Duty and Vat, invoice after delivery - New question not previous addressed

Aylesbury_Duck

The trouble is that DHL have almost certainly applied an administration charge, so OP would still be out of pocket until/if the sender reimburses them.

saltcod1

Correct.. not only that.. I also incured over £25 in phone charges trying to resolve this fiasco with DHL as they use 0845 numbers which charge by the minute

Aylesbury_Duck

So the sender in the US has incorrectly addressed the package and that DHL have simply done what they were contracted to do, which is to import the item on the recipient's behalf, pay the charges on the recipient's behalf and then pass those charges plus a fee onto the recipient.

Presumably, that means your grievance is with the unknown sender in the US, and it's from her that you should be recovering your costs in addition to recovering your import charge from HMRC.

What a mess.

DullGreyGuy

saltcod1 said:

Correct.. not only that.. I also incured over £25 in phone charges trying to resolve this fiasco with DHL as they use 0845 numbers which charge by the minute

All telephone numbers charge by the minute (0800 numbers charge the receiver rather than caller), just some can be taken from inclusive minutes. 

 You need to use https://saynoto0870.co.uk/search.php DHL have several 03 telephone numbers that you can use which will be covered by inclusive minutes.

user1977

Plus it sounds like you would have had the same result if you hadn't bothered phoning DHL at all...

saltcod1

Aylesbury_Duck said:

So the sender in the US has incorrectly addressed the package and that DHL have simply done what they were contracted to do, which is to import the item on the recipient's behalf, pay the charges on the recipient's behalf and then pass those charges plus a fee onto the recipient.

I'm sorry but this doesn't make any sense to me. DHL had a contract with the sender.. it did not have one with me and while I can appreciate why DHL payed fees on my behalf.. surely I should have the right under UK tax law to not accept delivery of this unsolicited package. This to me is the critical issue. 

Let me give a hypothetical senario to illustrate my point. 

Jack in Sheffield annoys Chuck who lives in America on Facebook. 
In revenge Chuck sends an unsolicited parcel with DHL to Jack declaring its value to be £8000
DHL does what you suggest is perfectly normal.. pays the duty and drops of parcel without giving recipient right to refuse. 
DHL then invoices Jack for £2000
Jack does not have £2000 to pay DHL and then wait for HMRC to refund - Jack is on social benefits and has 6 kids to feed. 
Jack ultimately has a court judgement made against him.

?? 

DullGreyGuy

saltcod1 said:

Aylesbury_Duck said:

So the sender in the US has incorrectly addressed the package and that DHL have simply done what they were contracted to do, which is to import the item on the recipient's behalf, pay the charges on the recipient's behalf and then pass those charges plus a fee onto the recipient.

I'm sorry but this doesn't make any sense to me. DHL had a contract with the sender.. it did not have one with me and while I can appreciate why DHL payed fees on my behalf.. surely I should have the right under UK tax law to not accept delivery of this unsolicited package. This to me is the critical issue. 

Let me give a hypothetical senario to illustrate my point. 

Jack in Sheffield annoys Chuck who lives in America on Facebook. 
In revenge Chuck sends an unsolicited parcel with DHL to Jack declaring its value to be £8000
DHL does what you suggest is perfectly normal.. pays the duty and drops of parcel without giving recipient right to refuse. 
DHL then invoices Jack for £2000
Jack does not have £2000 to pay DHL and then wait for HMRC to refund - Jack is on social benefits and has 6 kids to feed. 
Jack ultimately has a court judgement made against him.

?? 

The law gives DHL the right to recover the taxes and charge an admin fee on international parcels it delivers in the UK.

As per my previous post you would need someone who has fully studied both the letter of the statute and case law to see how courts have interpreted it... there are lots of different scenarios that could happen which may test the terms of the statute. eg what happens if it is delivered to a flatmate rather than the named recipient and they run off with it... does the named recipient still have to pay because it was delivered to their address?


The issue here is that delivery has been made to your address so its most likely too late to claim any ability to refuse delivery. 


There are many ways people with a vendetta can make life difficult and/or expensive for someone else. That ultimately is why we have harassment laws though those are hard to enforce against an overseas party.

