Parcelforce 'Clearance fee'

custardy

m0rse wrote: »

The "basis of that fact" is simple arithmetic. If it costs $10.80 to ship something priority mail from the USA to the UK, including sorting it half a dozen times, loading it onto an aeroplane, flying it here, it hardly costs £8 (=$13) for Royal Fail to move it from one room to the next at Mount Pleasant. The simple fact is that the £8 fee is inflated to many times the cost of the actual administration involved. If you can't see that, well, short of having the head honcho of RM come on the radio and admit his company is ripping of the public, I don't know what would convince you.
so not facts then

And as for RM not being a monopoly, what planet are you from? What other UPU mail provider exists in this country? Who else can I get to deliver letter post on my behalf, and who else can I get to bring packages to me, when an overseas vendor sends me something through their national postal service?

well thats a question for your MP
why is RM the only carrier required to do so?
theres plenty of licensed carriers
so why arent they delivering?

m0rse

Um, yes, they are facts, facts based in basic arithmetic and basic economics. I note that you don't argue about their accuracy, you just argue the toss.

custardy wrote: »

[/COLOR]
well thats a question for your MP
why is RM the only carrier required to do so?
theres plenty of licensed carriers
so why arent they delivering?

No, it's not a question for my MP, it's a rhetorical question for you, to hopefully convince you that arguing RM is not a monopoly like you did is prima facie nonsensical.

And since you claim to be a former employee of RM, you know as well as anyone around here that RM are the UK's UMU national carrier, that only RM can deliver UMU imports and that RM are my only choice when choosing to send or receive letter post. Even bulk mail from TNT and the other bulk mail carriers is shoved through my letterbox by an RM employee, so RM are getting their piece of the pie, even then.

m0rse

custardy wrote: »

[/COLOR]
well thats a question for your MP
why is RM the only carrier required to do so?
theres plenty of licensed carriers
so why arent they delivering?

By the way, do you mind punctuating your posts, and sticking to standard English grammar, like using capital letters in the appropriate places?

I know RM aren't exactly renowned for the literacy and numeracy of their employees, but by upholding their lofty standards you're making your posts yet harder to understand.

m0rse

custardy wrote: »

oh deary me
you really are clutching at straws
just joined and we have had baiting,grammar and insults
well done
off to the ignore list you go

Well, excuse me - but you're the one who took it upon himself to start commenting on my posts when, frankly, you had nothing intelligent to say about them, and they were nothing to do with you.

And yes, your grammar is terrible and your punctuation is non-existent. It's not an insult, it's a fact, amply demonstrated by you time after time.

And yet, I have just joined, and yet you've gone out of your way to make me feel perfectly welcome, just like millions of your ilk on internet boards around the world.

And quite frankly, I'd be awfully grateful if you did "ignore" me. I'll be a happier man if this is the last time in my life I ever hear from you.

ElectricHead

tl;dr

This is a very long post. In short, it seems to be legal that they charge a handling fee and, as of this year, legal that they refuse to release your package until you do so. It also smells trolly in here.

---

So this thread (and the similar one on Royal Mail's handling fee) has been an interesting and somewhat arduous read. Seeing as I've invested the time making sense of this situation I feel I may as well share my conclusions.

The situation

Had a lot of hassle getting a package of custom made jewellery sent from the US. When it finally gets here, received notice that not only did it incur VAT, making an expensive and generally irritating purchase more so, it incurred an £8 handling charge (Royal Mail, in this case, not Parcelforce). This unfortunately wasn't noticed until on the way to the delivery office to pick it up with no cash in hand so the package remains there for now. Ordinarily would be perturbed by this but the expense and hassle already involved with the purchase made this even more unwelcome. Essentially there was a gut feeling this didn't really feel right that this unexpected fee was being levied on top.

Cue reading several year old threads full of misinformation and attitude in order to establish where we stood on this issue. There's been a lot of crap to cut through, to be honest, and I feel it is worthwhile potentially saving people doing the same and it makes my time seem a bit more worthwhile.

