Parcelforce 'Clearance fee'

Brooke_Daver

geolabuk wrote: »

This is the 21st Century, we can pay our own duty on-line at home or from a library. There is no need for Royal Mail to charge £8 - £13.50 for pushing a button.

Thirty years ago, the parcel would be delivered with an invoice from Customs attached, you would then send a cheque to Customs.

Nobody would bother pay, and why complicate things??

geolabuk wrote: »

I am pursuing this because if I go a few mph over the limit I am fined and have points put on my licence, fortunately not for 5 years though. Why should a PLC be allowed to fine everyone else and hold your property to ransom (against the law) until they're paid?

Is it not common sense that they only release parcels when they have been paid?

custardy

geolabuk wrote: »

This is the 21st Century, we can pay our own duty on-line at home or from a library. There is no need for Royal Mail to charge £8 - £13.50 for pushing a button.

Thirty years ago, the parcel would be delivered with an invoice from Customs attached, you would then send a cheque to Customs.

As for it being taken out of the system by Customs, that is all priced in the postage. Some items are taken out of the system, opened and no duty applied, Royal Mail doesn't then charge for that, and why should they, you have paid for the parcel to be delivered to your door.

I am pursuing this because if I go a few mph over the limit I am fined and have points put on my licence, fortunately not for 5 years though. Why should a PLC be allowed to fine everyone else and hold your property to ransom (against the law) until they're paid?

no the item is coming out of the mail system and customs are holding it.
why would RM then go back and collect that item after X time once the duty has been paid?
postage would cover it to customs since that is its final destination if customs are holding it.
as ive said it seems a simple solution to just deal directly with customs which i assume you can do in this case.
and again postcomm set the prices RM is allowed to charge so perhaps you should query why they chose to allow the charge to be set if they now question it?

as for the utopian idea of people just sending a cheque off after getting the item delivered?

Tight_Old_Git

Brooke_Daver wrote: »

Nobody would bother pay, and why complicate things??

Is it not common sense that they only release parcels when they have been paid?

UPS do not hold your shipment to ransom, they deliver first then invoice you for customs and VAT which you can then pay over the phone by credit/debit card or send a cheque. And no hefty rip off clearance fee to pay either.

On the occasions RM has delivered a chargeable shipment - no hefty clearance fee either. So why is Parcelfarce allowed to rip us off? Unfortunately when buying from abroad Parcelfarce is the carrier selected 99% of the time and is just another illegal scam to rip us off.

custardy

Tight_Old_Git wrote: »

UPS do not hold your shipment to ransom, they deliver first then invoice you for customs and VAT which you can then pay over the phone by credit/debit card or send a cheque. And no hefty rip off clearance fee to pay either.

On the occasions RM has delivered a chargeable shipment - no hefty clearance fee either. So why is Parcelfarce allowed to rip us off? Unfortunately when buying from abroad Parcelfarce is the carrier selected 99% of the time and is just another illegal scam to rip us off.

RM charge a clearence fee,when did you get a package from RM that required you to pay customs fee's afterwards?

Stargazer_Lily

RadoJo wrote: »

But when a company collects VAT from a customer they don't add on aa extra charge for having done so.

They do, they just include the costs of accountants fees etc in the cost of the item you purchased.

I don't see why Parcelforce can't just include their fees in the cost of the delivery.

Lil

custardy

Stargazer_Lily wrote: »

They do, they just include the costs of accountants fees etc in the cost of the item you purchased.

I don't see why Parcelforce can't just include their fees in the cost of the delivery.

Lil

because its down to customs to dictate whether VAT is payable or not

going on some posts i decided to look around on fee's
seems ups charge around £11 customs fee's though i could get this on their own site.only their "customs brokerage service" is mentioned with no fee's stipulated
http://ntsc-uk.domino.org/showthread.php?t=36823&page=18

these prices were posted in 20005 on that thread

Royal Mail charge £4
Parcel Force charge £8
Parcel Force with EMS £13.50
UPS charge £11

but are out of date now for RM and possibly UPS

edit: found it £11 to pay the customs charge,forward the package etc
http://www.ups.com/content/gb/en/resources/find/cost/additional.html?srch_pos=8&srch_phr=Rates%20for%20Customs%20Clearance

DHL is £10 or 2% of shipment value.whichever is greater

NewbieSaver_2

I too got caught out when importing goods.

The $US price was excellent, taking into account the excellent $/£ exchange rate. I even took into account the vat at 17.5%. But I was hit by 4.7% customs duty (the rate differs depending on the type of good), plus a charge of £11 from DHL that I wasn't expecting.

I guess we live and learn...

Tom

richlomax

I expected to pay import duty and VAT on my goods ordered from US, but Parcelforce's £13.50 'clearance fee' is a complete rip-off. I already paid 'shipping costs' in the total price, so what are these unadvertised charges for? They are effectively holding my delivery hostage, and as usual in this country, I have no option but to pay up and shut up. If anyone has successfully challenged this ransome charge, please post about it.

custardy

ive been reading into this to satisfy my own curiosity.
note the costs are not hidden but are posted on each respective couriers site.
the clearence fee isnt the shipping cost so you cannot lump it under the same costs.
one thing i noted on the UPS site is the offer packages that carry no customs clearence fee's(note VAT is speperate)
so a sender could prempt these costs and negate them on sending.
this is why i assume i see people saying UPS didnt charge a fee.

one reason(now i think about it) that parcelforce gets so many is the likes of UPS,DHL etc would be transporting from origin whereas PF would be taking over the journey from the UK side.
obviously this is different ot the UPS point to point

for those querying it,why not ask if it can be sent back to customs for you to deal directly? ive yet to hear anyone doing/trying this?

geolabuk

If it's against the law to hold a parcel ransom for the clearance fee, then it's against the law - that's that.

If it's against the law, I have a right to dispute the clearance fee, this is common law.

The parcel is not taken out of the system, Parcelforce is in the same building a Customs, there are no transportation costs.

I would rather Customs held my parcel until I paid them direct over the internet or visa over the phone. Other Government departments work this way, DVLA for instance.

What difference is it to Parcelforce to hold my parcel in a depot next to the Customs office until someone in the Customs office presses a button on their pc to tell Parcelforce it's ok to deliver?

I would rather pay a clearance fee to Customs, at least it would be going into the tax system and towards my services rather than some fat cat director's pocket.