Post Office Customs charge

Netizen

I ordered a couple of t-shirts from the US a few weeks ago and they've just arrived. However the Post Office is keeping them back as there's a customs charge of £8.83 How the hell can they charge that much on a £20 package? I've bought stuff from the US before and this has never happened.

Is there any way I can get around paying this? It's not like I'm importing stuff en masse so I don't see why I should be charged like this.

fatboyonadiet

There normally no customes charge for items £18 and under, £8.83 on £20 seems a lot, it's a bit hit and miss I used to order a few things from the US about 5/6 years ago, internet wasn't as popular then so used to get away with it most of the time, did get hit with the odd charge. Only thing is get the sender to mark it as a gift or used or state a lower value.

UKJubilee_2

last I knew there was an admin charge of £7 or thereabouts so only £1.83 of this is the actual tax...sucks thugh I know

Woby_Tide

agreed, most of the charge is the PO handling fee, for all that extra work they have to do....:rolleyes:

Netizen

Grr robbing gits! Oh well I guess I'll have to stump up, but I think I will challenge them over the fee as it does seem high for the value of the package.

mrbadexample

I got charged this when I ordered a DVD from Amazon.com. I wrote to Amazon and told them I'd not been advised of possible customs charges, and that the extra made the item prohibitively expensive. I didn't collect from the Post Office, they returned to sender, I got a refund. I then re-ordered it from a seller on Amazon marketplace, and it came through without problems.
I don't think I'd get away with it again though, as I think Amazon now state that customes charges may apply, and that the responsibility for these lies with the purchaser.

What will happen if you don't collect and the Post Office return them? Will you get a refund from the seller? Could you then re-order?

I can't for the life of me work out why some parcels get hit and some don't. Not exactly fair, is it?

Netizen

I could return the package but it wouldn't be fair on the (very small) company who did made an exception for me as they don't ship internationally. I don't particularly want to wait any longer for the goods either way

gizmoleeds

Unfortunately, customs charges are always a possiblity when buying over £18 of stuff from outside the EU.

19 times out of 20 items don't get stopped, but every so often something will.

Some DVD websties based overseas will send items separately (like play.com) so that even if the order is over £18, none of the packages are.

I just factor the possibilty of customs charges in when buying an item, and the rarity of them mean that over time, people who buy a lot of items will only pay very little (so far, none of my items have ever been stopped).

Fifer

I agree with gizmoleeds. The trouble with customs clearance charges is that, not only are they randomly applied but the actual charge caries wildly from carrier to carrier and few seem to publicise what the charges are. I really don't mind paying the charge, but I'd really like to know what I'm paying before ordering so I can make an informed decision about buying from outside the EU. We can't blame the sellers or the government on this one. VAT and customs charges are very straight forward. The issue here is customs clearance charges and rests with the carriers.

For info, 7dayshop (based in the channel islands) ship purchases less than £18 separately to avoid VAT. They are good for camera and printer food.

Netizen

I know for a fact that Play.com state the same value on the shipping label regardless of the price e.g. they declare a £25 box set as £15 (or at least they used to). So given that large companies can get around it by simply lying, what's the point of the cumstoms charges system at all? Sounds like a license to print money that should have been revoked a long time ago :mad: .

Smiley_Mum

I used to visit the States a lot a few years back and whatever didn't fit in the case my boyfriend would send onwards to my home address. He'd cut all the labels off and mark it second hand clothing with a $0 value. Used to get around all the charges that way. One time he sent me a gift through the mail and the gits at the PO, UPS or whoever sent me a bill for £70. I was raging, my boyfriend paid but I was totally hacked off that he had to pay extra seeing as he'd already shelled out for the present.