Summary of the important bits

There seem to be essentially two main elements to this issue:

1. Is the handling fee imposed by the postal operator fair/legal? (NOTE: this is distinct from the duty component of the charge which is, as far as I'm aware, not under debate)
2. Can they rightfully hold your package "to ransom" until you pay this handling fee? (NOTE: it also seems to be a given that they are entitled to hold your package until the duty is paid)
   

A bunch of "evidence" has been tossed about but in true internet style most of it is guff. Not only that, but key bits of it now seem to be out of date.

Section 105 "Application of customs and excise enactments to certain postal packets " Subsection (3) of the Postal Services Act 2000 states:

Duties (whether of customs or excise) charged on imported goods or other charges payable in respect of postal packets to which this section applies (whether payable to a postal operator or to a foreign administration) may be recovered by the postal operator concerned and in England and Wales and Northern Ireland may be so recovered as a civil debt due to him.

So that seems to suggest that the handling fee is legally enforceable as a civil debt. Is it fair? I don't know, but I think that's beyond the scope of this discussion and probably can only be decided through Court action and/or the regulator. So that's the first element dealt with.

The second point is trickier, Section 104 "Inviolability of mails" Subsection (2)(d) states:

Anything to which this subsection applies shall have the same immunity from ... retention by virtue of a lien ... as it would have if it were the property of the Crown.

This, as far as I can see, is the bit that pertains to the second element of the issue. They can't hold your package in order to recover money. It seems fairly clear that this is, at least, a grey area. This is supported by people's anecdotal experiences in successfully retrieving their packages minus the handling fee, sometimes by quoting this. The Consumer Focus website under the "Customs clearance fees" topic (Updated 10/08/2011 01:19 ) states:

however, there appears to be some uncertainty that a postal operator may be acting illegally if it retains an item in order to claim its clearance fee. Currently the relevant provisions of the Postal Services Act (sections 103-105) are the responsibility of BIS (the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills). Postcomm (the current regulator) has no enforcement powers.

Which would appear to support the assertions made by people citing this bit of the PSA 2000 and claiming success in this area in consultation with various entities. However, this bit of the Consumer Focus topic goes on to say

However, the new Postal Services Bill being considered by the UK Parliament removes this uncertainty and confirms that postal operators are entitled to detain items until the fee is paid. It also gives Ofcom (the new postal regulator) the power to limit the amount of the handling fee and the length of time for which an item may be detained.

This is, I think, referring to the Postal Services Act 2011, which as far as I can tell came into force on 13 June 2011 (so the Consumer Focus information looks out of date despite being updated). In the PSA 2011, an addendum is made to Section 105 of the PSA 2000:

(4A) A postal operator may detain a postal packet to which this section applies until any duties and charges in respect of the packet that are recoverable by virtue of subsection (3) have been paid.

So that's it. It now seems clear that they can legally hold onto your package until you pay both the duty and the handling fee.

Conclusions

People previously may have had a point regarding the legality of refusing to release your package until you pay the fee. The response to that was essentially pay the customs duty and then get them to either waive the handling fee or invoice you separately (giving you a chance to contest it). As of the PSA 2011 this is no longer valid, with this grey area being tidied up. Basically the horse is dead.

This is just my interpretation of the situation and my profession is not legal. I'm not claiming 100% accuracy on this, just trying to sum up what I've read. I think the relevant bits of the PSA 2000 were at the very minimum indicating the legality of the "ransom" was dubious, and it was obviously contestable. This seems to be less the case now, but ymmv.

I do find it very interesting that all those who were so convinced that people fighting this were misguided were essentially taking an untenable and ultimately contrary stance. Quite clearly the fact that, aside from acknowledgement from various sources that this is a tricky issue, an amendment has now been introduced to the legislation to clarify it means that generally people taking umbrage at this handling fee and withholding of their packages were actually in a reasonable position, despite the attempts to belittle them.

By all means do your own research on this and don't take this for granted, but I think there is little choice but to pay the handling fee and note it for future reference. It still doesn't strike me as entirely fair and clear that you are not given a choice by default, but ho hum.

custardy

ElectricHead wrote: »

By all means do your own research on this and don't take this for granted, but I think there is little choice but to pay the handling fee and note it for future reference. It still doesn't strike me as entirely fair and clear that you are not given a choice by default, but ho hum.

but there is..........

sakuraasama

Hi
Sorry for my poor English – its not my mother tone.
I followed this link just one of our customers send me this, he sent some parcels to the UK and the receiver got the parcelforce charge problem.
I know some of you worked/are working for RM/PF. The reason parcel force was selected as the agent is because RM was a public sector (to my understanding now it’s a private company, am I right?). The UPU agreement (it as a long history) is basically only shared within each country’s ‘official’ postal service providers, so RM is the default agent as we pass a packet from our hand to the UK postal service system.

