Excessive UPS Brokerage Charges

JaVo2004

I shipped wine from Portugal in December ahead of Brexit, before the deal was announced.
It took the portuguese company a long time to ship the wine bc of delays on their side and then bc of the problem we had with lorries stuck in Dover in late December. It ended up being shipped only in Jan.

Now I have to pay customs here as well (small note that I wouldn't have to pay Portuguese tax under the new agreement - but the purchase was made in December so...).

But the most annoying thing for me is:
UPS Brokerage Charges: £34.50
I think this is a scam. This is more than the shipping cost and the UK tax!!

Quick google and I found out that self clearing a parcel for import charges is something the sender can do in order to avoid courier processing fees at the border. But this was a US article, so I'm not sure if this would also be valid in the UK?

I feel like Im being screwed over by a lot of things simultaneously, and I don't know who to complain to.

Spank

You could have self cleared, but you would have to let UPS know that you were going to do that.

DiddyDavies

As the shipment contains excise goods (alcohol and tobacco) it gets handled differently to general goods and this may account for why the charge is so high.
The wine would have to be kept in a secure excise store until the excise duty had been paid and doing this may have involved more time and work for UPS so they charged you more.

powerful_Rogue

Even before Brexit you would have to pay tax, or potentially have the wine seized. The only way to avoid this is to pay the tax upfront if having it posted, or personally travel with the excise yourself.

Not researching the procedure and potential charges does not make it a scam.

Aylesbury_Duck

Where's the scam?

davidmcn

JaVo2004 said:

I don't know who to complain to.

I'm afraid only yourself, for your own ignorance about how these things work. This is all normal.

JaVo2004

Thank for the advice. I shipped wine (usually 6 bottles at a time) for personal use several times in the past and was never asked to paid customs.

I contacted the store in Portugal who claims this is due to the new Brexit regulations. They also said couldn't have done anything because the wine was shipped before the new rules were announced so they had no idea this was gonna happen.

There's no scam here. That was the wrong word to use. But I ended up paying portuguese tax (before new regulation) + UK tax (after new regulation) + Brokerage. 

If I were to make a new order now, now that everyone is aware of the rules, I would only have to pay UK tax. So Im being screwed over with this order.

MattMattMattUK

JaVo2004 said:

Thank for the advice. I shipped wine (usually 6 bottles at a time) for personal use several times in the past and was never asked to paid customs.

Welcome to Brexit.

JaVo2004 said:

I contacted the store in Portugal who claims this is due to the new Brexit regulations. They also said couldn't have done anything because the wine was shipped before the new rules were announced so they had no idea this was gonna happen.

They are correct, the UK government made a complete mess of the negotiations, this is why where at all possible people and companies avoided shipping goods between the EU and UK where they could be in transit during the end of the transition deal, many EU companies stopped taking orders for delivery to the UK temporally to try and mitigate the issue.

JaVo2004 said:

There's no scam here. That was the wrong word to use. But I ended up paying portuguese tax (before new regulation) + UK tax (after new regulation) + Brokerage. 

That is unfortunately due to the nature of the timings, things should improve somewhat and if you self-clear (although I am not sure you can for alcohol) then you will pay considerably less in fees.

JaVo2004 said:

If I were to make a new order now, now that everyone is aware of the rules, I would only have to pay UK tax. So Im being screwed over with this order.

You might also want to look at if you can source from an UK supplier instead, someone bulk buying and importing on mass might be able to sell in the UK at not much more than you are currently paying. It might also be worth reading up on the alcohol import rules which I believe are a bit more complicated. 

powerful_Rogue

This has nothing to do with Brexit. It was the same before and is the same after.

Unless you physically walk through customs with your excise goods, you cannot import them without paying excise duty or risk having them seized.

JaVo2004

powerful_Rogue said:

This has nothing to do with Brexit. It was the same before and is the same after.

Unless you physically walk through customs with your excise goods, you cannot import them without paying excise duty or risk having them seized.

Something changed. Again, I shipped in the past. Many times. Several vendors. Never had to declare and pay customs. Not sure if relevant, but we're talking about 6 bottles average.

Also, vendors are changing business with the UK as not to charge portuguese VAT anymore (as it was charged previously). So definitely something changed.

powerful_Rogue

JaVo2004 said:

powerful_Rogue said:

This has nothing to do with Brexit. It was the same before and is the same after.

Unless you physically walk through customs with your excise goods, you cannot import them without paying excise duty or risk having them seized.

Something changed. Again, I shipped in the past. Many times. Several vendors. Never had to declare and pay customs. Not sure if relevant, but we're talking about 6 bottles average.

Also, vendors are changing shipping to UK as not to charge portuguese VAT (as it was previously). So definitely something changed.

Nope, hasn't changed, you've just been lucky. There is just more scrutiny of packages now.