Royal Mail £8 Internal Post Handling Fee scam?

KxMx

No terms have been discussed let alone agreed upon. For anything actually let alone Border Tariffs.

It may be in our interest and EU's interest to keep the status quo, or it may not.

No need for doom & gloom yet!

joncrel

I just bought two items from the US, one costing approx 100$ the other 50$. The first was delivered by DHL, and incurred a customs charge of just under £4, which I paid online. The second came by USPS and Royal and incurred a charge of £1.92. But as it came via Royal Mail I had to pay their £8 fee on top making it £9.92.

Royal Mail also recently moved their parcel collect from the city centre to an industrial park 5 miles out (which also has very limited parking).

I know which commercial courier service I'll be using in the future...

fleshandbone

Royal Mail there house there rules, if you don't like it you are free to shop elsewhere.
Respect your postal worker.

custardy

joncrel wrote: »

I just bought two items from the US, one costing approx 100$ the other 50$. The first was delivered by DHL, and incurred a customs charge of just under £4, which I paid online. The second came by USPS and Royal and incurred a charge of £1.92. But as it came via Royal Mail I had to pay their £8 fee on top making it £9.92.

Royal Mail also recently moved their parcel collect from the city centre to an industrial park 5 miles out (which also has very limited parking).

I know which commercial courier service I'll be using in the future...

A whole 5 miles?
How far away is the DHL depot?
You do know you can RM online too?

Mercury_RV

The one thing that is being forgotten here is that the agreement with USPS is a reciprocal agreement, if you post something from the UK to the USA, then USPS deliver it without any other charges, Parcelfarce get PAID by USPS, as USPS get paid by Royal Mail if you send something from the UK. The charges levied by Parcelfarce are shall we say questionable, after all that is what a reciprocal agreement is all about, each party gets paid for their service, that's why you pay USPS. The goods are your property NOT Parcelfarce. If we have goods sent from the USA, we will always ALWAYS try to get it delivered by anyone else other than them. As someone else said, UPS handle it and charge the import duty and VAT, not a problem, that is what the charges are all about up front, this £8 fee is just an add on by Parcelfarce. What makes it worse is they just don't even do a good job. Case in point, we had a parcel arrive from Montana USA on shall we say the 1st of the month, we heard nothing from Parcelforce for 16 days, not until we checked it with USPS in the USA, they then tracked it and found it was still sitting in the Parcelforce depot, we had to contact them and pay the tax and duty PLUS their fee before they delivered it, another 4 days later. So again this is an agreement they have with USPS to deliver the packages, that is what they are paid by USPS for, so the extra charge is just an add on, is that justified?

custardy

Mercury_RV wrote: »

The one thing that is being forgotten here is that the agreement with USPS is a reciprocal agreement, if you post something from the UK to the USA, then USPS deliver it without any other charges, Parcelfarce get PAID by USPS, as USPS get paid by Royal Mail if you send something from the UK. The charges levied by Parcelfarce are shall we say questionable, after all that is what a reciprocal agreement is all about, each party gets paid for their service, that's why you pay USPS. The goods are your property NOT Parcelfarce. If we have goods sent from the USA, we will always ALWAYS try to get it delivered by anyone else other than them. As someone else said, UPS handle it and charge the import duty and VAT, not a problem, that is what the charges are all about up front, this £8 fee is just an add on by Parcelfarce. What makes it worse is they just don't even do a good job. Case in point, we had a parcel arrive from Montana USA on shall we say the 1st of the month, we heard nothing from Parcelforce for 16 days, not until we checked it with USPS in the USA, they then tracked it and found it was still sitting in the Parcelforce depot, we had to contact them and pay the tax and duty PLUS their fee before they delivered it, another 4 days later. So again this is an agreement they have with USPS to deliver the packages, that is what they are paid by USPS for, so the extra charge is just an add on, is that justified?

Great post. However that 'reciprocal agreement' is for postal charges,not customs fees/costs.
By your argument clearance should be free across the globe.
Though I will agree,the UK customs allowance are far too low.

Disc84

Duties and Vat are charged by HMRC. Royal mail set their own fees for handling which means a compliant to HMRC will serve no purpose, tgey will refer ypu back to RM.
i occasionaly choose standard post and always get stung by this.
When i decide to pay for courier delivery the hamdling fee is ibcluded in the price so its just the import duties and vat to pay. Most operators deluver the parcel and a note with how to pay. FedEx are very good for this. You know exactly what you are paying and to whom you are paying it. Quite often the cheap or free shipping isnt necessarily the cheapest option wjen you add the £8 fee on

willy_scam

this might not be a postage scam > because the distributors who return your goods some of them don't pay the full international air mail cost so you'll get nailed by customs & post office (commercial plus price ? ) ( freight post ? ) whatever this means thats what was stamped on my package & i got stung for almost £14.00 pounds £6 customs £8.00 post office handling fees - anybody got a clue ?

soolin

willy_scam wrote: »

this might not be a postage scam > because the distributors who return your goods some of them don't pay the full international air mail cost so you'll get nailed by customs & post office (commercial plus price ? ) ( freight post ? ) whatever this means thats what was stamped on my package & i got stung for almost £14.00 pounds £6 customs £8.00 post office handling fees - anybody got a clue ?

sorry, I can't follow your post at all - the postage method doesn't make any difference to whether or not tax and duty is payable in the UK.

pogofish

willy_scam wrote: »

t - anybody got a clue ?

Yes, read the thread.

Also, the method needed to defuse the charges completely has already been posted here, so there is simly no excuse for getting moany about being stung.