PARCELFORCE CUSTOMS CHARGE HELP PLEASE

joshuaaj

Hi everyone, I recently won some items on social media on a free competition, been waiting all month to receive them and get hit with a £37.50 customs charge. It cost $75 to ship also. They're unique items that have little value really, around £30 and they're second hand. As they're also a gift how can they be charging me £25 vat?! Someone please help as i cant afford to pay this 😫 

joshuaaj

I'm not sure if to pay it 😕 

theonlywayisup

The declared customs value would include the shipping charge, regardless of whether a gift/prize or not.

joshuaaj

theonlywayisup said:

The declared customs value would include the shipping charge, regardless of whether a gift/prize or not.

Ok thankyou ☺  is there anyway to get through to parcelforce or hmrc and try and dispute it or do you think the fee is correct? The items in the box don't have any packaging etc so how do they know what they're worth?

Redundancyissues

The sender would have to have declared the value.

martindow

The table of charges in the OP talking of goods under £135 is for bringing items back with you in person from somewhere outside the EU.  If it is posted or sent with a carrier anything over £15 incurs charges.

[Deleted User]

Goods coming from abroad attract various 'extras', it's annoying but fact; import Duty, Customs, VAT, and then Parcelforce's handling fees push it up and up, trying to query it hasn't ever worked for me, you either paid or you don't get it.
If you don't pay those extras the goods will be sent back to the originator, you have so many weeks to pay it all before that happens.

twhitehousescat

you havn been charged custons duty , you have been charged VAT as they have come from outside the eu , the printout clearly states duty = 0.00

Spoonie_Turtle

Gifts below £39 in value shouldn't be charged import VAT - technically it's based on the value of the goods plus postage, but in practice for me it's always been that if the value of goods is below the threshold they just don't charge ... via RM that is. Why on earth they were sent via Parcelforce is beyond me; USPS tracks their parcels and hands them over to RM and the standard cost of that is ~$15.

You can appeal it https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/vat-customs-dutyimport-vat-relating-to-imports-by-post-bor286 but there's no guarantee you'll be successful, and you'd have to pay it first anyway.

Edited to correct value.

shaun_from_Africa

Spoonie_Turtle said:

Gifts below £35 in value shouldn't be charged import VAT 

But does the shipment in question class as a gift?
For it to be a gift, it must be coming from a private individual and not a business and as a completion was being run, I wouldn't be surprised if it was being run by a buisness of some sort.

pogofish

You should have got the sender to mark it so you could do your own import paperwork.
Which although slower, would have limited your charge to any duty actually payable - and completely avoided the hefty “processing fee” which is added-on for the private company that removes it from the mail system before returning it after Customs examination.

Chapter and verse is on how to do it is already posted in this forum.

Or had the sender use a courier like DHL, which although usually dearer, handles processing within its own charging system.