ParcelForce Clearance Fee

custardy

bankz5152 wrote: »

Not at all, obviously they have to give you the parcel to inspect it properly. At this point you agree to pay VAT & Tax and refuse the other fee. Leave the exact amount and leave. hypothetically.

Have to?
I thought you had the right to ask?

bankz5152

I suppose your right in that respect, poor choice of words on my part. Though it is my right to inspect it before signing for it and to do so it must be in my hands.

Many times before Ive had dents go through the outer packaging into the inner packageing and only noticing after I signed for it. Luckily nothing was missing and there was no damage.

visidigi

bankz5152 wrote: »

Not at all, obviously they have to give you the parcel to inspect it properly. At this point you agree to pay VAT & Tax and refuse the other fee. Leave the exact amount and leave. hypothetically.

Great idea.

They have your address. So idea falls on its backside at that point.

Yorkshire_Pud

Last week ordered a stylus from Japan which was sent by EMS and ended up in Parcelforce Coventry.

I'd never heard of the Clearance Fee levied by PF before but now my £20 value stylus with postage packing, VAT and the PF Clearance Fee of £13.50 will total £51.90!

I do feel foolish as this info is out there but its the Clearance Fee that really stings, it must be a cash cow, legalised extortion and no I wouldn't want to import it myself, just pay a lower fee!

Lesson learnt and will need to be more circumspect in future.

If I get the chance to not use Parcelforce for any reason I will surely take it. It's called Goodwill (lack of).

Hope they used a good diamond tip on that stylus because I won't be ordering any more from Japan.

Also PF in calculating the VAT on behalf of HMRC must use a crappy exchange rate because I paid £30.67 and the VAT charge is £7.73 equivalent to £38.65 value:mad:

wealdroam

Yorkshire_Pud wrote: »

Also PF in calculating the VAT on behalf of HMRC must use a crappy exchange rate because I paid £30.67 and the VAT charge is £7.73 equivalent to £38.65 value:mad:

VAT is charged on postage and packaging too.

Does that £30.67 include p&p?

Yorkshire_Pud

Yes it is the order total inc p+p and even a 4% levy for currency conversion levied by PayPal! It would have been £29.47 total order value inc p+p without the PayPal levy so that would I presume be the order value on the package which I haven't yet got as only got the blackmail letter today from PF.

So VAT on £29.47 not £38.65.

They rip you off, then they rip you off, and then they rip you off again againnnn!

wealdroam

VAT on PF's Clearance Fee?

Yorkshire_Pud

No it specifically says no vat for the clearance fee on the invoice they've sent me.

shaun_from_Africa

Yorkshire_Pud wrote: »

Yes it is the order total inc p+p and even a 4% levy for currency conversion levied by PayPal! It would have been £29.47 total order value

Don't forget that you don't pay VAT on the price of the item + the postage costs. You pay it on the price declared by the sender + postal costs.

In most countries, the sender is only meant to state the actual value of the goods and not the postal costs but on many occasions, I have received imports where the seller has included the P&P charges in the declared value.
When this happens, the postal charges are in effect being taken into account twice when it comes to import duty calculations.

Taking your item for example. As you paid a total of £29.47, the goods may have been £24 and the postage £5.47 but if the customs form stated the amount that you paid as the total, you would get charged VAT on £34.94.

Yorkshire_Pud

Postage was $16 US or about £9.60 so yes it may be they have charged VAT twice on the postage! Probably not worth trying to get it back from HMRC with time and postage so another win for the rip off merchants.