Parcelforce 'Clearance fee'

evil_ed

ever noticed that when someone does not know the full terms conditions and laws, they call it mis information. always makes me laugh. If it is illegal, why didn't the police take up the case of a previous poster who said we were all going to jail and parcelforce were going to be prosecuted.
have bee threatened with that old chestnut many times as part of an escalation team and i am always happy to give my full name over the phone because i know that the information i give is complete and correct as i have been highly trained to do the job i do and need to be able to respond quickly to callers and yes, this has included solicitors, who, as a part of my job, i have to call back to make follow ups thus giving them time to invetigate the information i have given.
no one should believe anything written in a forum, and that includes what i have written, because information like this can not be used in a court of law, what i advise you to do is go to parcelforce.com and look up the terms and conditions in whole then look up the postal services act as a whole and even the consumer credit act 1974. don't just take on board the parts of the terms and conditions and the acts which suit you. for once, play devils advocate and look at both sides of the debate. i am not telling you which way to see things, but see them with open eyes.
and again, everyone has the right to appeal the vat charges with hmrc, even when the charges have been paid (yes this means that just because you have paid, doesn't mean you accept them as right) everyone has the statutory right of appeal. I would say that if you think the vat is wrong, it probably is.
the way to work out the vat on a parcel is convert the actual value of the item into pound sterling (and that does not necessarily mean what you paid for it but the real value). if it is over £18 commercial or £36 gift, add this value to the shipping cost and any enhanced compensation. take the total and 17.5% of that should be the vat you have paid, if it is wrong then always appeal either by phone 02476 212860 or in writing to the address on the charge label or letter. here is a handy link for all those wanting to know more details customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsPortalWebApp/channelsPortalWebApp.portal?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=pageTravel_ShowContent&id=HMCE_CL_000014&propertyType=document#P120_11569[/url].
you will notice that this link will tell you how to avoid the customs charges and the clearance fee, but in a legal way instead of importing under false docs which can lead to imprisonment.
hope this helps all of those who think that i only fight the cause of the plc, indeed i fight for the right side whichever that may be, which is why i am part of a specialist team who fight the case of both sides, customer and pls to a legal and mutual satisfaction. to all of those who thought i was talking rhetoric and giving a speech standing up for my employer, this couldn't be further from the truth as i have on many occasions banged heads with depots and managers to further the customers rights and be a voice for them. i waill always tell people the rights and wrongs, as in this case the clearance fee is neither illegal neither is the way in which it is collected as parcelforce is not a mail company but a courier company and is not governed by any watchdog such as post watch unlike royal mail letters and parcels and is not held under the same laws. if people are willing to go to small claims court, i wish them every success but they have to be prepared to lose because a precedent will not be set as the courts have already declared all cases are to be taken on their own merits and interpretation of the different acts is entirely down to the judge on the day.

tell you the truth, i wish we did not have anything to do with customs fees as it causes more complaints to us when in fact most people are complaining to us about how much vat they are charged not the clearance fee and this is because it is on parcelforce headed card so they think we have charged the vat. speak to anyone who works on the phones for parcelforce and they will tell you that our job would be easier if we had nothing to do with vat or import duties, alas all private importers have to have a clearance company if you are not a registred importer, as customs and excise do not store repackage and even invoice and take payment of monies. if it wasn't parcelforce who did it each individual would have to hire their own clearing agent such as george baker shipping ltd or others. customs and excise do not employ a team of people who sit on the phones taking the payments or stand in the depots taking payment and have explained that if they did, they would have to employ people to do it thus causing a fee to be levied for the service

i always have, and always will tell people when i think they have been unfairly charged vat and advise them how to appeal and wish them luck in doing so, however i will always stand by the clearance fee as someone has to be employed to take payment of the customs fee and to repackage and send invoices out.
there is on average 25000 parcels imported from all around the world every week which get sent to customs and charged, of these 2/3 are through parcelforce, so 25000 parcels would have to be invoiced from customs and payments taken by them, how many people would they have to employ to clear all of these and how much would they be paid? these are part of the clearance fee costs

once again, good luck to all who appeal against the customs vat and import duty, i do actually stand up for you but i will also tell you when you are mis informed

isplumm

Hi,

I've been reading this thread with interest over the last week or so .... I haven't worked for RM, but have worked for a number of other major UK logistic firms over the last four years as a consultant PM, so I do have quite a bit of experience in the import/export business.

