Fed ex bill for duty and tax invoice

AndreaOS

Hope you can help? We ordered a car part from the USA which we could get in the UK. A few weeks later we have recieved a substantial bill from FedEx Express. Many reviews are saying dont pay it. Can. Anyone advise? 

Aylesbury_Duck

Who advises not to pay it?  That's awful advice, because FedEx will pursue you for it which may simply add to the debt if you ignore them.

You are responsible for import fees.  FedEx will have had to pay these when the item arrived and will have correctly passed the costs onto you, probably with an administrative charge.  You will have agreed to all of this when you ordered the item.

bris

You imported a part, this means if it was over £15 you are due VAT and possibly duty on this part plus a small clearance fee. this is on you for not knowing about importing.

How much was it and what are they looking for?

visidigi

AndreaOS said:

Hope you can help? We ordered a car part from the USA which we could get in the UK. A few weeks later we have recieved a substantial bill from FedEx Express. Many reviews are saying dont pay it. Can. Anyone advise? 

Its pretty simple. If you don't pay it, they will send it to debt collection. They provided the service - its yet to be paid for I am afraid.

I would imagine the site you bought from advised any duties/taxes were for you to cover?

oldagetraveller1

Sorry for being picky, but should there be a "not" in this, between could and get?

"We ordered a car part from the USA which we could get in the UK."

Otherwise it make no sense to order it from the U.S.A..

However, you are responsible for paying FedEx.

Sandtree

oldagetraveller1 said:

Otherwise it make no sense to order it from the U.S.A..

It may not be sensible if you look at the full picture but if you see that its 10% cheaper in the USA than here you may be tempted to buy it and not realise you have to pay duty & VAT on import. There are still plenty of cases where international imports are still cheaper even if you factor in the importation costs.

The internet has opened up the global market for the average person sitting at home to buy from anywhere but unfortunately people haven't been educated that one of the reason that UK and European prices look so high compared to many other countries is because our sales taxes are circa 20% whereas they are much lower elsewhere but your local taxes are applied on import (if over £15).

eve824

It's customs duty + VAT on the item you chose to import. Why would you think you don't have to pay this?

Tigertedd

I've been stung by the same thing. I didn't really want the product that badly, and had no idea their would be import charges involved. I paid in pounds on what seemed like a UK website. I got an email from FedEx. I've had this sort of thing in the past from places in China, and they just won't releae it from the port until it's paid. In this case, I thought, that's fine, I'll just request a refund from the company and let them deal with getting it back. But then it turned up at my door a few days later. I thought maybe they'd sorted it out, but then I got the invoice for the import charge in the post. I'm kind of thinking, what can they do about it now, is it like the a parking notice where the charges will just build up, will they eventualy take me to court, could this result in a CCJ if I don't deal with it?

It's a charge of about £60, which is more than 20% of the icost of items I bought. I'd rather just return the items than pay it.

The comapny have acknowledged there's a bit of an issue here. They're a start up kickstarter company, and I don't think they foresaw this issue, so they've said they can't pay the bill, buthave offered some free stuff int he meantime. But it's not free stuff worht £60.

user1977

Tigertedd said:

is it like the a parking notice where the charges will just build up, will they eventualy take me to court, could this result in a CCJ if I don't deal with it?

It's a debt like any other, so yes, they could do that.

If you return the item then you ought to be able to reclaim the duty from HMRC, but that won't prevent you from having to reimburse the courier for what they've already paid on your behalf.

sheramber

There    are also specific  reasons to be able to reclaim duty but not wanting to pay the duty is not one of them.

Sandtree

Tigertedd said:

I'm kind of thinking, what can they do about it now, is it like the a parking notice where the charges will just build up, will they eventualy take me to court, could this result in a CCJ if I don't deal with it?

It's a charge of about £60, which is more than 20% of the icost of items I bought. I'd rather just return the items than pay it.

They are less cowboy than parking companies but certainly costs will increase if they have to take you to court. 

CCJ is always a bit of a misnomer in my view/unhelpful name... they will get a county court judgement as county courts are where small track cases like this are heard. It only goes on your credit file and becomes a "CCJ" if you do not pay the judgement within 1 month of being ordered to. 

VAT is 20% and is applies to total cost (item + shipping + insurance + duty) and there will be a handling fee so if you import from outside the UK for most items you can expect it to be over 20% of the items cost to land the item.