Sending parcel abroad

davidmcn

lucy345_2 said:

Shouldn't the local parcel delivery agency claim the parcels from the Customs stating that the parcels are not commercial delivery and deliver them to the receiver? My contract with them was to deliver the parcels to the receiver's address.
I feel like they haven't done their job properly.

I would expect it primarily to be the responsibility of the importer to deal with the customs at their end - when sending parcels to the UK it is generally the case that the courier will do that on behalf of the recipient (in return for a fee) but they don't have to, and maybe the practice is different wherever you're talking about.

lucy345_2

The courier is an international one.
I checked T&Cs of both the parcel and the courier company. There is no coverage for such a situation. They cover eg what happens if it is commercial delivery, etc.

KatrinaWaves

Right why don’t you give a bit of info.

What were you sending? You have said ‘not business items’  and ‘personal items’ but did you send items that you have sold to someone else, or were they genuine gifts? Who are yoi, and what are you sending, and to who? You don’t have to be specific but there is a difference between ‘me sending gifts to my mum’ and ‘my company sending ‘gifts’ to a customer in another country’ 

If they are genuine gifts, why is the receiver blaming you for them not getting through? Seems a little ungrateful for a gift?

You said your contract was to have the items delivered to the receivers address. Did you give them their work address, or their home address? They deliver to where you tell them to. It is not their fault if customs intercepts a
parcel. 

lucy345_2

The receiver is not blaming me.
I am trying to blame the parcel company but they are trying to hold their position that they have done their job.
I am not a company and items are truely genuine gifts.
When I contacted for the refund of delivery charge my bank blames me it was my responsibility to know that if I send to a business address this would happen.

KatrinaWaves

You cannot claim back from the parcel company.

The only people you could claim from are the customs in the other country, if you feel they have wrongly destroyed something.

If you have broken their customs rules that is your fault. 

Manxman_in_exile

I think this is getting overly confused because english is not Lucy's first language?

Lucy - who asked for, or who decided to send, the gifts to the other person?  In this country (the UK) it is the importer's responsibility to pay any customs charges etc.  So if you just decided to send a birthday "gift" or something like that to a relative and they don't know anything about it, you* need to work out how to do it properly.  But if they asked you to send them the "gift", it's their responsibility to work out how to do it properly.  Whether this is also true of the country you are sending the parcel to, none of us know - because it's got nothing to do with UK law, it's determined by the law of the country you are sending it to.  Do you understand?

Similarly, your bank won't help you because it's got nothing to do with any UK legal responsibility.  They'll say it was down to you (or the person you were sending the "gift" to) to work out how to do it correctly.

*Some will say it's still the responsibility of the person receiving the parcel to sort out customs charges etc, but if they know nothing about it before it arrives I don't see how they can be importing it.  Personally I wouldn't send anything to someone in another country without first telling them and finding out what the customs rules etc were.  And if I received something that I knew nothing about that had charges payable on it, I'd refuse delivery.

davidmcn

Manxman_in_exile said:

*Some will say it's still the responsibility of the person receiving the parcel to sort out customs charges etc, but if they know nothing about it before it arrives I don't see how they can be importing it.

Firstly there's the fact that often things marked as "gift" simply aren't (because it's just a retailer trying to be "helpful" to their customer) - and that may be the reason for the local customs authorities assuming that a business probably isn't receiving genuine "gifts" from overseas.

Secondly, it's just more practical for the recipient to sort out the bureaucracy at their end rather than the sender trying to do so. And the recipient ought to know what their own country's rules are, or at least be less clueless about it than the sender. Though admittedly we often have people posting here from the UK who are baffled at the entire concept of customs duties being levied when they've bought something from "the internet".

Manxman_in_exile

It's not more practical if the recipient isn't expecting anything though.  In fact it's a PITA trying to work out what it is, where it's from and whether it's worth paying for something I haven't asked for.  I don't mind surprises but I don't like nasty surprises in the shape of a demand for payment for something I know nothing about.

Although in this case I think it reads like the recipient asked for the gifts to be sent (otherwise how would Lucy know their work address) but Lucy doesn't seem to be able to make that clear. 

I agree about customs being perhaps suspicious of "gifts" sent to a work address, but that's something Lucy or the recipient should have anticipated.  If I were sending the gift unsolicited, or if I'd asked it to be sent to me, I'd have worked out if there were likely to be problems before doing this.

Either way - I don't see it's the fault of the delivery company.  Lucy asked them to deliver to the recipient's work address and it's not their fault local customs don't like that.

lucy345_2

Thanks for the replies.
The receiver of course knew I was sending the gifts to them. (Birthday gifts which are now obviously late)
The receiver and I never thought putting business address as delivery address would cause such a problem. At the end of the day you can send to either address (home/business) we thought.
Who could have thought this would happen. If the parcels were commecial items I could understand.
In our opinion local courier agency should finish the job and claim to Customs that the parcels are not commercial delivery.
The receiver already paid the personal rate of Customs charges when it was asked by the local courier agency.
It feels like they dont want to deal with it any further.
Also, the Customs is so far away from the receiver, like 2.5 hrs drive. Include in it the waiting times, etc. it will be torture really.

lucy345_2

Also, because the parcels are waiting in the Customs there will be storage charges as well.