Royal Mail £8 Internal Post Handling Fee scam?

custardy

Meeahmo wrote: »

Ok. Calmer, but it appears I was not clear with my explanation the first time, so here goes.
As stated in my original message, the card left by my post person, not parcelforce,again,why would it have anything to do with parcelforce? had two boxes on it for the post person to tick. They ticked the box that stated 'The Item cannot be delivered because it has a Customs fee to pay'. That was actually printed on the form.
Under that it was printed, yes, printed, fees for handling/administration is £1. (yes, that's ONE pound). the only cards Ive seen(admitadly they may have chaned now stated "underpaid tems carry a fee of £1 (or to that effect)
The printed card said,You can collect you item upon paying this fee. The fee is.. and then it was a box filled in, in biro, £11.28.
I then phoned HM Customs. They said that ANY item that you purchase outside the EU that costs over £18 (and up to £120) is subject to VAT on import. (Any item OVER £120 is subject to Customs Duty also, but I'm not going there as not relevant to my case). OK then, my item was just over £18, so VAT to pay. hadnt we alreadycovered this?
The customs person made it very clear that the charge on top for 'handling' was Royal Mail's fee and this is currently £8. This £8 charge has NOTHING to do with HM Customs, it is the fee that RM choose to charge. yes but HMRC dont allow you to pay them direct,so you feel another company should administrate the fees to HMRC for free while they save no administration?
The customs person has said that the VAT on my item was calculated at the prevailing exchange rate at the time the package passed through, so it would appear the VAT was correct, and therefore the RM charge was indeed £8. The £8 is charged regardless of the items value, it could be a flat screen TV or a CD. thats right,as it shows in the link i provided
When I collected my item from RM sorting office, the very nice postie guy there said, yes, the card is wrong, the £1 printed charge showing is for UK mail, but for handling an International Item, it's £8, unfortunately the cards they leave are NOT printed to show the International handling fee is £8. then perhaps they have a misprinted bartch or RM have changed the print
Amusingly he said, 'It used to be £4, but it wasn't long ago they increased it to £8! that's double y'know! If you ask me it's a rip off!' Hmmm...I can't argue with that when the handling fee came to almost half the value of the goods I bought and no warning whatsoever that this was going to be the case.recently? that would be about 5 years ago

so since you are now dwelling on the card.whats changed whether the fee is on the card or not?
you originally stated you would be fine as long as the fee was stated in advance on the site.
it is
now you are griping about the card (though i agree it should be seperated from UK items on the card)
so i ask you again.why dont you approach HMRC and ask them why you cant pay direct?
they are the ones setting levys and collecting VAT/tax
so why dont they just refuse the monies from RM(and other carriers) and include and invoice with the item for you to pay HMRC direct?
do you need a clue why they dont want to do it.....

sallyrsm

I ordered some vitamins from the US and the parcel was delivered to me with a charge ticket on it for £13 odd but the postman didn't charge me.
He just delivered it.
The thing that annoys me is the firm put on the customs label the value of the goods before the discount I got ($20 for being a repeat customer) so I was under the limit after the discount came off but over before...
Thanks Postie for saving me more than £13!!

Another time I paid the customs charge online, got the receipt ref no, and then the site said it was down and could not process the fee! I showed the PO the ref no and got my parcel. Never did come off my credit card.

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

nosherw

Just wanted to post my take on this one. I ordered an item from USA which is the only place I can buy it. Was aware that customs would charge vat coming into UK but was amazed to find a card on my door advising that I needed to go to post office to pay £12 for the item (no option on paying and getting it delivered) I find that £8 is a stealth tax - i mean handling charge from the post office.
I was livid, So I wrote to PO to make complaint as I felt that they were actually in breach of contract as I had paid for postage delivery to my door AND the fact that they had not given me an option to pay over the phone and then deliver to me. After 3 replies from the post office customer service team which just fobbed me off and did not answer any of my concerns (one even suggested that I contact customs to get my VAT fee waived and they would then refund the £8 even though i had told them that paying the vat was not an ossie) i went to the post office review panel and although they did not answer any of my concerns as such they did refund me the £8 as a gesture of goodwill :beer:

so a little bit of persistance pays off.

custardy

nosherw wrote: »

Just wanted to post my take on this one. I ordered an item from USA which is the only place I can buy it. Was aware that customs would charge vat coming into UK but was amazed to find a card on my door advising that I needed to go to post office to pay £12 for the item (no option on paying and getting it deliveredwww.royalmail.com/fee2pay) I find that £8 is a stealth tax - i mean handling charge from the post office.
I was livid, So I wrote to PO to make complaint as I felt that they were actually in breach of contract as I had paid for postage delivery to my door AND the fact that they had not given me an option to pay over the phone www.royalmail.com/fee2payand then deliver to me. After 3 replies from the post office customer service team which just fobbed me off and did not answer any of my concerns (one even suggested that I contact customs to get my VAT fee waived and they would then refund the £8 even though i had told them that paying the vat was not an ossie) i went to the post office review panel and although they did not answer any of my concerns as such they did refund me the £8 as a gesture of goodwill :beer:

so a little bit of persistance pays off.

incase you missed it https://www.royalmail.com/fee2pay

and in all your rant.did you not consider that HMRC didnt gice you the option to pay direct?
seems some folks make the noise but dont seem to see who is the one not doing the work

nosherw

custardy wrote: »

incase you missed it www.royalmail.com/fee2pay

and in all your rant.did you not consider that HMRC didnt gice you the option to pay direct?
seems some folks make the noise but dont seem to see who is the one not doing the work

Sorry in my "rant" I forgot to add that I am taking it up with HMRC regarding them asking for the money direct.

and why would I miss any web pages where Royal Mail advise that I would have a fee to pay!!!! as far as I am concerned I have paid the sender of the goods the money covering postage from them direct to my door, they advised on the website regarding customs which I am happy to pay.