Aylesbury_Duck

saltcod1 said:

Aylesbury_Duck said:

So the sender in the US has incorrectly addressed the package and that DHL have simply done what they were contracted to do, which is to import the item on the recipient's behalf, pay the charges on the recipient's behalf and then pass those charges plus a fee onto the recipient.

I'm sorry but this doesn't make any sense to me. DHL had a contract with the sender.. it did not have one with me and while I can appreciate why DHL payed fees on my behalf.. surely I should have the right under UK tax law to not accept delivery of this unsolicited package. This to me is the critical issue. 

Let me give a hypothetical senario to illustrate my point. 

Jack in Sheffield annoys Chuck who lives in America on Facebook. 
In revenge Chuck sends an unsolicited parcel with DHL to Jack declaring its value to be £8000
DHL does what you suggest is perfectly normal.. pays the duty and drops of parcel without giving recipient right to refuse. 
DHL then invoices Jack for £2000
Jack does not have £2000 to pay DHL and then wait for HMRC to refund - Jack is on social benefits and has 6 kids to feed. 
Jack ultimately has a court judgement made against him.

?? 

I understand why you're perplexed, and how it could be used in a vexatious manner, but that does indeed seem to be the situation as set out in law.  In your hypothetical example, Jack would probably be suspicious of a valuable package arriving from the US when he's just had a dispute with someone there, and might immediately reject it.

As for the bolded part, I'm afraid you did accept delivery (or rather, your house-sitter did on your behalf) and then you sat on it for several weeks.  It's possible that had you acted immediately, or at least on your return from holiday in mid-November, that there might have been a different outcome because you might have been able to return it with DHL before the invoice was generated.  Unlikely, but it's possible.  Your delay in doing anything with it, half of which was unavoidable but the other half wasn't, may have played a part here. A cynical DHL employee might simply think that you were happy to receive the item until it became apparent that a customs charge was due, at which point you decided you didn't want it any more.

I suspect all of that is speculation though, because these things are presumably automatic processes.

Jonboy_1984

saltcod1 said:

I parcel was dropped off at my doorstep 27th Oct. 
I was away till mid Nov. 
I personally became aware of the parcel on my return. 
I did not open the parcel. 
I contacted DHL immediately upon receipt of their invoice in early Dec... when I asked them to collect the parcel and return to sender or whatever they do with unsolicited parcels.

FWIW.. the Parcel has now in fact been returned to sender.. by ironically, DHL themselves but as a separate transaction. They are still after me for the invoiced amount. What's more, the sender (in the US) has apparently contacted her local DHL and told them that she is willing to pay for any and all fees incured, taxes and duties.. but the UK DHL are still refusing to cancel their invoice to me. 

I would contact them with the tracking number of the return consignment and inform the goods were returned under this consignment. They should be able to resolve it with an updated customs submission, but hmrc have something like 45 days to review the updated submission.


Bear in mind that DHL have handled the consignment in good faith, and their processes are intended to get the goods delivered as quickly as possible, which is what is wanted of them 99.9999% of the time. 

The law accepts this is their reason for existing and why they, UPS, DPD, FedEx etc. all have a special designation as fast parcel carriers and have expedited customs procedures and retrospective billing (not to mention the sheer amount of space they would need to store consignments if they gave everyone** dithering time to consider whether to pay import taxes or not when they should have researched this upfront, and the environment impact of millions of returned parcels).

**not you in this very unusual situation admittedly.

saltcod1

Interestingly, I have just got off the phone to a senior advisor at Trading Standards.  

He informed me that absolutely do have the legal right to refuse to accept an unsolicited parcel and that, should DHL attempt to recover any customs fees they have paid, albeit "on my behalf" through the courts, they would have to demostrate my "consideration of contract"... a legal requirement for any contract to be valid. Since DHL denied me this right by simply dropping off the parcel at my home address and the parcel was not signed for.. there is no contract and therefore their claim against me is unlikely to be successful. 

As an aside.. he also said that he has been waiting for a case such as this to actually go through the courts.