Tandymalbot .... were you taking RM to court over a fee of £13.50? You never went to court ... it was settled out of court? You say that this was because of the fact that RM know they are acting unlawfully, so would have lost ... I suggest it is more likely that it just was not worth defending ... a lawyer would cost them a £1000+ a day plus expenses - so it was cheaper to give in.

"Parcelforce LIES by stating ATTEMPTED DELIVERY ABROAD. They update the status fraudlently; not the overseas postal service." This is a message that UPS or the foreign carrier are passing to RM, who then show it on their track & trace system .... having never seen this message before, I am not sure what else it says - but I would normally change that to say something like handed over to RM ... it just means that the foreign carrier has passed the shipment to RM - not that it has been delivered.

I also believe that a charge of £8 or £13.50 is fairly cheap ... Customs & Excise can fine companies like RM for incorrect paperwork ... so if Customs stop a shipment & add duty to it, there is a lot of extra work to be done.

Mark

evil_ed

finally someone with sense who can't be called for working for rm or pf as having an interest

at least you as an independent can see that there are a lot of administration costs which recipients and senders do not see but which need paying for

the delivered abroad on the usps website shows when the pf website shows held awaiting payment of customs charge but this is lost in translation with their website. our website and australias has the same problem, when there has been a failed delivery attempt in australia and parcel has been taken to post office the pf website says cannot find addressee. a simple translation error caused because not all tracking services use the same jargon but it is not the fault of the delivering company but that of the way tracking translates in different countries

don't know why, if people don't like the service, they don't choose fedex who have a point to point wheels up service where customs is pre advised about parcels and the sender pays extra upon sending to cover import duties and vat and the parcel does not even get touched by hmrc but it does get xrayed and tested by machinery while it is on a conveyor belt therefore there are never any surprises unless the item has been illegally invoiced., but there are no hmrc fees and therefore no clearance fee bot it is quite a bit more expensive to send a parcel this way.

i know about this wheels up service because pf are starting this 15/06/09 with account customers and in august with retail and we are using fedex to fly the parcels around the world at a cheaper cost than fedex but quicker than pf, there are talks that there may be a chance of it working the other way round also so that you can order from america one day and the parcel will be delivered before 10 am two days later with no extra charges, the drawback of this service is that if the sender does not declare the parcel properly then hmrc will just rts at a fee to the sender or contact the sender to ask if they want it destroyed and if they don't want either, the recipient will be contacted by hmrc to ask if they want to pay the fine for false declaration thus releasing the parcel to them and making them the rightful owners of the parcel because once the sender has denied the parcel it has no legal owner until the recipient enters into a contract with hmrc to pay the outstanding.if no one wants to claim the parcel then it will either be destroyed or sent to auction, the lost revenue recouped and the rest sent to charity (which is legal under a seizure order for false declaration). pf will have nothing to do with customs and if there are any problems caused by the senders docs, they will be sorted before being handed to pf. this way, until the senders learn to declare properly, a lot more people will not get their parcels because they would have been rts or destroyed or auctioned and nothing to do with pf.
will this make the people who complain about the clearance fee happy??

isplumm

evil_ed wrote: »

the delivered abroad on the usps website shows when the pf website shows held awaiting payment of customs charge but this is lost in translation with their website. our website and australias has the same problem, when there has been a failed delivery attempt in australia and parcel has been taken to post office the pf website says cannot find addressee. a simple translation error caused because not all tracking services use the same jargon but it is not the fault of the delivering company but that of the way tracking translates in different countries

Hi EvilEd

Love the name!! :beer:

I didn't realise that it is the usps site that is showing the "delivery abroad message" - what the heck has that got to do with RM ... they have no control over this??? That will be an automatic message, the second usps had the shipment to RM.

I have a heck of a lot of work on track & trace .... converting messages from different systems .... its a bloody nightmare ....

