UPS asking me to pay 3000€ to get my parcel back!

bee91

Manxman_in_exile said:

Are you communicating with UPS in this country, or in France, or in Germany?  And who did you contract with originally to deliver the parcel to France?  Was it UPS in this country?

Irrespective of whomever you've been dealing with up to now, I'd make sure I was dealing with the UPS entity that I actually contracted with.  (Hopefully UPS in UK).  Explain to them what has happened.  Tell them you want your parcel back and that it's UPS in France (or whoever originally paid the 3000) that needs to reclaim the duty from French customs.  Tell them you've already spoken to French customs and they have told you that you cannot reclaim the money - UPS have to.  (Or at least I presume that is what they told you).  Instruct them to tell whichever part of UPS is holding the package to suspend their threatened action until this has been sorted out.  Point out that your contract is with them and that you hold them responsible for safely returning the package to you.  Whether that will work or not I don't know, but worth a try.

(I'm afraid it's a bit difficult to tell who you are dealing with, what questions you are asking and what answers they are giving.  It's confusing because you seem to have started off trying to get answers from UK customs when it's got nothing to do with them - or at least it looks as if it's nothing to do with them...  Start asking questions of everybody.)

I hope you correctly declared the nature of the medical device to UPS and that it's not a banned item?  If I were you and I didn't get it back, I'd sue them for it's value.  Destroying goods that don't belong to them is a civil wrong.  (Or it would be in this country.  It's all very confusing and you need to bottom out exactly what has happened, is happening, and who did what.)

Also no it’s not a banned item and I have described the nature of it, to be honest I’d have liked to write more about it but had a limited amount of words so did it the best I could. I put medical device and put the name of the item and brand (just couldn’t add specific item number on)

Manxman_in_exile

Hmmm.

I think if I were you (I recall you said you were a French national in the UK?) I'd try speaking to French customs again to see if they can tell you exactly what has happened from their point of view and how they think it needs to be rectified.  Try playing on their sympathy for a poor French man (or woman) having to live in perfidious Albion and keep talking to them until somebody comes up with a sensible solution. 

Make sure they understand that delivery of the parcel in France was refused and that you now want if returned to you, but UPS will only do so if you pay them the 3000. If they are adamant that you cannot claim a refund and that UPS must do that, get French customs to put that explanation in writing so that you can pass it on to UPS.  (But if you can win the sympathy of French customs and they will agree to let you claim the refund if you pay UPS, get them to put that in writing or to give you some other assurance, and go that way.  Otherwise you are getting nowhere).

If French customs tell you only UPS can claim the refund, pass on to UPS the written explanation from customs showing they (UPS) and not you have to make the reclaim.  You may also want to tactfully and very discretely make some indication to UPS that despite their T&Cs it might not be very good publicity for them if they destroy  a piece of medical equipment (or whatever it is) valued at £10,000 for the sake of 3000 custom duties that you can't afford to pay and which UPS should be reclaiming from French customs anyway.  

If you get nowhere with whoever you are talking to at UPS you appear to have two possible courses of action.  Either (1) tell them you want to make a formal complaint and that you want them to suspend destruction of the package until the formal complaint is resolved by senior management, or (2) pay UPS the 3000.  Unless somebody has a better idea I don't know what else to say.  

Again I'm tempted to ask what are you going to do with the device when (or if) you get it back?  I assume getting a refund of the purchase price may be difficult for you.  Can you use the device yourself or otherwise put it to good use?

bee91

Manxman_in_exile said:

Hmmm.

I think if I were you (I recall you said you were a French national in the UK?) I'd try speaking to French customs again to see if they can tell you exactly what has happened from their point of view and how they think it needs to be rectified.  Try playing on their sympathy for a poor French man (or woman) having to live in perfidious Albion and keep talking to them until somebody comes up with a sensible solution. 

Make sure they understand that delivery of the parcel in France was refused and that you now want if returned to you, but UPS will only do so if you pay them the 3000. If they are adamant that you cannot claim a refund and that UPS must do that, get French customs to put that explanation in writing so that you can pass it on to UPS.  (But if you can win the sympathy of French customs and they will agree to let you claim the refund if you pay UPS, get them to put that in writing or to give you some other assurance, and go that way.  Otherwise you are getting nowhere).

If French customs tell you only UPS can claim the refund, pass on to UPS the written explanation from customs showing they (UPS) and not you have to make the reclaim.  You may also want to tactfully and very discretely make some indication to UPS that despite their T&Cs it might not be very good publicity for them if they destroy  a piece of medical equipment (or whatever it is) valued at £10,000 for the sake of 3000 custom duties that you can't afford to pay and which UPS should be reclaiming from French customs anyway.  

If you get nowhere with whoever you are talking to at UPS you appear to have two possible courses of action.  Either (1) tell them you want to make a formal complaint and that you want them to suspend destruction of the package until the formal complaint is resolved by senior management, or (2) pay UPS the 3000.  Unless somebody has a better idea I don't know what else to say.  