As I know the service charge is nothing about the sender – our customer has paid us in full and according to UPU the UK postal service provider has no right to charge extra postage (and we do the same to delivery parcels from your country for free). The problem you have are actually two: first, RM passes some certain level service to PF (as I know, the USPS express, and most EMS); second, PF defined the charge is based on service related to customs, nothing about delivery.
Honestly, GBP 13.5 is too high (equals one 5 kg packet from Japan to the UK via EMS, if you use a business account) but you cannot win the case with PF/RM as their charges are legal in your country, your congressman made it. You just simply cannot win a monster. But, you can still get the fee back in case you are buying from overseas with certain level of guarantee (for example, your credit card company, or most cases you buy from ebay).
As you are buying from overseas you are subject to import tax, so you need to ask PF/RM for a detailed invoice on which clearly stated the GBP13.5 is PF/RM’s administration fee, nothing about HMRC (am I right?).
Then you can claim your seller (I know this is awful), but in fact your seller has paid full postage, and in my country we define is every fee just except customs tax. Then your seller, in some cases, will complain their local postal service provider (like us), and we have to compensate them if they have solid evidence show RM/PF charge them ‘extra’. So your story ends here, your seller get the fee back (from us) and send you, you both happy.
Then we sometimes will fax RM/PF to complain the extra charge, I know these in most cases go to their bin, but if there are large number of complaint, we can raise the issue within UPU.
What you can do is, contact your congressman, tell then you are unfairly charged, that may help, but may not.

caulodren

chrisup wrote: »

I've recently ordered an item of computer diagnostic equipment from a manufacturer's website in the USA as it seemed cheaper than buying it from a UK reseller. I did the dollar to Sterling conversion, add VAT and it came out about £13 cheaper overall (£135+VAT including delivery versus £175.99 inc. VAT).
However, when I received an invoice from Parcelforce I hadn't bargained for the addition of a 'Parcelforce Clearance fee' of £13.50 which reduced my saving to 22p!
I did a Google search on this fee and there seem to be a few mentions of it on eBay's forums and this interesting article on The Guardian web site:
It looks like there is no way of avoiding this fee (at least until PostComm do something about it), so be aware of it if ordering goods from outside the EU.

I was looking for their soirt code and account number and found it, I can only guess is whenever you buy anything from outside the eu, I can only guess pay for the item from the ebay seller then immediately calculate the vat yourself and loggin into your bank and submit transfer funds to the account then email the payment reference to the seller to include it on the outside of the parcel displaying first "customs & excise paid" and show the payment reference. not sure what to put in the reference number probably putting import duty then your national insurance number and the account of tax paid i guess "IMPORTJF731133B£13.59" guess but I would say contact customs & excise directly, you must fax on 01702366378 for the official reference number. I think by doing this since you have already paid customs there's no way parcel force can charge you a clearence fee as customs have already been paid.
the following is the hm c&e import & excise duties account number:

Bacs euro (credit)
Must be transmitted to:

Account:
HM C&E IMPORT & EXCISE DUTIES EURO

Bank Sort Code:
10 00 00

Bank account Number:
23031468

The BACS/CHAPS reference field must include a description of the tax being paid; your
reference number; the Customs location where payment is due; the period to which the
payment relates; and the sterling liability of the debt being paid.
A faxed advice is critical for payments to this account to enable the Department to advise
local offices of payments received (please see Notes below).
fax to 01702366378 details

I hope this helps you to stop being scammed by parcel force. I haven't tried it myself but I think its a great idea sicce you are paying customs before its sent, parcel force can no longer pay it for you and charge you a fee, lets beat these unreasonable fee's :rotfl:

chicko

useful thread - shame a troll ex postal worker has tried to sabotage it

custardy

chicko wrote: »

useful thread - shame a troll ex postal worker has tried to sabotage it

dont let the facts get in the way of your crying