the amount the seller feels it's worth.

Just to make one thing clear - I was expecting to pay charges and have no problems with that whatsoever. It looks like the Customs staff have pulled their socks up recently as I rarely used to have to pay customs charges but pretty much all of the packages I've recevied of late have been subject to them. Pah!

Any advice most welcome,

Cheers,

S.

F&L

There's a few posts on here where this has happened and members have said previously you can request that Customs review the amount that you paid. Don't forget that Customs include the postage in the gross amount paid so was the postage high? Someone did post the address that you need to write to so you should be able to find it or perhaps they may respond to your post.

boombap

Thanks for that. I'll have another search on these forums....most of the old threads I could find were about people concerned that customs officials were confusing $ with £.

Cheers!

S.

martindow

What has the sender declared the value at? If HMCE think something has been under-declared they will 'estimate' a figure for its value.

Could the declaration be carelessly written and misread this end? With commercial shipments you are supposed to supply copies of the invoice to avoid mistakes.

VAT is charged on the price declared plus the carriage. 44 pounds VAT would be the charge on about 250 pounds.

Good luck and let us know what PF say.

Heliflyguy

I had the same problem with an item from the USA and posted for help (with most saying its not possible) but got the overpayment back and posted how in a reply to another post here -

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2265967=