Royal Mail £8 Internal Post Handling Fee scam?

custardy

jinnywren wrote: »

Royal Mail advised me they have a package for me. Sender didn't pay enough postage costs, there's a Custom Charge and £8 handling fee from post office.
I am not expecting anything and have not ordered anything.
How would I know if it's worth collecting or some scam?
Would you collect it if it was you?
Thanks

once again. This has nothing to do with underpaid postage
this is a customs/VAT fee
you can ask to view it/be told who the sender is/declared contents
if you aren't expecting it then its likely a seller misrepresenting their location or a gift from family abroad

SiP_2

My wife just bought a small piece of music memorabilia from the States. We've been buying items from eBay, Amazon and others for years including pleanty from the USA. Pretty much always have the value written on the package but we've never been hit for this - or knew about it - until:

The package had a customs declaration on it which clearly showed what the item was and its price - $29.99. We got told there is VAT of 95p to pay on it. No import or excise duty, just a 95 PENCE VAT bill. Fine. If we'd have known beforehand we'd have paid it happily, but we didn't and not sure how your average EBay customer would have a clue. We're hardly trying to defraud - simply buying trinkets.

Anyway, there was also the £8 Royal Mail International Handling Fee. I can't see why. There was no attempt to defraud, the value and the item description is clearly printed on the package and there doesn't appear to be duty to pay, just an odd VAT figure. So it seems you just HAVE to assume £8 extra on every non-EU order now. If that's the case they should be upfront about it and everyone buying from abroad from reputable websites/outlets should be told this clearly. I can't actually see a way we would have been able to pay the 95p VAT without paying the £8 charge as:

1) We didn't know about it.
2) It's NEVER happened before to us despite buying numerous higher value goods over many years - with the price always accurately and clearly marked on the packages.
3) It's not clearly advertised anywhere.
4) How would we know it was 95p on $29.99?
5) How would we go about paying it ahead of delivery?

If anyone thinks I've got the wrong end of the stick on this, let me know.

I'll be chasing this up because I'm surprised there's never been a story about this in the press. There are some things I can't buy anywhere other than outside the EU. I'll happily pay any tax but this is just an £8 penalty for buying further afield. No work has been done by anyone. All that's happened here is someone at HMRC or the Post Office has looked at the front of the letter and calculated 95p. That costs £8 does it?

custardy

SiP wrote: »

My wife just bought a small piece of music memorabilia from the States. We've been buying items from eBay, Amazon and others for years including pleanty from the USA. Pretty much always have the value written on the package but we've never been hit for this - or knew about it - until:

The package had a customs declaration on it which clearly showed what the item was and its price - $29.99. We got told there is VAT of 95p to pay on it. No import or excise duty, just a 95 PENCE VAT bill. Fine. If we'd have known beforehand we'd have paid it happily, but we didn't and not sure how your average EBay customer would have a clue. We're hardly trying to defraud - simply buying trinkets.

Anyway, there was also the £8 Royal Mail International Handling Fee. I can't see why. There was no attempt to defraud, the value and the item description is clearly printed on the package and there doesn't appear to be duty to pay, just an odd VAT figure. So it seems you just HAVE to assume £8 extra on every non-EU order now. If that's the case they should be upfront about it and everyone buying from abroad from reputable websites/outlets should be told this clearly. I can't actually see a way we would have been able to pay the 95p VAT without paying the £8 charge as:

1) We didn't know about it. well now you do
2) It's NEVER happened before to us despite buying numerous higher value goods over many years - with the price always accurately and clearly marked on the packages. well you have saved a lot of money.Very MSE
3) It's not clearly advertised anywhere. where did you look?
4) How would we know it was 95p on $29.99? where did you look?
5) How would we go about paying it ahead of delivery? read the thread

If anyone thinks I've got the wrong end of the stick on this, let me know.

I'll be chasing this up because I'm surprised there's never been a story about this in the press. There are some things I can't buy anywhere other than outside the EU. I'll happily pay any tax but this is just an £8 penalty for buying further afield. No work has been done by anyone. All that's happened here is someone at HMRC or the Post Office has looked at the front of the letter and calculated 95p. That costs £8 does it?

big post
hyperbole
Did you miss the little thing about it being Royal Mail not Post Office?

SiP_2

You've brilliantly got to the heart of the matter. Well done you. Anyone with any insight wish to add anything?

