Fedex Clearance Fees? Legal? (also hassle with their incompetent billing people)

Lum

I'm rather annoyed at the moment.

I purchased some car parts from Japan at the start of February and had them ship to my work address.

The supplier failed to give FedEx my billing address, so FedEx then send an invoice to my work, without putting my name on the address. It's opened by my boss who gives me a telling off for having personal invoices sent to work.

I call FedEx and give them my billing address and request that any and all further correspondence go there. In the pursuit of a quiet life I also give them my debit card details so they can take payment.

So what do they do, they issue a credit note to my work address which this time is opened by the admin person and forwarded to the accounts department at head office who promptly start chasing me for a purchase order number and wanting to know !!!!!! this is about. When I explain what's happened I get another telling off for the same thing!

Now, 15 days later I get a threatening letter saying the invoice is overdue. I check my debit card statement and sure enough they have failed to take payment.

Since I'm clearly not going to be able to sort this out quietly, I want to argue their "clearance fee". I have no objection to paying the tax+duty element, however I did not ask for or require their services in paying the bill for me.

At no point was I given the opportunity to pay the customs fees myself. I was in no hurry for the parcel as I couldn't actually fit the parts in question until my new insurance policy started on Feb 27th anyway! (It was a modification not covered on the old policy) so I would have preferred to do it this way.

Any advice on my rights in this area?

Hintza

Lum wrote: »

Any advice on my rights in this area?

By default the courier is acting as your agent and it does take a bit of effort to clear customs so just pay it.

If you don't pay the courier to do it you would have to travel to wherever the packages were landed, which you don't really want to do.

Royal Mail now charge £8 (there is a higher charge too but can't find details at the moment).

Having said all that I have felt for a long time that couriers think of a number and double it. I try to get overseas sellers to use the postal services where possible charges are cheaper and there is a fairly good chance some will come through with no charge.

shaun_from_Africa

I have no objection to paying the tax+duty element, however I did not ask for or require their services in paying the bill for me.

At no point was I given the opportunity to pay the customs fees myself

You can do this yourself, but the process has to be started before the package reaches the UK, and as this hasn't been done, you do require their services.

You have to make sure that the sender writes on the outside of the shipment " ‘goods to be customs cleared by importer’", and then you fill out a customs declaration and send it to HMCE.
When they receive your shipment, they will calculate any import charges and inform you of these. All yo then do is to send a cheque, wait for it to clear and they will arrange for your goods to be delivered to you.

custardy

Hintza wrote: »

By default the courier is acting as your agent and it does take a bit of effort to clear customs so just pay it.

If you don't pay the courier to do it you would have to travel to wherever the packages were landed, which you don't really want to do.

Royal Mail now charge £8 (there is a higher charge too but can't find details at the moment).

Having said all that I have felt for a long time that couriers think of a number and double it. I try to get overseas sellers to use the postal services where possible charges are cheaper and there is a fairly good chance some will come through with no charge.

RM only have one fee
Its Parcelforce that has two fees

To the OP,the horse has bolted on you clearing your own customs
you needed to do that before the package was dispatched