Royal mail customs charge is morally wrong let's fight it

dj1471

Captain_Leaky wrote: »

All the original poster had to do was to request that the seller state a lower-than-threshold value on the shipping carton label.

AFAIK, if the item is labelled as being worth less than £15, then no RM 'Handling fee' is applicable.

Correct. That's also fraud.

InquisitiveMind

On another note, if you import using DHL or Fedex (one of them, can't remember which one), they send you the parcel then an invoice. You write back stating you'll pay what's owed to 'er Maj. but you didn't consent to the additional fee so will not be paying it. You'll receive back a message which is along the lines of: "OK... we'll let you off this time, but you're on our radar now..."

wealdroam

Captain_Leaky wrote: »

All the original poster had to do was to request that the seller state a lower-than-threshold value on the shipping carton label.

AFAIK, if the item is labelled as being worth less than £15, then no RM 'Handling fee' is applicable.

And that is another case where the "sampling", mentioned earlier, kicks in.

A sample of those 'under £15' parcels will be checked to ensure that the declaration is correct.
And if the declaration is not correct, a £8 handling fee might be the least of your worries.

arcon5

InquisitiveMind wrote: »

On another note, if you import using DHL or Fedex (one of them, can't remember which one), they send you the parcel then an invoice. You write back stating you'll pay what's owed to 'er Maj. but you didn't consent to the additional fee so will not be paying it. You'll receive back a message which is along the lines of: "OK... we'll let you off this time, but you're on our radar now..."

That just translates to the amount isn't worth pursuing due to the costs we'll incur in doing so, but next time we have a parcel for you then you'll be paying first

foxtrotoscar_2

arcon5 wrote: »

That just translates to the amount isn't worth pursuing due to the costs we'll incur in doing so, but next time we have a parcel for you then you'll be paying first

...plus the unpaid outstanding fee as well I bet.

meer53

For less than £20 they have to be fake.

visidigi

arcon5 wrote: »

That just translates to the amount isn't worth pursuing due to the costs we'll incur in doing so, but next time we have a parcel for you then you'll be paying first

This TOTALLY translates to this. All future parcels for you will e held for payment before release for delivery. Delaying delivery for days.

visidigi

meer53 wrote: »

For less than £20 they have to be fake.

Not really, they are on amazon for £34 delivered.

So the OP is still quids in on UK prices.

Nilrem

wealdroam wrote: »

And that is another case where the "sampling", mentioned earlier, kicks in.

A sample of those 'under £15' parcels will be checked to ensure that the declaration is correct.
And if the declaration is not correct, a £8 handling fee might be the least of your worries.

Or the sender, I believe that if it's a company incorrectly declaring then HMRC may well start to "randomly" sample pretty much every package they id from the company.
At least if the company is sending a reasonable amount and has been caught a few times.

Also from what I remember if HMRC have to estimate the value of a package because they think the declaration is fraudulently filled in, they go by the standard pricing.
Which means if you bought something for $25 but it's declared at $10, and normally retails for $75 you're likely to get hit for the tax on $75.
I remember someone having real fun in the early days of DVD when they picked up a fire clearance load of DVD's (disc only as the cases were damaged) at about $3 each, Customs did a check and valued them at their normal average price of $30 each and applied taxes based on that. I think the guy had a major battle to get them to adjust the taxes because they didn't believe it (I think he ended up having to send in print outs of the retailers page, his CC bill etc).

DHL used to be about the only courier that charged less than a fiver for lower value goods to residential addresses (it was something like £1 or 2% whichever was higher), but then you used to pay something like an extra fiver on the shipping compared to methods that used RM for final delivery, and were guaranteed to be hit by customs fees every time they were applicable.
So it was very much six of one, half dozen of the other.

The-Truth

sanibel686 wrote: »

I I got the dreaded card of death

Did you? Who died then?

Op when no one thanks your opening post and no one agrees with you that generally means you're not on to a winner!