Is Royal Mail Customs Handling Fee avoidable?

ItsAGas

I am trying to buy a USD$55 item from Amazon USA, which will incur customs charges (fair enough). Additionally, "Any package assessed by HM Revenue and customs as being liable for customs charges will also incur a Royal Mail handling fee of £8."

It seems to me that this charge is unfair, does anyone know what is involved in this handling? More importantly, can I deal with customs directly to save Royal Mail the hassle of 'handling' it?

Many thanks!

DCFC79

£8 isnt too bad, why bother trying to avoid it, RM are a business so they have to make money

cardinalbiggles

Its a fee for them paying any duties that are payable on your items.

I think there was a challenge to it where the argument was that it is illegal to hold post to ransom which is what they do if they wont give you the parcel which is addressed to you without you coughing up, dont know what came of it mind you.

pcombo

Why not just buy from amazon UK.

RadoJo

Realistically, I would have thought that the cost of actually dealing with customs yourself would probably cost more than the Royal Mail handling fee.

cyberbob

You don't always end up paying duty on items even if they are above the £19 limit. I have frequently bought items up to 100 dollars and not paid duty on them. You just need to be prepared to pay it and a handling fee if appropriate. Just hope it's not sent via courier Fedex charge a £20 handling fee if duty needs to be paid.

toffe

not sure about royal mail but i import goods from china using DHL and they don't hold my shipments to ransom, they deliver them and then i receive a bill in the post a few weeks later and thats for several hundred pounds of duty at a time so i doubt royal mail would refuse to hand over the parcel until payment is received for such a small amount, although i know UPS do ask for a check at the door before they hand over the goods so who knows.

the main thing to remember is the courier is doing you a favour, ok not a favour but they are providing you a service, they could not pay the customs duty and leave it upto you to have to ring the multitude of numbers to find the correct department at the correct airport in order to pay your own duty and then pick up your item for delivery only after you had dealt with all the customs stuff yourself.

£8 is fair as not only are they doing all the admin for you but they are basically lending you the money to pay your import duty interest free because they pay it upfront for you.

just pay it, or if it bothers you so much don't buy from abroad.

ItsAGas

Thanks forumners... I have to get the item from the US site as it is not available from the UK counterpart. My flawed memory remembers that the customs fees are around an additional 7GBP, so probably wont get the item!

rsykes2000

toffe wrote: »

not sure about royal mail but i import goods from china using DHL and they don't hold my shipments to ransom, they deliver them and then i receive a bill in the post a few weeks later and thats for several hundred pounds of duty at a time so i doubt royal mail would refuse to hand over the parcel until payment is received for such a small amount, although i know UPS do ask for a check at the door before they hand over the goods so who knows.

the main thing to remember is the courier is doing you a favour, ok not a favour but they are providing you a service, they could not pay the customs duty and leave it upto you to have to ring the multitude of numbers to find the correct department at the correct airport in order to pay your own duty and then pick up your item for delivery only after you had dealt with all the customs stuff yourself.

£8 is fair as not only are they doing all the admin for you but they are basically lending you the money to pay your import duty interest free because they pay it upfront for you.

just pay it, or if it bothers you so much don't buy from abroad.

Royal Mail keep the packet, put a card through your door saying you owe some money to them, you pay the fee then they release it. I agree with you on the rest of your post though.

dzug1

cardinalbiggles wrote: »

Its a fee for them paying any duties that are payable on your items.

I think there was a challenge to it where the argument was that it is illegal to hold post to ransom which is what they do if they wont give you the parcel which is addressed to you without you coughing up, dont know what came of it mind you.

A bit of an ingenuous challege - if it were valid it would mean that Royal Mail was obliged to deliver unstamped items.

I believe it's possible to deal with customs yourself, but there's a lot of one-off paperwork and probably a fee to set up an account with them. Way OTT for a one-off private purchase.

If you delve around on the HMRC website you should find something - eventually, and if you know exactly what you are looking for.

adam.mt

Also beware that depending on the delivery option (expedited I think, but probably any but standard) Amazon US may send via a courier (DHL usually I think, although check this) rather than Royal Mail. Thus, it will be their handling charge that will apply and it'll also be less likely to pass through uncaught compared to RM.

For DVDs etc. since RM's handling charge doubled it's probably better to buy elsewhere from a company that ships from within the EU (or prepays duty).