Hidden custom fees when buying items online from outside UK

sush40

Hi, 

I recently ordered a mobile phone on a Spanish website (the model I wanted wasn't available in the UK and it was a bit cheaper on that website). 

The phone was received within a week but a couple of days later, I received a letter from FEDEX asking to pay for delivery Tax fees of more than 100 pounds...! I am aware that custom taxes could be paid as extra when ordering outside of the UK but the tax details was very misleading on their website because when placing my item (and choosing delivery) in the basket, a line saying ''applicable taxes included'' appeared, so I assumed all the taxes were included in the cost.  

On top of that, when adding my UK address, the website claimed that the parcel would be received within 48H and the service I paid for was  ''Nacex International EXPRESS''.
However when tracking my parcel, I noticed that the service the company used was the normal ''Nacex'' delivery, so I ended up paying for a service that I did not receive.

After contacting them, they highlighted the fact that ''the possible delivery tax fees'' was in their terms and conditions (that I checked before ordering), but it was very unclear on when the taxes should be paid as extra or not and how. I could see ''taxes included'' in the basket so I assumed I wouldn't have to pay for anything extra.

Has anyone had a similar experience when ordering from abroad? Is there a way to ask the company to pay for the taxes or escalate this as this should have been made clearer on their website.

user1977

The general principle is that you, as the importer, need to deal with any UK duties on the goods you're importing. The foreign supplier can't really be expected to know about import rules and taxes for every country they ship to. Any taxes they included will just have been Spanish ones.

sush40

That is fair, however the basket indicates a wrong information (as shown on the picture). 

According to them, they ''can't remove'' the ''applicable taxes included'' line from their website, so it is a wrong information given to the client.

Also wrong is the ''Nacex Interntional Express'' - once my tracking number was received, I could see that the service used wasn't the ''Express'' so this was also wrong.

Aylesbury_Duck

"Applicable taxes included" is not incorrect information given to the client.  It means that taxes they (the retailer) might be expected to pay are all included.  You are responsible for your own import taxes - no retailer is going to research and list all the possible import taxes for the 200-odd countries of the world.  They're not "hidden customs fees", either.  As the importer, you could have looked up what your customs fee liabilities would be before purchasing, so they're not hidden.

You can ask them to cover the taxes, but they're not obliged to do so.

What's the price difference between the express delivery you paid for and the normal delivery service you received?  That's what they owe you in theory, although you'll need to find out what consumer rights laws provide for in Spain to check that you're entitled to the difference.

TELLIT01

The charges from HMRC are import duties, not tax.  There may also be additional charges made by the carrier for handling items which are subject to import charges.

Sandtree

TELLIT01 said:

The charges from HMRC are import duties, not tax.  There may also be additional charges made by the carrier for handling items which are subject to import charges.

The main contributor will be Value Added  Tax (VAT) and so it certainly is a tax.

The websites "including all applicable taxes" will be Spanish taxes and as its an export item that would be IVA at 0% (equiv of VAT). As others have pointed out, no website is going to know every single country, state, county in the world's tax law to be able to tell you the full landed cost. Some companies do give you the option of paying the fully landed cost but then they tend to be much more selective about the countries they send to and make a song and a dance of it being a fully landed cost (and often the option to have that or the normal price)

As the item is clearly over £135 landed cost it is your responsibility to cover duty (if applicable), VAT, excise (if applicable) and the handling fee for dealing with all of this for you. 

sush40

Thank you all for the explanation, I will double check if there are any custom fees to pay next time I order something online.

jon81uk

sush40 said:

Thank you all for the explanation, I will double check if there are any custom fees to pay next time I order something online.

If its over £135 (€150) then assume you will get an invoice from Fedex/UPS/RoyalMail etc for taxes/duties/fees.

Under £135 the retailer or marketplace may collect the UK VAT so check the detail properly.