Buying In The US Discussion Area

chocolady

I am trying to buy some boots from a U.S. internet site and have them shipped free to my cousin in the states. When his mum goes out there at Christmas she is going to collect them for me. I have tried to do this today and put my credit card details (mastercard) on the site and had to telephone them with a query. The order didnt go through because they would not accept an order with my billing address but a U.S. shipping address for some reason. Has anyone got any advice as to how I proceed?

jenniewb

chocolady wrote: »

I am trying to buy some boots from a U.S. internet site and have them shipped free to my cousin in the states. When his mum goes out there at Christmas she is going to collect them for me. I have tried to do this today and put my credit card details (mastercard) on the site and had to telephone them with a query. The order didnt go through because they would not accept an order with my billing address but a U.S. shipping address for some reason. Has anyone got any advice as to how I proceed?

Not ordered from the US myself so not 100% on this, but did used to work in customer services and had US callers whose orders would not go through as they had US based credit cards which although were "VISA", "American Express" or whatever, the card was not able to be used as it was set by the banks to only allow it to work in certain countries- basicly to prevent fraud occurring, or reducing the amount of fraud that happens.

Not sure from your message if it was the credit card company or the boot company that called you. It could be either (we used to have similar issues in our department).

The main reason again, is to prevent fraud. In a way it'd be easier for you to get away with ordering from the US if you were in the US, your ISP is often tracked and if they find your ordering overseas and not to your home address, it looks to them as dodgy.

One way out of this could be to see if you can get your CC registerded to your cousins address- call the CC company up to see if they can do anything, or see if you can get a new card (new bank) to see if they have different rules.

Or the last resort would be to get your cosin to buy them and then refund her/pay her for them first. That way you'd definetly not get bothered by any IPS or address rules!

Another idea -if it was the CC company affecting this rather then the boot company would be to call the card company up and ask if its possible to do a transaction to a US based company, explain its for your cousin/gift or etc, see if they can amend the card or get you a new account/card to use.

chocolady

Thanks for your advice, my cousin has offered to buy this for me and my aunt will take the cash over for me. Its a shame though as I have an Abbey Zero card and the rate you get for using this is very favourable so I will have to go for the cash exchange rate which i dont think is so good. There must be a way around this. It was the retailer who had the problem not the credit card company by the way...... they didnt like seeing different billing and shipping addresses and I guessed it was because of the possibility of fraud. However you would think that they could contact the bank and iron out the fact that the person using it was legitimate. I have a problem with my feet and these boots are specially made for comfort and would cost me a lot more here....

AHAR

Hi,
There seem to be more questions than answers in this thread but another one couldn't hurt?;)

I ordered a watch from a Amazon USA marketplace which has been sent by USPS. I can see from the USPS tracking site that it left the US on 2nd December. I'm aware that there'll be VAT and Royal Mail's £8 handling fee to pay before I can get my hands on it. It's below the threshold for import duty which is a trivial amount on watches anyway. (I'll still be ~£50 better off than if I'd bought it from the cheapest place I could find here though:D)
Should I just expect a card through my letterbox from Royal Mail to tell me they've got it? I presume the USPS tracking site won't offer any more information now that it has left the US?
Thanks

Edit: The USPS tracking is now showing it arrived into UK customs today so I should hear something soon no doubt.

aone

Hey money savers. I am looking for some advice. I want to but a pair of uggs from the states as it they are like £70 cheaper over there. I was thinking of buying a pair from shoe-store.net the total comes to £101 including shipping. I have read that if its under £105 you don't get charged customs. Is this true?

I just want to how much I would be expecting to pay overall. Just to see if its worth it or not.
I have family in the states would be cheaper for them to buy and send them over?

lindsey27

I think if you go to Nordstrom they ship to the UK and work out customs fee for you too.

C_Mababejive

lindsey27 wrote: »

I think if you go to Nordstrom they ship to the UK and work out customs fee for you too.

Yes but the US>UK shipping charges via Nordstrom are very high.

aone

I had a look at Nordstrom. But shipping is £27.51 duty and vat is 14.14.
Comes to £130 in total. which isn't really any cheaper than I get here. As student I can get them for £130 from schuh anyway cost of discount. They say i wont be charged any more on top of that. But not sure I believe that.

Photojonic

AHAR wrote: »

Hi,
There seem to be more questions than answers in this thread but another one couldn't hurt?;)

I ordered a watch from a Amazon USA marketplace which has been sent by USPS. I can see from the USPS tracking site that it left the US on 2nd December. I'm aware that there'll be VAT and Royal Mail's £8 handling fee to pay before I can get my hands on it. It's below the threshold for import duty which is a trivial amount on watches anyway. (I'll still be ~£50 better off than if I'd bought it from the cheapest place I could find here though:D)
Should I just expect a card through my letterbox from Royal Mail to tell me they've got it? I presume the USPS tracking site won't offer any more information now that it has left the US?
Thanks

Edit: The USPS tracking is now showing it arrived into UK customs today so I should hear something soon no doubt.

They'll leave a grey card (looks like the red cards you get when they were unable to deliver when you were out) which will state how much you need to pay (including the £8 handling fee) You can either attach the value in stamps and put it in the postbox and your item will be delivered as normal, or you can take the card to your sorting office and pay the value and get your post there and then

custardy

Photojonic wrote: »

They'll leave a grey card (looks like the red cards you get when they were unable to deliver when you were out) which will state how much you need to pay (including the £8 handling fee) You can either attach the value in stamps and put it in the postbox and your item will be delivered as normal, or you can take the card to your sorting office and pay the value and get your post there and then

i wouldnt recommend this for customs charges
you can but if that card got lost you could be out a lot of money!!
far better to use the reference number on the card(your items unique tracking number) and pay online at https://www.royalmail.com/fee2pay
your item will then be put out for delivery like a normal package
if going to the delivery office then take cash as ive yet to hear of a delivery office taking cards though allegedly some do