Unexpected customs charges! Please help.

Jemi90

Hi I'm wondering if anyone could help.

I purchased some products from a company called Native. Not a large order. I bought 2 products that came to £25. It says clearly all over the website "free shipping". In the faqs under the question "is shipping free?" It says yes, shipping is free!. On my recipet for the order it lists Shipping: £0

So i was pretty shocked to find a bill thorugh my door from royal mail for a Customs charge of £11.88. I contacted Native who has told me that although shipping is free some large orders incurr a customs charge.

I really feel that this is false advertising and they shpuld of made this clear at the point of purchase. My order isnt large, its pretty normal and if i have to now pay £12 to get it thats not free is it!

To be clear I'm not disputing that customs need to charge someone, I'm saying that Native should of told me anput the extra fee before taking my money. Native have offered to refund the customs charge but i dont want to pay it, cant sfford it and i feel they should now refund the product as i cant access it. 

Theyre telling me i can send it back to them once I've got it. But thats going to cost me even more isn't it. 

Finding this reslly upsetting as if I'd known it would cost £12 delivery I'd never of bought it. I'm seeing loads of other peiole on instagram saying the same has happened to them, some.with much larger fees. Is there anything I can do?

Jemi90

I'm sorry for my spelling I typed this out in a rush. 

soolin

This is probably one of the most common types of threads we get on here unfortunately.  Shipping/postage costs are not the same as the charges imposed on import by HMRC, and all goods from outside the EU over certain limits (general goods is £15) attract these charges , plus all carriers including Royal Mail and couriers add their own handling charge for dealing with HMRC on your behalf.

I think it would be unreasonable for a foreign company to be expected to automatically handle all the fees and duty and supply their own couriers to a multitude of different recipient countries and charge you up front. At the moment ebay do that but charge a flat fee which can be enormously expensive for any buyer and is an unpopular service - so I doubt smaller companies will bother. 

It is up to the person buying goods and importing them to understand the charges and costs that might be incurred , unfortunately if you don't pay you may well end up with no goods and no refund of your original purchase costs.

As for what you can do, the answer is take this as a learning point, in future remember that anything bought from a non UK company might attract charges (at the moment goods within the EU are  free but obviously this might change) . At lease your charges were minimal as your order was small- most of the charge was probably handling, some people get hit with hundreds of pounds worth of charges.

davidmcn

Jemi90 said:
a company called Native.

Which one?

Kattekwaad

VAT is due the amount paid plus shipping.  Royal Mail also have to clear the item through customs and they charge a flat rate of £8 to do that.  If your goods were £25 in value you should have paid £13 in total.

You can not expect Native to know if and when taxes are due in every country in the world.  They have offered to cover the charge for you so they are going above and beyond.

Lomast

Customs fees are not the same as shipping. Suppliers cannot be expected to know the customs procedures of every country they ship to
You are responsible as importer for anything you order from outside the UK
of the fee royal mail charge £9 will be their charge for handling clearance for you.

DCFC79

davidmcn said:

Jemi90 said:
a company called Native.

Which one?

Yes Jemi
Which website, nativecos by any chance ?

soolin

DCFC79 said:

davidmcn said:

Jemi90 said:
a company called Native.

Which one?

Yes Jemi
Which website, nativecos by any chance ?

If it is then I suspect OP has got more problems than just not understanding how importing works. Looks like they  offer a subscription service alongside normal sales with a high number of people saying they can't work out how to cancel and stop future payments from their card. Hopefully OP checked what boxes she was ticking and what agreements she entered into when buying. 

The online reviews are poor, and whilst I don't think it is a company I would want to deal with I do think it very unfair for people to leave poor reviews when it is them who don't understand that importing goods carries a charge. 

DCFC79

soolin said:

DCFC79 said:

davidmcn said:

Jemi90 said:
a company called Native.

Which one?

Yes Jemi
Which website, nativecos by any chance ?

If it is then I suspect OP has got more problems than just not understanding how importing works. Looks like they  offer a subscription service alongside normal sales with a high number of people saying they can't work out how to cancel and stop future payments from their card. Hopefully OP checked what boxes she was ticking and what agreements she entered into when buying. 

The online reviews are poor, and whilst I don't think it is a company I would want to deal with I do think it very unfair for people to leave poor reviews when it is them who don't understand that importing goods carries a charge. 

I agree.

Jemi90

Its Native deodrant company they sell toiletries. Do they not beed to at least state this on the website somewhere?? I order pretty  much everything online and a lot of it comes from other countries and ive never ever heard of this before. Thanks for the honest info 👍

Lomast

No they don't need to state this how would they know the customs rules for every country as importer it is your responsibility to understand any import duties and vat payable.
Also bear in mind that being outside the UK then any UK law would not apply to them anyway