Again I'm tempted to ask what are you going to do with the device when (or if) you get it back?  I assume getting a refund of the purchase price may be difficult for you.  Can you use the device yourself or otherwise put it to good use?

Thanks for your suggestions,
we have tried with french customs but they tell us they can’t do anything since it is ups asking us for the money. They are still adamant we shouldn’t pay for it and adviced us to fight it with a consumer right company (sorry I forgot the term but Rip of Britain kind of thing, to find someone who could help). Unfortunately time is running out and we don’t want the device to be destroyed. As one last attempt I called UPS France yesterday and they gave me the number of the billing department but it’s impossible to speak to anyone, the call cuts off every time. 

We’re probably gonna pay the tax today and hope we can somehow get it back 😓

Yes we can use the device ourselves or for other people who may need it so it’s ok if it comes back to us. The lady who it was for in France sadly died, the device was supposed to support her end of life as she was in a lot of pain. So there is no point it going there now. 

Manxman_in_exile

OK.  I suppose you are stuck with either paying the 3000 or not getting the device back.

One thing strikes me about your last post though.

bee91 said:

Manxman_in_exile said:

Hmmm.

I think if I were you (I recall you said you were a French national in the UK?) I'd try speaking to French customs again to see if they can tell you exactly what has happened from their point of view and how they think it needs to be rectified.  Try playing on their sympathy for a poor French man (or woman) having to live in perfidious Albion and keep talking to them until somebody comes up with a sensible solution. 

Make sure they understand that delivery of the parcel in France was refused and that you now want if returned to you, but UPS will only do so if you pay them the 3000. If they are adamant that you cannot claim a refund and that UPS must do that, get French customs to put that explanation in writing so that you can pass it on to UPS.  (But if you can win the sympathy of French customs and they will agree to let you claim the refund if you pay UPS, get them to put that in writing or to give you some other assurance, and go that way.  Otherwise you are getting nowhere).

If French customs tell you only UPS can claim the refund, pass on to UPS the written explanation from customs showing they (UPS) and not you have to make the reclaim.  You may also want to tactfully and very discretely make some indication to UPS that despite their T&Cs it might not be very good publicity for them if they destroy  a piece of medical equipment (or whatever it is) valued at £10,000 for the sake of 3000 custom duties that you can't afford to pay and which UPS should be reclaiming from French customs anyway.  

If you get nowhere with whoever you are talking to at UPS you appear to have two possible courses of action.  Either (1) tell them you want to make a formal complaint and that you want them to suspend destruction of the package until the formal complaint is resolved by senior management, or (2) pay UPS the 3000.  Unless somebody has a better idea I don't know what else to say.  

Again I'm tempted to ask what are you going to do with the device when (or if) you get it back?  I assume getting a refund of the purchase price may be difficult for you.  Can you use the device yourself or otherwise put it to good use?

...
we have tried with french customs but they tell us they can’t do anything since it is ups asking us for the money. They are still adamant we shouldn’t pay for it and adviced us to fight it with a consumer right company (sorry I forgot the term but Rip of Britain kind of thing, to find someone who could help). ...

Are French customs saying that they cannot repay you if you pay UPS, or are they just saying that you should not have to pay UPS in the first place?  

What I mean is: are they actually saying that if you pay the 3000 to UPS and get proof of that payment from UPS and proof that it relates to something that was then returned to the UK undelivered, that French customs simply will not allow you to reclaim that 3000 in duty even though they are not entitled to keep it?

I agree you need to make sure you don't miss the deadline from UPS to pay them the 3000 before they decide to destroy the parcel.  When (or if) you pay I think I'd put in writing that you are only paying under protest and under their threat to destroy your property if you don't pay up.  I'd then make a formal written complaint about their handling of this matter.  I'd also explore if there's any way of getting your money back from them.  (eg small claims court; unfair contract terms)

Good luck.  I don't really know what else to suggest.

bee91

I just wanted to give an update in case anybody was in a similar situation…. So in the end we had to tell UPS we would pay the tax. It wasn’t something we wanted to do but felt we had no choice as they would have disposed of our parcel otherwise. We were told we would get a phone call from the billing department to give them our card details to take the 3000€ payment but once again nobody rang us (seems to be a habit with that company!). The lady from ups with whom we’d been in touch with apologised and explained that actually the parcel had to be sent back to the UK before they could take any payment. We told her we were going away so that it would be better to do this the following month when we get back as we wouldn’t be at home to reception the package. When we got back we got an email saying our package would be delivered in a few days. No payment from us had been taken at that point so we thought it might happened on delivery. It arrived and nothing was asked from us.
 It has been 10 days now and we have not heard back from UPS so presume the tax got cancelled when it arrived back in the UK which is what we had been telling them all along… It is frustrating they made us go through all that stress and hundreds of phone calls when in the end we were right in what we were saying. But I am thankful I got our package back in one piece and not had to pay that tax!