Royal Mail £8 Internal Post Handling Fee scam?

custardy

sorry,i thought it was a rant

finance-boy

Anyway, sorry for calling you a drone. I didn't think you'd actually read that. I just find it hard to believe that somebody genuinely thinks it's fair to slap an £8 handling fee on a customs charge of only £3.70.

custardy

well perhaps because i deal with customs charges
i have to track them
process them
administrate the charges
deal with the money and accounting generated by this
deal with returns
deal with tracking these items back to HMRC

finance-boy

But I never asked for any of that. All I ask is that my parcel is delivered to me. I'll pay the customs charges myself, but why should I pay an £8 handling fee for a service that I never asked for, TWICE?

custardy

finance-boy wrote: »

But I never asked for any of that. All I ask is that my parcel is delivered to me. I'll pay the customs charges myself, but why should I pay an £8 handling fee for a service that I never asked for, TWICE?

and i say again,why dont you contact HMRC and ask why they dont give you the option

finance-boy

Because that's not going to get me anywhere. They're not going to say "Okay, because a single person complained about the extortionate £8 Royal Mail handling fee, we've decided to stop being so awful and extortionate."

Besides, it's as much the Royal Mail's fault as it is HMRC's. Who decided that they needed to put a flat-rate £8 handling fee on any packages intercepted by customs - even on those only slightly over the £18 limit?

custardy

the regulator agreed to the set limit,just like they do all of RM's prices
so let me get this straight
HMRC can decide to charge you as they see fit,choose that they dont take anything to do with collecting this money,accept the money from a 3rd party(its already paid by RM) but their not at fault

superscaper

I used to think it was unfair until I saw how much the "competitive" other couriers charged with their fees. When you put it in proper context with what's typical then RM's fees can't really be called extortionate or unfair. Other couriers can sometimes be quite a bit cheaper in just the delivery cost but anytime there are customs and duty to pay I'd rather it is RM although personally I check what duty if any is likely before I purchase something abroad.

custardy

to be fair,there are cheaper couriers out there for customs charges
however these are the same couriers who can charge more for delivering to the top half of Scotland

superscaper

custardy wrote: »

to be fair,there are cheaper couriers out there for customs charges
however these are the same couriers who can charge more for delivering to the top half of Scotland

Exactly, there are cheaper ones for fees but they're not usually very good for the actual delivery cost, despite me not living in the top half of Scotland.

It all depends on what I'm buying and where from etc. I guess there's a lot to take into account but if you do you shouldn't suddenly be surprised about any duty etc unless they've calculated the duty incorrectly.