Royal Mail £8 Internal Post Handling Fee scam?

deely

sk00bie1 wrote: »

£14.78 is very close to £15, they may have used a different coversion rate and so it ended up being over £15 that way.

I don't suppose you'll know until you see the customs declaration on the label!

if I remember correctly from a few years ago, they only update the conversion rate every few weeks so what you get charged at purchase / conversion isn't always going to be the exact same rate when it arrives with them. I had it several years ago when I calculated the exchange rate I was charged on my c/c (interbank rate??) yet it took several weeks to arrive so when it did finally come the rate had changed and was no longer within the limit (it was £18 then) and I got charged a few pence and the RM fee (might have been £6 or £7????).

shaun_from_Africa

sk00bie1 wrote: »

£14.78 is very close to £15, they may have used a different coversion rate and so it ended up being over £15 that way.

The exchange rate used by HMRC was £1 = $1.6392 in Jan 2014
and £1 = $1.6584 in Feb 2014.

http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsPortalWebApp/channelsPortalWebApp.portal?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=pageImport_RatesCodesTools&propertyType=document&id=HMCE_PROD1_033017

Xad

So i got the package today, and rather than declaring the package as $24.51, looks like the company declared it as $25. Label shows VAT at £3.01 and RM handling fee of £8.

Since customs received the package in February at exchange rate $1.6584 it works out at £15.07 but if if i had received it in March at exchange rate $1.6714 it would have been £14.95 :mad: Company marked it as gift for some reason which probably didn't help, and yet wrote hard disk on the label...it's actually a logic board part of a drive as opposed to a full drive.

It's so ridiculous that customs are so strict over pennies which result in charges ranging over £11 through no fault of my own.

marliepanda

How many pennies over would you find acceptable?

Xad

marliepanda wrote: »

How many pennies over would you find acceptable?

20p

lifecycle1

The best way to stop this would be to refer PO to the competition commission - with the demand the PO loses its monopoly rights, Now they are private this might be possible - and then we would be rid very quickly of this bloated uncompetitive hang over from the past

wealdroam

lifecycle1 wrote: »

The best way to stop this would be to refer PO to the competition commission - with the demand the PO loses its monopoly rights, Now they are private this might be possible - and then we would be rid very quickly of this bloated uncompetitive hang over from the past

What monopoly?

All the other carriers do something similar.

In fact, I think Royal Mail (not The Post Office) are one of the least expensive.

shaun_from_Africa

lifecycle1 wrote: »

The best way to stop this would be to refer PO to the competition commission - with the demand the PO loses its monopoly rights, Now they are private this might be possible - and then we would be rid very quickly of this bloated uncompetitive hang over from the past

Why would you want to report the Post Office to anyone?
They are not the ones charging the handling fee of £8. It's Royal mail who are doing that.

As to a monopoly.
Over the years, I've made many purchases from overseas sellers and these have been delivered by Royal Mail, Parcelforce, DHL and UPS.
RM don't have a monopoly in this.

marliepanda

Xad wrote: »

20p

Well thats not fair because I was 21p over!

There has to be a cut off somewhere. They have decided that is £15. You can argue pennies all day but whatever 'pennies' you allow, the person a penny more than that will complain.

Xad

marliepanda wrote: »

Well thats not fair because I was 21p over!

There has to be a cut off somewhere. They have decided that is £15. You can argue pennies all day but whatever 'pennies' you allow, the person a penny more than that will complain.

Stop being silly, it was a fleeting comment in a post detailing much more, especially the fact that they decided it was literally 1 pence over, not 20p nor 21p, hence i was charged £11.01. I'm not expecting to change anything simply by venting about the ridiculousness of it all, especially because if the item was declared properly by the sender, it would be under the £15 threshold. It was hardly the central point of the post .

On top of that if the item arrived 2 days later, it would have been dealt with in March, and with March's currency conversion, it's under the £15 threshold even with the incorrectly inflated declaration.