DHL - delivering goods then invoicing for Customs duty, VAT etc with no prior warning

wolfehouse

Totally agree with pragmatic money saver. 

 My kids Grandfather sent surprise (and unannounced) graduation gifts to my children (in their name) ordered straight from a company in USA and left on the doorstep (so could have never been received).
I paid the £100+ because I didn’t want the (adult) kids starting life with ccj or similar. Granddad never realised there would be a charge but still took 5 years to repay me.

Absolutely great scheme to ‘punish’ someone you dislike (or in this case love).

I did wonder what would happen if you weren’t rich enough to just pay.

emmajones1976

wolfehouse said:

Totally agree with pragmatic money saver. 

 My kids Grandfather sent surprise (and unannounced) graduation gifts to my children (in their name) ordered straight from a company in USA and left on the doorstep (so could have never been received).
I paid the £100+ because I didn’t want the (adult) kids starting life with ccj or similar. Granddad never realised there would be a charge but still took 5 years to repay me.

Absolutely great scheme to ‘punish’ someone you dislike (or in this case love).

I did wonder what would happen if you weren’t rich enough to just pay.

How old were the kids? Can children get CCJs? I genuinely dont know if they can or not.

user1977

emmajones1976 said:

wolfehouse said:

Totally agree with pragmatic money saver. 

 My kids Grandfather sent surprise (and unannounced) graduation gifts to my children (in their name) ordered straight from a company in USA and left on the doorstep (so could have never been received).
I paid the £100+ because I didn’t want the (adult) kids starting life with ccj or similar. Granddad never realised there would be a charge but still took 5 years to repay me.

Absolutely great scheme to ‘punish’ someone you dislike (or in this case love).

I did wonder what would happen if you weren’t rich enough to just pay.

How old were the kids?

"(adult) kids"

Can children get CCJs? I genuinely dont know if they can or not.

I think in theory they can, but depending on what the claim is about they're likely to have a good defence. Whereas adults can't claim to be ignorant that e.g. if they import stuff, they're liable to pay duty on it.

Sandtree

emmajones1976 said:

wolfehouse said:

Totally agree with pragmatic money saver. 

 My kids Grandfather sent surprise (and unannounced) graduation gifts to my children (in their name) ordered straight from a company in USA and left on the doorstep (so could have never been received).
I paid the £100+ because I didn’t want the (adult) kids starting life with ccj or similar. Granddad never realised there would be a charge but still took 5 years to repay me.

Absolutely great scheme to ‘punish’ someone you dislike (or in this case love).

I did wonder what would happen if you weren’t rich enough to just pay.

How old were the kids? Can children get CCJs? I genuinely dont know if they can or not.

Given they were "graduating" you'd assume circa 21, unless the OP is retrospectively adopting the US silliness of saying you graduate from primary school etc.

A CCJ means you've received a court order and failed to settle it within 30 days. From distant memory civil liability potentially starts at 7  but there is an assessment on the kids understanding of what they've done and its unlikely someone so young would be. At 16 contract law makes you liable for liability on essential goods/services and at 18 you have full liability. I am not aware of any carve out that says a minor cannot go onto the Register of Judgments, Orders and Fines which is what a "ccj" really is.

There is clearly a secondary consideration on if a kid will have financial ability to settle any court order and so you certainly wont see big businesses suing an under 16 but you certainly can imagine people catching a 15 year old vandalising their car and deciding to go through the courts to get them to pay for the damage rather than use their insurance.

There is then a third consideration... at what age does CRAs start holding information on a person and if thats 16/18 etc do they pickup prior CCJs and apply the remainder of the 6 years or not? I'd be surprised if they did hold info on under 16s and it may even be 18. No idea on the retrospective application

Manxman_in_exile

wolfehouse said:

...
I paid the £100+ because I didn’t want the (adult) kids starting life with ccj or similar. Granddad never realised there would be a charge but still took 5 years to repay me.

...

You made him repay you what you describe as just £100+ import fees?

(And it took him 5 years?)

wolfehouse

My father sent his grandchildren who were graduating from university a gift.  He did not tell anyone.  The gift came straight from an American website he ordered from to be delivered in the U.K.
I told him how much it cost me and asked him to cover but although I love him very much, he was not quick to respond.  He did finally pay me 5 years later when he came for daughters wedding.

It doesn’t feel morally correct for someone, who could be anyone in fact, to be able to hand you a financial liability (for customs) that you did not agree to and are even unaware of.   

The cynic in me feels someone, somewhere would use it for harm or revenge or scam on another. 

Sandtree

wolfehouse said:

My father sent his grandchildren who were graduating from university a gift.  He did not tell anyone.  The gift came straight from an American website he ordered from to be delivered in the U.K.
I told him how much it cost me and asked him to cover but although I love him very much, he was not quick to respond.  He did finally pay me 5 years later when he came for daughters wedding.

It doesn’t feel morally correct for someone, who could be anyone in fact, to be able to hand you a financial liability (for customs) that you did not agree to and are even unaware of.   

The cynic in me feels someone, somewhere would use it for harm or revenge or scam on another. 

Return the gift then, reclaim the taxes and you will just be short the £11.50 fee.

I could understand telling the grandfather that there was a big importation bill and he offering to repay you for it but seems fundamentally wrong for someone to gift something to you and you then demand that they pay more towards it even if it was unsolicited. 

The reality is that someone could be malicious to you but to send an international parcel is likely to cost much more than £11.50 and so they'll be suffering the greater losses than you and most will only go so far when there are much cheaper ways to be nasty to your ex etc. 

wolfehouse

Are you suggesting I should pay a large postage cost to post it back to him and then whatever us customs wanted on top and then also claiming back the £11.50?   (His delivery cost was covered in his purchase)

jon81uk

wolfehouse said:

Are you suggesting I should pay a large postage cost to post it back to him and then whatever us customs wanted on top and then also claiming back the £11.50?   (His delivery cost was covered in his purchase)

once you saw it was an international delivery you did not order, you could have rejected it and handed back to the courier to return to sender. Then you would need to claim the tax back from HMRC.

Sandtree

wolfehouse said:

Are you suggesting I should pay a large postage cost to post it back to him and then whatever us customs wanted on top and then also claiming back the £11.50?   (His delivery cost was covered in his purchase)

I suggest you should have checked the retailers return policy as it may have included free returns, if not the cost of return should have been worked out and compared to the tax bill.

The customs element potentially was recoverable by exporting the goods back to the vendor, just the £11.50 service fee charged by the courier would have certainly been irrecoverable.