Royal mail customs charges for post from Netherlands

Flight3287462

Wow, that is strange.  Would be interesting to know the reason.

custardy

Hannimal said:

I am sure it's from the netherlands. I've copied and pasted the text from the receipt from Royal Mail below. (i've changed to XXXX what I don't need you to see)

tem details

Item ID	XXXX
Sender name	XXXX **
Sender country	Netherlands

Charge details

Date charge applied	Fri 04 Sep 2020
Import VAT	£4.58
Handling fee	£8.00
Online payment discount	-£${headers.onlineDiscount}
	Total amount paid: £12.58

Delivery details

Requested delivery date	Mon 14 Sep 2020
Email address	XXXX @gmail.com
Phone number	XXXX

You bought from the Netherlands. However there are companies that ship from/via other countries for tax/cost reasons.
These are referred to as cross border items in RM land.
A common one is packets from China arriving with UK Tracked labels. They originated in China but the shipping details provided to the customer is the UK labelling.
Do you have the item yet?

Hannimal

I have the item. It has come from the Netherlands. There is nothing on the parcel to indicate any other address country. The return address is in NL. 

Hannimal

davidmcn said:

Hannimal said:

I don't have a printer

You could always buy one (preferably not from overseas...).

I don't want one.

JReacher1

I’ve had a few USA orders recently that have been shipped via the Netherlands and have led to a customs charge.  

Fosterdog

What are the last two letters of the tracking number? These correlate to the sending location. UK use GB, China uses CN, USA uses US, Netherlands uses NL. This should tell you if the sender shipped from a different location.

visidigi

OP what was in the package? Not everything is duty free...

donnac2558

About two weeks ago I bought earrings from Pilgrim UK which when they arrived came direct from Denmark.  I wasn't charged customs.

noitsnotme

visidigi said:

OP what was in the package? Not everything is duty free...

The OP indicates the charges were for import VAT and handling charge.  No mention of a duty charge.

visidigi

they are also not all VAT free...

e.g. they might be a mail dropping, where they use a Post NL label to deliver from China to UK, (but the return is the NL location), because from China to UK UPU rate was cheapest.