UPS charged too much import tax/duty. Sec 75?

Treadway1

Hi all, I recently bought some goods from China and they were delivered to me by UPS early March. I was aware that import tax would be due but didn’t know how much, so just paid the near £200 charge the courier stated. 

However, having since checked using the Gov.uk website and an online duty calculator, it’s clear they’ve charged too much (the actual charge should have been around £95). 

Being a large, reputable (or so I thought) delivery company, I thought getting a refund would be simple. However, I’ve now tried multiple times to call them (but have ended up giving up after being on hold for over an hour each time without even speaking to anyone), have sent countless emails and have even spoken with the social media team who said they’d get someone to call me but they never have!

So my question (before I start looking at the small claims court route, which I find ridiculous even saying out loud!) is would I be covered by section 75 on this, as I paid the £200 with my AmEx card?

As I see it, I’ve been incorrectly charged more than I should have and now despite repeated attempts and requests, the company have failed to respond and refund me. 

Would be keen to hear anyone’s thoughts on this though. 

TIA

pbartlett

Is it possible they charged you £95 duty and the balance is admin charge for collecting it - does their website say anything about admin charges ?

Treadway1

Sorry, I should have said that UPS’ brokerage charge is £11.50, which I included in my calculations.

That’s part of the circa £95 I calculated though. 

Lomast

You need to reclaim from hmrc not ups, they pay the taxes on your behalf so they no longer have your money it has been paid to hm government. I believe there is a form on hmrc website. 

Aylesbury_Duck

It's not UPS that have charged you too much, they're simply passing on the charge that HMRC levied on them (plus their £11.50) which they've already paid.  Therefore, small claims or section 75 aren't possible routes.  You need to speak to HMRC to recover any overcharge.

Sandtree

A section 75 claim would almost certainly fail as your contract is with the vendor and dealing with HMRC isn't part of your contract with them.

However as has already been said, you need to take the matter up with HMRC and a quick google will give you the link to the form that you submit if you think you've been overcharged import taxes

Flight3287462

It really all depends on what it said in the paperwork attached to the package, what did it say ?

sheramber

Duty is calculated by Customs on the  cost of goods - as stated by the seller- and the postage charges.

Are you using that figure , or what you paid,  for your calculation?

LadyDee

There are several other threads on this forum concerning UPS claiming extortionate amounts of duty.  There are two just above you here.

MattMattMattUK

LadyDee said:

There are several other threads on this forum concerning UPS claiming extortionate amounts of duty.  There are two just above you here.

The majority of them will be due to poorly completed paperwork. For work I send and receive international UPS shipments on a regular basis and receive many with other couriers as well, I have only twice in six years (and HMRC refunded the additional VAT without issue) had a problem with import duty/charges (either from outside the EU pre-Brexit, or from anywhere post-Brexit. The issue with these situations is usually poorly completed paperwork, either due to inaccurate prices (obviously too low), inaccurate information (eg declaration says one, there are three things in the box), or issues with currency conversion (sometimes, especially when no currency has been stated, the amount will be taken as GBP regardless of the country of origin). Adding on to this there are now a group of people needing to complete import/export declarations who have never done them before, it is not surprising that issues occur, when they do HMRC are perfectly reasonable in resolving them.