FedEx invoiced me for £100 "duty/tax" charge, on top of the cost of shipment

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I don’t know where to post this. FedEx has sent me an invoice for £98.62, for a shipment that was made early September from Thailand to UK. There is a tailor in Bangkok that I sometimes buy shirts from. The shipment contained two shirts and weighed a total of 450grams (1 lb). The money they want is not the cost of the shipment (that was paid in advance by the person in Bangkok), rather it’s an unbelievable surcharge that they want me to pay. The invoice from FedEx breaks down the chargesas follows: FedEx Pak Duty £30.74, VAT £57.38, Advancement fee £10.50.
The tailor had already declared the value of the pack to be about £10 and stated that the shirts were “used garments with no commercial value”. FedEx have included a copy of that declaration with the invoice.
A bit of background on the use of FedEx is that I had used their service for shipping an identical pack on 20-Aug. I lost that pack (left in on the tube on the way home from work) and had to contact the tailor and buy the shirts again. The tailor shipped this second pack through FedEx as well, on 3-Sep.
FedEx didn’t invoice me for the first shipment, but they have invoiced me for the second shipment. Their invoice date was 10-Sep. I ignored it. Today I got a reminder letter that unless the £98.62 is paid in 7 days they’ll go through with legal proceedings. I haven’t contacted FedEx.
My thinking is that they (FedEx) automatically think you’re a business if you use their service more than once in a space of a couple of weeks, and want to shaft you. Please if you have ideas how to tackle this let me know.
Thanks
The tailor had already declared the value of the pack to be about £10 and stated that the shirts were “used garments with no commercial value”. FedEx have included a copy of that declaration with the invoice.
A bit of background on the use of FedEx is that I had used their service for shipping an identical pack on 20-Aug. I lost that pack (left in on the tube on the way home from work) and had to contact the tailor and buy the shirts again. The tailor shipped this second pack through FedEx as well, on 3-Sep.
FedEx didn’t invoice me for the first shipment, but they have invoiced me for the second shipment. Their invoice date was 10-Sep. I ignored it. Today I got a reminder letter that unless the £98.62 is paid in 7 days they’ll go through with legal proceedings. I haven’t contacted FedEx.
My thinking is that they (FedEx) automatically think you’re a business if you use their service more than once in a space of a couple of weeks, and want to shaft you. Please if you have ideas how to tackle this let me know.
Thanks
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FedEx are just the middleman in this and all carriers (I work with around 8 on a regular basis in my employment) I have come across insist on payment sharpish and refund if a dispute is upheld.
Did the sender insure the goods/claim for original goods at a higher value than declared on the invoice?
When the parcel was examined obviously not found to be the case.
Fedex merely collect. Customs doing the clearance and levy the charges.
Import duty and VAT are also charged on the postage costs.
Find yourself a UK tailor.
Agreed with FedEx being the middleman. I've no choice other than to pay it. It does appear that this tax is invoiced selectively, because the invoice states it was for the 10-Sep shipment, and nothing has been asked of me for the first shipment (20-Aug). And whatever value HMRC has placed on these two shirts must have been an enormous number for the charges to amount to £100.
Out of curiosity what did you pay inclusive of shipping?
The duty on cotton shirts from Thailand is 12% of the goods + postage cost, VAT is then added on top of all that at 20%.
What you haven't mentioned in your post is how much the shirts cost you - you have said the supplier marked down as £10 but is that the proper cost?
If that is indeed what you paid for them and you have proof (emails, bank transfer, etc) then you can take this up with HMRC and they will, when presented with evidence, amend their duty/taxes charge accordingly and then FedEx will reduce theirs to you.
if you can't prove the true value then HMRC will stick with their estimate instead.
As to why your other shipment was not stopped, its not an exact science, some stuff slips through, some doesn't, they can't check every single parcel entering the UK.
This suggests HMRC have valued the shirts and carriage at £256.16.
( (30.74/12)*100 = 256.16). (256.16+£30.74 duty)*20% gives the VAT total of £57.38.
If you have genuinely paid less than this you will need to appeal to HMRC (FedEx can tell you how) and provide proof in the form of bank statements or payment receipts.
The whole story with this tailor in Aug-Sep was as follows: In mid-Aug he sent me a number of shirts, using a shipping company I haven’t heard before (a Thai one). One of the shirts was not tailored properly; it was too big. The tailor emailed me and said that if I agree to bear the cost of FedEx-(or DHL)-ing it to him then he would tailor two shirts for me and sent both using FedEx. So I did. I FedEx-ed the unfit shirt. This cost me around £50. A week later I received a pack containing the promised two shirts. Now through my absentmindedness, I lost the pack (left them on the train) on the way home from work. Adamant that I have to get my shirts, I bit the bullet and asked the tailor if he would give me a good deal to replace the lost items, to which he proposed £100 including the shipping. He shipped using FedEx. The initial cost of the each shirt (in original order) was higher than £25 apiece, but it amounted to £25 in the last shipping because he gave me a good deal.
VAT is 20%, so they are valuing the goods at about £46. Sounds as if thats in line with what you expected.
£10 as an admin fee is pretty much normal.