Parcelforce 'Clearance fee'

custardy

chris_yo wrote: »

Yes, and the fee should be part of the price the sender pays for shipping. Not something that the recipient is expected to pay. And the fee should be proportional to the value of the item, not many times the value of the item as is possible now.



The problem is that the sender has no idea that their domestic mail service is going to pass the parcel on to Parcelforce for delivery in the UK. The fee should be paid by the sender so that it can be arranged at the point of sale. What Parcelforce effectively do is to undercut other postal operators by offering a cheap price to the sender, but then bump up the profits after they have the parcel by charging the recipient too.

Imagine what would happen if DHL or any other courier started offering 10p flat rate shipping UK wide, but then demanded £20 from the recipient after DHL had taken possession of each parcel, and refused to release the parcel until the ransom was paid. People would be furious, and rightly so.

Maybe we should start an online petition to the Prime Minister.

so which is it? PF are undercharging or the senders 'fault' as their service passes it to PF?
its not PF the senders is handing their goods to and paying

DHL?

they charge fee's as well,bearing in mind these are goods carried point to point via DHL


how about you put your efforts into a petition to get HMRC to fully administrate them collecting the duty from the recipient?

Ivory_Tinkler

chris_yo wrote: »

Yes, and the fee should be part of the price the sender pays for shipping. Not something that the recipient is expected to pay. And the fee should be proportional to the value of the item, not many times the value of the item as is possible now.

If this was the case then the sending company would be receiving a fee for something that they haven't done because PF clear the parcel not the sending company.

As for the fee being proportionate to the value of the item how would that work when the same amount of administration is involved for say a £25 parcel or a £500 parcel?

BTW I don't work for PF, just trying to add my twopenneth

muddyone

I ordered a parcel from the States and had encountered the same issue of the parcel being held at my local branch and a payment of approx £20 in ‘handling’ charges. I smelt a rat so looked at this post. Indeed the letter you get from Parcel Force deliberately misses out the Handling fee in its small print as a must pay fee.
On reading Geolabuks posts from all that time ago I went in to the depot with a firm ‘not going to pay that’ attitude. After much polite wrangling, I finally got the Depot manager in front of me, who allowed me to only pay the VAT, saying that head office would soon contact me, and PERSUE me for the remaining payment.
My Parcel was untouched with all the original packaging and sealants in place. It had in no way been tampered with.
I have this morning received a statement from Parcel Force which shows only the VAT with no handling charge.
Seems that they agree that this fee is unacceptable, postage had been paid in full when I paid for the item, they have been reimbursed for this by USmail, I am happy to pay the VAT. At no point have I instructed Parcel Force to act on my behalf. If they choose to pay my VAT on my behalf that is their choice. The parcel hand not been inspected BY HMRC and so had not incurred a handling fee by them, there was NO oncost to Parcel force of my parcel. I certainly do not expect to have to pay a fee
Well done Geolabuks and other for their work on this....and ya bo to Custardy who I assume works for the Post Office?..

johnnyderby

I also recieved a letter yesterday regarding handling fees,bought a pair of trainers from japan £75,the letter says they will keep item for 20 days or send it back to sender do i pay or not,need these for christmas

Psychonaut

Today I received a £8 [STRIKE]"Clearance Fee" invoice[/STRIKE] ransom demand from Parcelforce for a package I had ordered from the US. After reading about this Fee here and on other consumer forums, I decided to try to dispute or otherwise avoid paying it.

To make a long story short, I went to the London depot on Royal College Street to collect the package and told them I refused to pay the Clearance Fee. They told me that I was required to pay it, and I politely said that I didn't think I was legally obligated to. They caved immediately: the service rep simply went around back, fetched my package, and charged me only the customs fee. I got the original invoice back with a big "PAID" stamp on it, with no inidication that only part of the invoice was paid, so I assume they won't be trying to collect their Clearance Fee from me at a future date.

So that's pretty much it; I got out of paying the Clearance Fee with almost no argument from them whatsoever. I would like to think that Parcelforce's immediate and quiet refusal to pursue the matter can be taken as evidence that they know they don't have a leg to stand on.

I have posted the full story, complete with scans of relevant documents, on my blog, but unfortunately I don't have link posting privileges here yet.

airmark

I have a package held by Parcelforce in their London central depot (btw, where exactly is it?) "Awaiting payment of charges". Their offices are closed so I'll find out tomorrow how much exactly it is. However this is for an item that is indeed a gift, from family in the US. Now, given the rather high expected charges I would prefer to reject it and have it sent back to him. I asked USPS and they said that's certainly possible and it shouldn't incur a charge at all for me nor the sender. Has anyone done it in the past and if yes, was it fast or did it take weeks to go back to the sender?
Thanks

metalfury

Hello, been reading with intrest as I've also been stung with an additional £13.50 on my parcel.

If it costs £13.50 to deliver the parcel on the last part of the journey I don't understand why they don't just include it in the standard overseas mailing prices. i.e. increase the Postage and packing of my item from £15.00 to £28.50.

Then the pricing would be a bit more transparent, rather than sneaking it on at the end.

For me the issue is that I've already paid to have the item delivered to my door from a country outside the EU, and I don't understand why there should be an additional fee at the end of the process. It seems to me to be a bit like posting a Chritsmas card with a first class stamp and then the postie demanding an extra 30p from the recipient before they can have it.

custardy

you paid for it to be delivered,the fee is for dealing with HMRC on your behalf
given not everyone is subject to charges via HMRC then you cant charge everyone
however many couriers offer a service which includes all fee's at point of purchase(you didnt pay parcelforce at country of origin) so perhaps look at those in future

metalfury

Thanks Custardy for your reply

For the product I ordered to be delivered from Japan to the UK I would of thought that everyone would need to pay the tax on it?

however many couriers offer a service which includes all fee's at point of purchase

So it seems that some do this. I'm just surprised that the rest don't as a matter of course. I think people (myself included) are happy to pay the taxes but annoyed that there's an additional fee that hadn't been factored in when ordering. This is the first time I've come accross this, so it was all a bit of a surprise!

Going back to my analogy and taking it further it would be like me paying 15p for a first class stamp and then the recipient having to pay an additional 15p or so to the postman for dealing with the letterbox on my behalf. The letter would always have to go through the letterbox, so that price should be factored into the first class stamp.

custardy

metalfury wrote: »

Thanks Custardy for your reply

For the product I ordered to be delivered from Japan to the UK I would of thought that everyone would need to pay the tax on it?



So it seems that some do this. I'm just surprised that the rest don't as a matter of course. I think people (myself included) are happy to pay the taxes but annoyed that there's an additional fee that hadn't been factored in when ordering. This is the first time I've come accross this, so it was all a bit of a surprise!

Going back to my analogy and taking it further it would be like me paying 15p for a first class stamp and then the recipient having to pay an additional 15p or so to the postman for dealing with the letterbox on my behalf. The letter would always have to go through the letterbox, so that price should be factored into the first class stamp.

taxes are paid on country of receipt
so a supplier would need to get a price from their courier for this service to the UK then pass that to the customer
the courier would need to know what the item is etc to sort out a price
remember not all items have duty and not all at the same rate
so its not something a shop can have as a drop down on an website
then you have couriors who dont have offices in the destination country so it gets more complex
eg if you order from the USA its often the likes of fedex,UPS,DHL who would offer this service as they have offices here too,so it stays in their control all the way
using a mail analogy doesnt work as you are talking about the standard route of a letter with no deviation
a 1st class letter with a paid redirection is a closer analogy