KxMx

I managed at the age of 13 with dial up internet to make myself aware of these things before I started importing goods from the US.
It's sheer luck you haven't had a charge before now, not every single package is checked.
If the VAT of value works out at 95p then you are liable to pay the 95p plus RM's handling charge.
The tax man is not interested in whether or not you can buy the item in the UK. The tax man is only interested when you choose to shop outside the UK and therefore (in their eyes) dodge paying UK tax & VAT. Hence good imported being liable for charges.
Remember RM clear customs for these items on your behalf, this is where the charge comes from. Then they have to calculate any VAT/Duty due and then administer and deliver a notice to you for the money owing.
The handling charge is a flat fee and people only tend to complain when it gets slapped on a lower value item. Those are just the rules I am afraid.
There are a myriad of forum threads, pages on HMRC and indeed eBay pages about this issue if you look for them. If you've been buying from abroad for years and not seen anything about it then that would surprise me.

paddyrg

It costs RM about the same to pull a bar of gold out of the mailstream as it does a trinket. Their costs are the same, no matter what the value of the package and no matter how much VAT and duty HMRC charge. The package still has to be pulled, stored in bonded facilities, documentation completed, valued, tax value 'fronted' by RM, held at a depot and manually handed over involving staff and cash handling (with cash handling costs). Actually £8 is a bargain.

SiP, the problem you have is that the vendor apparently also didn't know, so didn't tell you. Royal Mail have been upfront about this for decades and decades. In the future, you could always ask the vendor to use UPS or Fedex or similar instead - although beware their handling charges to do the same as Royal Mail are about £10-15ish. In fairness, there's one of the expedited courier services (can't remember which, but do some research) actually charge a percentage of the duty amount as opposed to a flat fee - however it is significantly more expensive than the regular post, so you pay for it one way or the other.

SiP_2

Thank you both.
It's the randomness of it that has surprised me. Truth is for all I know I've been paying the requisite duties via the vendor in the past, although today I received goods from the US to a greater value than the one I got charged for. All clearly labelled and not subject to any charge to me. Still have no idea how I check beforehand if I have anything to pay or have paid in full nor, if the former, how I go about it without the RM - and thus me - incurring £8 expenses.
Cheers again.

KxMx

If the item comes to over £15 then there is a chance you will be charged on it. That's the only foresight you can have.

custardy

SiP wrote: »

Thank you both.
It's the randomness of it that has surprised me. Truth is for all I know I've been paying the requisite duties via the vendor in the past, although today I received goods from the US to a greater value than the one I got charged for. All clearly labelled and not subject to any charge to me. Still have no idea how I check beforehand if I have anything to pay or have paid in full nor, if the former, how I go about it without the RM - and thus me - incurring £8 expenses.
Cheers again.

You found this thread
so you can read it and find the info

foomonkey

Hi,

I am also getting extremely annoyed with customs as they are making mistakes that is causing me stress on something that should be straight forward.

I have 2 separate situations for 2 packages that i need help with.

Package 1)

Was sent to me as a gift with a value of $25 ( which i confirmed as the post depo officer let me look at the label) and i was charged customs + RM £8 charge bringing it over £11.50 worth of charges.

I explained to the teller that i shouldn't be charged as it's within the law that the fee be waivered (value being under £36) but she advised she couldn't do anything about it and i'd have to pay the fee.

I asked if she could hold onto it while i seek how to get the matter resolved to having the fee waivered and was told that if i didn't accept it there and then, it'd have to go back to the sender in the USA. I decided to reject the package because i didn't know if i'd even get my money back from RM had i paid the fee.

i was able to phone the post office number that was provided and they confirmed to me that i was infact correct with what i stated and that it had been an error by customs. The phone agent told me that he sender would have to fill out a complaint if he is charged to resend it and also gave me the phone number for customs (0845 010 9000). However this number won't be of any use for the sender since it's a UK number.

I've communicated this with the sender advising him he needs to talk to his post office on his end as they'll have their own procedures. The problem now is, it's been over 4 weeks since i rejected the package from my end and the sender has advised me he hasn't recieved it yet.

What can i do in this sitaution to get this resolved as i've no idea what going on?

Package 2)

..Arrived to my depo a couple of days ago and i got a slip through the door telling me i owe £11.75 this time.

The package contains a few toy figures that total a value of £12 max (which i have receipts to prove of this) that were bought from ebay.

My understanding again is that i shouldn't be paying customs + RM handling fee because in this instance the value of the package is under £15?

This time, i don't want to have the package sent back to the USA and want to try get this resolved myself over this side of the pond so i can get what i ordered asap. How would i go about getting the fees waivered in this situation? Would i need to pay the fees initially and then get a refund, if so would i get separate refunds from HMRC and RM? What is the process for this??

There is really no explanation on the process i'd go through in getting a refund as HMRC and RM are 2 separate bodies. Could anyone help me out with each situation i'm in?

Thanks