I can not believe that people are moaning about these admin charges .... they are very low ... shouldn't they be having a go at the sender for not paying the correct duty ... or the UK government for odd customs rules ... etc etc

Mark

evil_ed

i wish we had nothing to do with customs but your right, translating foreign tracking is a nightmare especially when people are complaining that we have delivered according to usps website and we explain that we don't deliver at 2 in the morning and the parcel is being held awaiting customs charges. i would have thought the sensible thing to do would be to use the track and trace of the delivering company and not the sender

tandymalbot

evil_ed wrote: »

also it is a courier service not a mail service and i think you will find we are not overseen by postwatch.

as parcelforce is not a mail company but a courier company and is not governed by any watchdog such as post watch unlike royal mail letters and parcels and is not held under the same laws

You do not know what you are talking about. Your senior counsel herself said: "For
the avoidance of doubt I have never pleaded that the Postal Services Act
does not apply to Royal Mail Group Ltd."

USPS do NOT change the status. Royal Mail change the status. USPS are not happy about this. Sure, Royal Mail may do this a 2am in the morning. But they don't attempt to deliver the parcel. They also pass parcels to Parcel Force as a vain attempt to claim that the Act doesn't apply to them.

But it does and they are acting illegally. It is not clear cut until there is a test case as with bank charges. But the original poster proved Royal Mail know exactly what they are doing and the above 2 tricks are illustrative of the fact as is their cleverly worded letter that if you read, doesnt actually say they wont hand your parcel over if you pay just the VAT and duties but not their extortionate fee. They are allowed only a reasonable cost of clearing the parcel through customs - £13.50 is not and is perhaps more than the original postage cost.

It's not rocket science. The parcel arrives in the normal mail via recripocal agreements with other countries. They then pass the package to Parcel Force, so they can try and mislead you like evil ed.

They paid out for 3 of my parcels plus the court fee. I encourage everyone to take them to court. You stand an exceedingly good chance of winning.

They don't need a £1000 lawyer they can send Jim Bob above. They only need the £1000 lawyer because they are almost certainly in the wrong and it is for that reason they researched the relevant sections of the Act in tremendous detail to protect their rip-off trip, but didn't find anything conclusive.

Milesy

I phoned the Glasgow office this morning and just simply stated. I will pay the C&E charge, but not your clearance fee, to which the girl replied, ok that is fine, but we will send you a bill by post for the charge. I will phone you back. If any postage bill comes though it will be getting binned.

evil_ed

who said that parcelforce did not update tracking details? no one however someone did say that we update tracking details and the foreign website translates the information incorrectly. do you really think that every parcel is scanned twice? once for parcelforce and once for the country of origin. idiot! it gets scanned once for the parcelforce website which automatically updates the tracking in the origin country and this is translated by their track and trace service depending on the jargon used on their service. why not, as previously suggested by me, check the delivery website to see the correct information. i wouldn't think of sending something to another country and use the senders website to get full information but i would use the delivery agents website to find the info, which is what i do at work to find full details of something sent abroad.
Also, if you don't believe me about parcelforce not having a watchdog, try contacting postwatch on 0845-601 3265 and ask them! i can tell you that there are talks about us voluntarily entering into agreements with offcom as an official ombudsman.
and lastly , because i get sick of explaining things to people who don't want to listen. why not take notice of a previous poster who personally imports goods from all around the globe and has nothing to do with parcelforce, it costs the importing company a lot of money each time an item has been incorrectly declared by the sender and for this and many other unseen administration details, a fee is put in place which has not been paid by the sender, only the courier delivery costs. I can also tell you that many companies throughout the world hold parcels until the full delivery costs have been paid (even royal mail when the sender has not paid full postal costs) did you actually read when isplumm said that his company gets fined a hefty fee each time they import goods falsely declared by the sender?
still!!! we will always retain the right to return to sender( the rightful owner) in the case of any complaints and they can make alternative arrangements with you the recipient to send the item on a more expensive service as outlined in a previous post by me in which fedex will collect and deliver your item, and this will always be upheld as legal because there is no ambiguity in the wording of this law, the item belongs to the sender of an item until it has been accepted by the recipient.
once again, why not appeal the customs charge in the first place as many charges are overturned by hmrc and if this happens then the clearance fee is also refunded and we claim it from customs due to their error in charging in the first place. even if you have accepted the parcel and have paid the charges, you have got 30 days to legally challenge any hmrc charges.
it seemt to me tandy, that you are quite angry at the wrong people. firstly you should be upset with the sender for sending the item under incorrect documentation and secondly with yourself for not appealing the charges in the first place.
do you think parcelforce and the royal mail group would last long if they did not charge for every service offered to customers which is not offered by other companies, in this case hmrc do not offer you the buyer the chance to contact them direct to take payment as they do not have the manpower to do so and the storage space to keep the item until the vat/import duty is paid.

