BONKERS PARCEL AND CUSTOMS FROM THE USA situation

andy_poulton

Expecting a parcel from the USA .

I get a few emails from a company called ECL trading as E Pay [!] Asking for customs duty on a parcel.
DHL the carrier said it was a scam
Sender said it was a scam
Forums said it was a scam
CUSTOMS [3 departments including the Heathrow centre] said it was a scam
[Whoever heard of HMRC Government department using outside agencies to collect Customs duties?]
After 3 days and a forum reply saying it was not a scam.  I realised it was NOT a scam and paid.

NOW however the parcel has cleared Cutoms it says with duties paid on DHL site and they will not help anymore.
SO
EVRI are supposed to courier it.
Except when?
They do not know and have not collected it or got it.

You cannot get anyone to help on the EVRI site.
BAD NEWS DHL said they have delivered parcels to Customs well before Christmas. They still have not collected them and these days that is all the queries from the UK he keeps getting.
He wished me LUCK.

Anyone some knowledge, experience or a good contact to speak to someone in EVRI.

Cheers Andy

martindow

andy_poulton said:

Expecting a parcel from the USA .

I get a few emails from a company called ECL trading as E Pay [!] Asking for customs duty on a parcel.
DHL the carrier said it was a scam
Sender said it was a scam
Forums said it was a scam
CUSTOMS [3 departments including the Heathrow centre] said it was a scam
[Whoever heard of HMRC Government department using outside agencies to collect Customs duties?]
After 3 days and a forum reply saying it was not a scam.  I realised it was NOT a scam and paid.

NOW however the parcel has cleared Cutoms it says with duties paid on DHL site and they will not help anymore.
SO
EVRI are supposed to courier it.
Except when?
They do not know and have not collected it or got it.

You cannot get anyone to help on the EVRI site.
BAD NEWS DHL said they have delivered parcels to Customs well before Christmas. They still have not collected them and these days that is all the queries from the UK he keeps getting.
He wished me LUCK.

Anyone some knowledge, experience or a good contact to speak to someone in EVRI.

Cheers Andy

What a muddle - it looks like it should be delivered now! 

But regarding the part I have bolded, import VAT and duty is collected by importers on your behalf and then forwarded to HMRC.  This is true of VAT in general - sellers collect it from customers, deduct their own VAT payments and then send the balance to the government.

andy_poulton

Ah okay. That makes sense.
I only remember like every time before. Royal mail contact me. I pay the fees and there delivery charge. They deliver it. 
Jobs a good in.
Cheers Andy 

tripled

It all sounds fishier than Billingsgate Market.

Normally the carrier will clear it through customs and either hold the parcel until duties are paid, or I did have UPS once post me an invoice after delivery.

ECL ePay comes up with no relevant results on Google. I can't find a reference to ECL or DHL on E-Pay Limited's website, nor  Epay Global's website.  The only reference to ECL on DHL's website seems to be "Erricsson Connected Logistics", again not relevant.

There is an E-Pay Limited registered on companies house, so if it was them, they would just be E-Pay Limited, not "ECL trading as". There is an ECL Limited, which is a dormant company, so it should not be them. It is a mystery who you have actually paid.

DHL themselves told you it's a scam.

But let's assume that was genuine and customs duty has been paid.

Why would Evri be collecting the parcel from customs? DHL have both an international and UK parcel division in the UK. It seems surprising they would turn it over to a rival courier network for the delivery, and also odd that Evri would be collecting it from "customs" and not from one of DHL's hubs.

I fear that, somewhere along the line, you are being had. Good luck though getting to the bottom of it and I hope I'm wrong and you get the parcel.

andy_poulton

Thanks for the kind reply Tripled nice comment.

All my thoughts exactly.
E Commerce DHL Is now showing All duty Paid. They have said they have done there bit.
EVRI's site still says WE ARE EXPECTING IT!

