Royal mail international handling fee (moan/warning)

pourwitty

I bought a broken piece of plastic jewellery from America for £17
and i forgot the VAT charge changes;
It used to be £18 or less and you don't get charged, now it is £15 or over and you get charged VAT, which is fair enough and i really don't mind;

However the Royal Mail have a HUGE (relative to the item price) £8 charge for sticking a sticker on my packet that says what VAT you owe.

So anyway i ended up paying £3.50 VAT AND £8 charge,
that's £11.50 on a £17 item = paying 67% of the items value in ransom to the royal mail.

Thanks RM!

ThumbRemote

I'm sure custardy will be along shortly to defend Royal Mail...

Oliver14

ThumbRemote wrote: »

I'm sure custardy will be along shortly to defend Royal Mail...

No but I will. They process you're payment to the hmrc with their staff time and their facilities. They are not a charity so charge for this service. If you receive afn item from abroad via a courier you will find some of them charge more than royal mail.

You are well within yoir rights to arrange to import goods yourself and then pay tax directly to hmrc yourself I think though you'll find hiring a plane or boat for a17 pound item may cost you a bit more than 8 pounds.

custardy

ThumbRemote wrote: »

I'm sure custardy will be along shortly to defend Royal Mail...

or ask the OP why they didnt do their own clearance given its as simple as sticking a label on

artypaws

Thank you for posting as I had no idea that the value had dropped to £15 - it has been £18 for a long time and in my opinion it should have increased instead of decreased - I bet a lot of people will get caught by this change, also I am sure I looked at the end of November as I purchased an item from the US and it was definitely £18 then.

Sayaka

Oliver14 wrote: »

They process you're payment to the hmrc with their staff time and their facilities. They are not a charity so charge for this service.

I'd like to know what the breakdown for the £8 is. Do you happen to know?

This happened to me recently. I would gladly pay C&E myself but wasn't given that option, I had to pay Parcelforce to do it it on my behalf.

I understand you can write on the parcel "To be cleared by the importer" or something, but that's not really possible when you order from an online merchant.

custardy

Sayaka wrote: »

I'd like to know what the breakdown for the £8 is. Do you happen to know?

This happened to me recently. I would gladly pay C&E myself but wasn't given that option, I had to pay Parcelforce to do it it on my behalf.

I understand you can write on the parcel "To be cleared by the importer" or something, but that's not really possible when you order from an online merchant.

well that's your choice. you choose what and whom your order from. if you choose not to do anything about then you default to the carriers policy.as for a breakdown of the charge then this was done under FOI some time ago.go looking

pourwitty

Oliver14 wrote: »

No but I will. They process your payment to the hmrc with their staff time and their facilities. They are not a charity so charge for this service. If you receive an item from abroad via a courier you will find some of them charge more than royal mail.

You are well within your rights to arrange to import goods yourself and then pay tax directly to hmrc yourself,though I think you'll find hiring a plane or boat for a 17 pound item may cost you a bit more than 8 pounds.

and

''or ask the OP why they didnt do their own clearance given its as simple as sticking a label on ''

I'v already paid for the postage to get it to this country and i would pay the £3.50 directly to C&E myself if i could, but you can't, you can't pre pay VAT and you have to let the mail do it.

it takes me all of 5 seconds to work out 20% of £17, hardly merits £8 worth of work

custardy

pourwitty wrote: »

and

''or ask the OP why they didnt do their own clearance given its as simple as sticking a label on ''

I'v already paid for the postage to get it to this country and i would pay the £3.50 directly to C&E myself if i could, but you can't, you can't pre pay VAT and you have to let the mail do it.

it takes me all of 5 seconds to work out 20% of £17, hardly merits £8 worth of work

no,quite simply you are wrong
there are services aailabe where all taxes can be paid in advance by the courier
you can also arrange to do your own clearance for free
you paid postage,you didn't pay for a service that covered customs clearance
cry and whine all you like
however I have laid the facts out as they are

competitionscafe

I did know about the limit being reduced to £15 and I kept my order under £15 and yet still had to pay a fee of £11.04.

I ordered on the 20th November and checked the HMRC exchange rate on their website to make sure my order was under £15. However due to Xmas post the order did not arrive until 14th December - by which time there had been a larger than average change in the US$/£ exchange rate so according to the HMRC exchange rate for December, my order was now 11 pence over the £15 threshold. Hence the £11.04 fee. Yes an 11 pounds fee for being 11 pence over!

As I am not psychic and cannot predict future exchange rates (if I could I would be rich!) the moral of the story is if you order anything from abroad order only do so right at the beginning of any month to ensure you receive it during the same month and don't get caught by fluctuating exchange rates.

By the way an order from the same company dispatched on 19 December arrived yesterday - so took a total of 10 days despite that time period including Christmas and Boxing Day. Yet my November order took almost a month to get here? If my November order had taken 10 days the November exchange rate would have applied and I would have been under the £15 limit.

Fiddlestick

Surely it's import duty rather than VAT?