Seems to me I am not the only one not happy with Royal mail charging £8 PER ITEM handling charge.

anyway just wanted to post my take on the situation

custardy

nosherw wrote: »

Sorry in my "rant" I forgot to add that I am taking it up with HMRC regarding them asking for the money direct.

and why would I miss any web pages where Royal Mail advise that I would have a fee to pay!!!! as far as I am concerned I have paid the sender of the goods the money covering postage from them direct to my door, they advised on the website regarding customs which I am happy to pay.

Seems to me I am not the only one not happy with Royal mail charging £8 PER ITEM handling charge.

anyway just wanted to post my take on the situation

as i said,take it up with HMRC
its the same for all carriers dealing in international mail coming into the UK
however bear in mind somehow you will pay
if HMRC deal with it then they will raise the fees to cover the costs
and while were on it
how did you think you would be paying the customs you were' happy to pay'?

nosherw

custardy wrote: »

as i said,take it up with HMRC
its the same for all carriers dealing in international mail coming into the UK
however bear in mind somehow you will pay
if HMRC deal with it then they will raise the fees to cover the costs
and while were on it
how did you think you would be paying the customs you were' happy to pay'?

Yes and as I HAVE said I am taking it up with customs, Also a friend had some items come into the country from her mother who lives abroad which needed a customs levy to be paid on them and she was sent an invoice to pay direct from customs which once she had paid released the item to her and I know for a fact that her charges from HMRC were nowhere near the £8 royal mail were charging. I assumed that I would be billed the same way and then my item would be released for the post office to deliver to my door which is what I actually paid for!!!
Really dont see any reason for royal mail to get involved in the handling of my mail for HMRC which is one of the things I will be commenting on.

Anyway as I said was just commenting on the post and really did not want to get into some long drawn out banter, let along be accused of "ranting":mad:

custardy

nosherw wrote: »

Yes and as I HAVE said I am taking it up with customs, Also a friend had some items come into the country from her mother who lives abroad which needed a customs levy to be paid on them and she was sent an invoice to pay direct from customs which once she had paid released the item to her and I know for a fact that her charges from HMRC were nowhere near the £8 royal mail were charging. I assumed that I would be billed the same way and then my item would be released for the post office to deliver to my door which is what I actually paid for!!!
Really dont see any reason for royal mail to get involved in the handling of my mail for HMRC which is one of the things I will be commenting on.

Anyway as I said was just commenting on the post and really did not want to get into some long drawn out banter, let along be accused of "ranting":mad:

customs dont bill directly for mail/courier items
that would be an invoice from a courier.so the exact same scenario which would have included a levy from whichever carrier delivered the items
how would an invoice from HMRC work? HMRC take a package from the carrier,hold it and then once its paid tell the carrier to come and get the item?
well lets look at it another way
how does the item get to the customs dept?
how does the mail get from the customs dept?
you didnt pay Royal Mail for the carridge of the item,you paid the mail service in the originating country
the Post Office is that building you take mail to be posted
they dont deal with the delivery of mail

so whilst you may feel the system is unfair,its up to HMRC to change that system
they dont because it allows them to run the dept far more cheaply
the carriers add a fee on to cover their costs so they will continue to do it
if HMRC take over the full administration of this do you think the charges on import would stay the same?

custardy

nosherw wrote: »

Yes and as I HAVE said I am taking it up with customs, Also a friend had some items come into the country from her mother who lives abroad which needed a customs levy to be paid on them and she was sent an invoice to pay direct from customs which once she had paid released the item to her and I know for a fact that her charges from HMRC were nowhere near the £8 royal mail were charging. I assumed that I would be billed the same way and then my item would be released for the post office to deliver to my door which is what I actually paid for!!!
Really dont see any reason for royal mail to get involved in the handling of my mail for HMRC which is one of the things I will be commenting on.

Anyway as I said was just commenting on the post and really did not want to get into some long drawn out banter, let along be accused of "ranting":mad:

customs dont bill directly for mail/courier items
that would be an invoice from a courier.so the exact same scenario which would have included a levy from whichever carrier delivered the items
how would an invoice from HMRC work? HMRC take a package from the carrier,hold it and then once its paid tell the carrier to come and get the item?
well lets look at it another way
how does the item get to the customs dept?
how does the mail get from the customs dept?
you didnt pay Royal Mail for the carridge of the item,you paid the mail service in the originating country
the Post Office is that building you take mail to be posted
they dont deal with the delivery of mail

so whilst you may feel the system is unfair,its up to HMRC to change that system
they dont because it allows them to run the dept far more cheaply
the carriers add a fee on to cover their costs so they will continue to do it
if HMRC take over the full administration of this do you think the charges on import would stay the same?

nosherw

Hmmmmmmm

obviously nothing better to do........................