CLEARED CUSTOMS

05:46 PM GMT, HEATHROW, GB

DUTIES PAYMENT RECEIVED

05:46 PM GMT, HEATHROW, GB

ARRIVED AT CUSTOMS

01:12 AM GMT, HEATHROW, GB

Your parcel from LAX         [Los Angeles]

We're expecting it

We're expecting your parcel to arrive with us soon and we'll update your tracking once we've received it

DullGreyGuy

andy_poulton said:

[Whoever heard of HMRC Government department using outside agencies to collect Customs duties?]

Anyone who's ever received a parcel from overseas.

The normal process when importing items, unless you are a large import/export business, is that the courier clears the parcel and pays the taxes and then charge you what they've/ll paid/pay plus a margin (as the law allows them to). 

Since Brexit its even more complex as the retailer has to collect the taxes for parcels under £135 (excluding excise) unless it was sold via a market place (eg Ebay or Amazon Marketplace) in which case the market place has to collect the taxes.

How and when each courier collects taxes does vary, historically many would deliver the parcel first and then try and collect the monies after. My most recent parcel was a DHL Express from Japan and they emailed an invoice for payment even before the item had left Japan. 

What is the email address of those that were emailing you? Or more accurately, what is the domain after the @ symbol? 

Unfortunately there are lots of scammers out there sending texts/emails claiming to be to do with couriers either say you need to pay a redelivery fee or customs charges etc etc and because so many now have parcels regularly delivered you could fool most people into thinking its potentially real - though the links being non-official domains like www.Royal-Mail-Redelivery-Booking.net is the big red flag that its a scam 

andy_poulton

The domain is
noreply@customs-epay.com
Massive website and menu system on the telephone number. 
All checks out as did DHL. 
They new me. Parcel number. Destination etc Then told me I had already paid and it had been released the day after. Nothing more to pay. 
Cheers Andy

tripled

customs-epay.com is owned by a company called Parcel Juice Ltd. They seem to be a one-man band, providing software services to logistics companies. Very curious.

When I used to run an ecommerce business, I used DHL to ship internationally but never heard of DHL Ecommerce. It transpires that DHL E-Commerce is yet another division of DHL, that uses DHL's own logistics to move small parcels (up to around 2kgs), but in the US and Canada, hand it over to the national postal service to make the actual delivery. I can't find any reference to them using Evri, but maybe they do offload them for delivery in the UK as well, perhaps instead of Royal Mail due to postal strikes. It looks like the actual service is called DHL Packet International, and should take 4-8 business days to arrive in the UK, but doesn't say how long it should take from there.

Ultimately the personal who booked the shipping, which sounds to be the sender, holds the contract with the parcel company. How long has the parcel been stuck in the depot? If it's more than a few days, I would push them to raise a missing parcel claim with DHL eCommerce, which might encourage things along. Unfortunately Evri are appallingly bad and I can't imagine you'll get anywhere through talking to them.

andy_poulton

Ah thanks tripled for the in depth reply 
Brilliant info and sum up. 
Cheers all

Andy

andy_poulton

BIG PS

WELL

After a veritable PLETHORA of misinformation:-

1] Customs do not outsource the collection of fees.[From 3 departments/offices]
Oh yes they do as I found out after paying them.
2] E Commerce DHL do not track after delivered to Customs at Heathrow so no further updates. [4 call centre advisors]
Oh yes they do as suddenly they added 9 more stops to my tracking yesterday PM when it stopped again with handed to EVRI
3] EVRI's movements for my parcel [tracking] stopped there too on receipt PM yesterday.
Oh no it did not it was delivered at 10 am today !!!

Pluses
I did not pay any more as I may have Royal Mail
I could ring everyone up all over again and have a ruddy good MOAN.

I GOT MY PARCEL

Thank you all for the kind feedback and help. Who was to know the biggest problem was wrong information from the advisors.

Cheers Andy

martindow

Glad it worked out OK - all part of life's rich pageant when importing things. 

Unfortunately the quality of information when phoning is very poor from some companies.  Some seem to be willing to tell you any sort of nonsense to keep calls short so they can 'help' the next in line.