who do you think prints the advice letters off and puts them in envelopes, puts the red and white labels on the parcels answers the phones to take payment updates and upkeeps the payment website with security measures stores the parcel in a secure area checks that all of the necessary checks have been made to avoid incorrect billing and if customs opens the parcel, who repacks the parcel and writes advice on why it was opened and who makes it so you do not get fined for importing under false documents? all of this is not done at the press of a button as you obviously and naively think. not even the filling of the envelopes is done automatically as if it were, a machine can easily send the wrong advice to the wrong person so this need to be done by hand, and i know i would not do this kind of job free of charge, would you???
and finally, instead of arguing with me like a child who has lost his ball, why not get educated in exactly what processes need to be done and ask yourself, would i do this job free of charge??
also yes it does cost a lot of money to hire a corporate solicitor for one day so it makes economic sense just to pay out the £8 or £13.50 with court costs without contesting. not that i'm giving out hints to anyone

evil_ed

also tandymalbot, what are you talking about when you say rm hands the parcel to us, this, you are very mistaken about. the parcel never enters royal mail hands. usps takes the parcels in the export bags from heathrow airport, london airmail unit(lamu) and transports them directly to coventry international hub, (parcelforce not royalmail) and the parcels are then officially handed over to parcelforce where each individual parcel is scanned in to our service and are automatically generated a british tracking number. up to now it is standard throughout the world. the parcel is then randomly sent to customs for checking or if the import docs are incorrect or incomplete then these are sent to customs also, the incomplete or incorrectly labelled parcels are automatically automatically flagged up by us customs advising our customs to look at the parcel according to our laws.
never in all of these processes do royalmail touch the parcels., if they did, the size restrictions for parcels entering the uk through parcelforce would be 1.05m in length or 2m in length and girth combined also the parcel would not exceed 10kg as these are royalmail restrictions according to the machinery they use. it is because the parcels never reach royalmail services that we can import heavier and bigger parcels.
the only time a parcel may enter another royalmail group service, is if it gets taken to a post office after a failed delivery attempt but again the parcel has to be within royalmail size restrictions.
until you know what you are talking about, please say nothing as you are looking foolish to those of us who know how the system works.

must say it's been a good laugh at you(sorry with) you but have to go now because i know now that you cannot be educated but will keep coming up with an infinite amount of stupid statements which have neither been investigated nor thought about. Its like a child saying "but why, but why, but why". it gets tedious after a while and no matter how much fun can be poked at an individual, it soon gets boring
ever tried googling the answers you need rather than thinking to yourself "that sounds plausible so that must be true" it might sound plausible to a layman or someone not trained in the services but to those who know what they are talking about, you just sound stupid.

my advise to anyone following this discussion thread, take no notice of tandymalbot or of me. look the answers you wish on the official websites, hmrc.gov.uk parcelforce.com oft.gov.uk opsi.gov.uk and sitpro.org.uk obviously these all begin with www. but i cannot post the full addresses in this thread. but see all the information first hand and read it all, not just the bits you think apply to you and don't let anyone tell you certain bits don't apply, they all do but in the case of the legallity of holding a parcel, even the mail can with held if full postage has not been paid
good luck in your investigations and always remember, you have the right of appeal within 30 days

evil_ed

last thing tandymalbot , the senior counsel said "For
the avoidance of doubt I have never pleaded that the Postal Services Act
does not apply to Royal Mail Group Ltd." this may be true, but did she actually say that that it does apply to royal mail group ltd and that it applies to every single company within rm group? no! I think a senior counsel can word things better than you or i .mail services have to abide by international mail laws however., courier is not mail and until we join offcom we have not got a watchdog and if we could be classed as mail do you not think we would have been over seen by postwatch
so long forever
your faithful follower and admirer
Evil Ed
caveat emptor