DHL customs charge, now threatening legal action

TheMysterious1

I'll try keep this brief.

Bought some items from America last year and it was couriered by DHL. They delivered my items and then said I'll be getting a letter showing customs charges etc which I have to pay.

I got this calculation of costs letter but the figures were outrageously wrong even to the extent of putting in a charge of £50 for delivery costs which wasn't the case.

I rang them saying they have got the calculations wrong and I sent them the original invoice with covering letter. This was about middle of november last year.

About the beginning of April I got a letter from them saying I still have an outstanding bill with them (basically I hadn't heard from them for about 4 months and they still had my costs wrong). This was swiftly followed by another letter (about a week after) saying if I don't pay the charges they will threaten me with legal action.

I rang them and told them I had sent the original invoice and but they still hadnt calculated the correct charges. After a bit of back and forth it was agreed I'd send them the invoice again via fax and they will calculate the charges again.

I received the updated calculation and it's still unclear what charges I have to pay and a credit note had been attached too which was way too low.

Admittedly I have been a bit lazy to go back to them and find out whats going on, which is why today I received a letter saying they are passing the charges over to their legal department with fees etc to recover the costs. Fair enough but this letter STILL has the old costs and not the new recalculated costs on it, so they still havent calculated the costs correctly therefore I'm not paying the wrong costs.

My items cost me £100 inc duty and they are wanting to charge me £30 for VAT and some other stealth charges they are trying to incur. I know I should be paying about £20.

Any ideas on where to go from here? I am going to be ringing them tomorrow anyway to find out whats up.

Your help is much appreciated!!!

richt71

Looks like it's a bit of a mess and complicated. Have you talked to the CAB about this? They usually have a duty solicitor available that could start getting serious with DHL for you as DHL are obviously not listening to you for whatever reason.

TheMysterious1

Thanks for your help will try the CAB but only get the opportunity to do stuff at weekends as i work outside my city. will also give DHL a ring tomorrow to and keep trying i guess.