Royal Mail £8 Internal Post Handling Fee scam?

custardy

mazza111 wrote: »

Spent the whole day today, all 11.5 hours, writing out cards for customs duties and underpaid bl00dy xmas cards. So yes, it would be better if we went back to one stamp covers all, it would be better if we gave you your parcels without charging a handling fee. I would love it. I could get on with serving the customers who are there to pick up their uk bought packages.

Unfortunately, it aint gonna happen. Every courier charges a handling fee for this. It's just luck whether you get through or not.

As stated in another thread, even items marked as gifts get stopped at customs. Do you really think RM or any other courier are gonna provide a fully tracked package service for nothing?


Best bit today tho, was the guy who came in to pay his customs charge with a £100 note, haha, his face was a picture when i gave him his change, £70 in fivers and £12 in pound coins

i can beat your story,we had a woman yesterday pay her customs charge of £16 online,however she managed to pay £1600 :eek:

mazza111

LMAO, hope u didn't refund her in £1 coins. That is hilarious:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

dzug1

mazza111 wrote: »

As stated in another thread, even items marked as gifts get stopped at customs. Do you really think RM or any other courier are gonna provide a fully tracked package service for nothing?


Best bit today tho, was the guy who came in to pay his customs charge with a £100 note, haha, his face was a picture when i gave him his change, £70 in fivers and £12 in pound coins

Gifts are just as liable to tax/duty as purchases - I think there's a higher exemption limit but that's it.

You could have invoked legal tender rules - no obligation to give any change:D

mazza111

hehe, that would have been a nice xmas bonus :beer: Would have been first round on me, no doubt :beer:

I actually hate being stuck indoors at xmas, does me out of so many tips, instead I get booze n chocolates which isn't good for my waistline

damnjet

Hi, googled and this is the first thread i found about this subject, saved myself ranting down a phone to somebody since all is answered here.

First time i have caught for outstanding excise duty on goods to the value of 26 euro's or £23 from Switzerland.. Goods under £18 have no duty so i ended up paying £12.03 the majority of which went to the royal mail in so called handling fees.

The behaviour of royal mail and customs amounts to extortion in my eyes.Royal mails duty is to deliver the mail not to act as agents of customs and excise. There seems to be a conflict of interest if you ask me.

Also customs could have simply attached a note with details of how to pay any dues and i would have happily have sent a check off.

Its a scam

custardy

well complain to customs
they are the ones doing less,no?

mazza111

Damnjet as previously mentioned, what u are getting for the £8 is a tracked service, almost like Special Delivery, although a signature isn't required. RM are just the holding agents for Customs. Whatever courier is used, there is always a handling fee. It's not just RM who charge this.

pmduk

Perhaps you should compare the Royal Mail charge with those from other suppliers. I seem to recall other couriers charge a great deal more.

rl290

I haven't had a chance to read the full post, but would just like to say that Royal Mail Group is horribly loss making and has a HUGE pension deficit. Their accounts are online here:
ftp://ftp.royalmail.com/Downloads/public/ctf/rmg/regulatory-financial-statements-2008-09.pdf

It's requirement to fulfil the universal service obligation lost £191m, which is forced upon them but not competitors. That's on top of the £93m it lost on downstream access (allowing competitors to use their systems... a double hit for RM!) and £247m on price controlled activities (mostly actual delivery of stamped items).

So, here's a company that the government spun out in a terrible financial position (the pension fund), that has to provide its regulated services at a loss, and has to make a loss to allow competitors to use their services - even though these competitors don't have as much regulation. The government screwed it - no wonder service levels are dropping.

R

anmarj

would like to point out that UPS do pass the parcels to parcel force, just had a delivery from usa who used UPS and they then passed it over, I was expecting to pay as it was a major order, but even with that I still mangaged to save quite a bit by buying in the US