Fedex Disbursement charge

Winstonw

From my perspective Fedex, aided and abetted by Controlaccount Ltd are participating in an opportunistic scam at the expense of those purchasing from abroad.

Although £33.25 VAT due to HMRC was paid directly to Fedex on import, the associated excessive £9.98 disbursement charge was not.

Given that Fedex contracted with a Chinese company for a door to door delivery service, a disbursement charge cannot be enforceable in UK law, when there is no contract between Fedex and the recipient.

Controlaccount Ltd who are now chasing the debt with escalating charges, appear to knowingly have been misinformed and misdirected by Fedex.

MyRealNameToo

The Postal Service Act gives couriers the right to charge the receiver when they have to do clearance of goods through customs; so in general no contract is required between the courier and the receiver for the charge to be valid.

You would need to do much more digging into case law to determine who's liable for the clearance fee where the sender has part paid for it. 

visidigi

Winstonw said:

From my perspective Fedex, aided and abetted by Controlaccount Ltd are participating in an opportunistic scam at the expense of those purchasing from abroad.

Although £33.25 VAT due to HMRC was paid directly to Fedex on import, the associated excessive £9.98 disbursement charge was not.

Given that Fedex contracted with a Chinese company for a door to door delivery service, a disbursement charge cannot be enforceable in UK law, when there is no contract between Fedex and the recipient.

Controlaccount Ltd who are now chasing the debt with escalating charges, appear to knowingly have been misinformed and misdirected by Fedex.

You asked a company in China to send you a product you bought, cleared through customs and delivered to your door. They chose, based on your purchase, to do so via FedEx. So you have, by purchasing the goods from the supplier engaged in that courier getting those goods to you.

If you wanted to clear the goods yourself when they arrived on these shores then you could have instructed them to do so (it would cost you alot more than £9.98!). You didn't.

Your shipper could have sent them delivered duty paid (DDP) but they didn't, because the terms and conditions you agreed to when you ordered made you liable for the cost of clearance into your country.

While they might write it off if its more trouble that its worth to fight that doesn't mean to say its not delivering on a service you asked for.

sheramber

You could travel to the customs warehouse and do the customs clearance yourself.

Or you can pay a courier £9.98 to do that for you.

Winstonw

You are clearly missing the point and confusing a door to door service with that provided by an appointed import agent, which I use when importing much larger shipments.

Andy_L

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/26/section/105

"[F3Relevant duties] or other charges payable in respect of postal packets to which this section applies (whether payable to a postal operator or to a foreign administration) may be recovered by the postal operator concerned and in England and Wales and Northern Ireland may be so recovered as a civil debt due to him."

Winstonw

Under the circumstances, being charged £9.98 after outlaying £33.26 for a few days is unreasonable loan sharking, especially when HMCS typically advise 8% pa on debt..

screech_78

Another “scam” that isn’t anywhere close to a “scam”. 

Do you work for free OP? 

MyRealNameToo

Winstonw said:

Under the circumstances, being charged £9.98 after outlaying £33.26 for a few days is unreasonable loan sharking, especially when HMCS typically advise 8% pa on debt..

Its a fixed cost on low value parcels for doing the paperwork, paying the money in advance, having to invoice customers, deal with queries, start the chasing process for non-payers etc etc

As has been said, you are free to deal with clearing yourself but its going to cost you vastly more 

born_again

Winstonw said:

Under the circumstances, being charged £9.98 after outlaying £33.26 for a few days is unreasonable loan sharking, especially when HMCS typically advise 8% pa on debt..

Winstonw said:

Under the circumstances, being charged £9.98 after outlaying £33.26 for a few days is unreasonable loan sharking, especially when HMCS typically advise 8% pa on debt..

That is their admin charge. You can't expect a company to collect payments for a 3rd party for nothing..

sheramber

Winstonw said:

Under the circumstances, being charged £9.98 after outlaying £33.26 for a few days is unreasonable loan sharking, especially when HMCS typically advise 8% pa on debt..

The  charge is for the admin for  a person to pay the charge.
 

Do you expect them to that for nothing or get paid for working, as other employees di.

8% is charged in a debt. The debt is the !9.98 which the % charge can be added to if not paid.