Tossers charged me and extra 14 quid for and $28 item from the States and you have go to the depot to collect and pay for it.........makes ya blood boil... 
Aunts
Aunts
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Post Office, Royal Mail #ankers
- Thread starter bartron
- Start date
I feel your pain. I queued up this morning for 40 minutes and was charged £20.42 for VAT + 'handling charge'. My item from Spooky was listed having a value of $150. You can pay online and they will redeliver it within 2 days.
I posted a document a couple of weeks ago that needed to be signed for, one got there and one didn't (same address). For the one that wasn't delivered I was told 'tough luck' and there was nothing I could do. What's the fricking point of having it tracked and signed for then. They then suggested I spend another £6.50 to send it 'special' delivery. My blood was boiling too................
Feel your pain. I just expect it now. Support the UK if possible... ( ? )
They tried to charge me import duty, tax and handling fee on an order from Germany, they said it was because we had left the EU.
I hope this was tongue in cheek...
Bought a pinball LED kit from the States for a friend, got whacked with a ~£40 customs bill + £8 RM handling of course. Turned out some bulbs were missing, so the company sent out another package, somehow got charged ~£35 for that too. Oh and RM took another £8 too.
Filled out the HMRC customs dispute form, even included a cover letter detailing that the second shipment was missing parts from the first, and didn't constitute a new purchase, supplied all the documentation required including the original customs labels and RM penalty charge stickers - carefully removed from the packaging. Even notorized it all to make it simple to follow the chronology of it.
4 weeks later I receive a letter asking for the labels & stickers etc I'd already provided (??). Just gave up at that point. My time is worth more.
Ugh.
Filled out the HMRC customs dispute form, even included a cover letter detailing that the second shipment was missing parts from the first, and didn't constitute a new purchase, supplied all the documentation required including the original customs labels and RM penalty charge stickers - carefully removed from the packaging. Even notorized it all to make it simple to follow the chronology of it.
4 weeks later I receive a letter asking for the labels & stickers etc I'd already provided (??). Just gave up at that point. My time is worth more.
Ugh.
Totally agree with all comments above and its not just parcelforce/rm. It doesnt even help if you are VAT registered. If the documentation is filled in incorrectly by the shipper, then you get billed anyway, even if you can provide a real vat number!! crazy situation. See below from our 'friends' at fedex. There is no reason for a 'charge' other than to make money out of a bad bureaucratic situation. And trying to resolve the situation just isnt worth the time out of your day and the multiple forms you have to fill in
The problem ( i think) is the threshold is set far too low. Most countries (such as Australia and USA) set the level at around $500, which makes much more sense in my view, when we live in a global economy and import of parts and export of goods is just part of making stuff.
Hilighting it in red, does make you feel better though
(joking)
The problem ( i think) is the threshold is set far too low. Most countries (such as Australia and USA) set the level at around $500, which makes much more sense in my view, when we live in a global economy and import of parts and export of goods is just part of making stuff.
Hilighting it in red, does make you feel better though
(joking)A lot of pinball stuff simply isn't available in the UK, so it's not like UK suppliers are being disadvantaged. Where else am I supposed to buy Comet bulbs, for example, than from Comet? Or Titan rubbers? Or XYZ mod?
Doesn't feel right that we should get charged duty and VAT on something that you simply can't buy over here.
Doesn't feel right that we should get charged duty and VAT on something that you simply can't buy over here.
The VAT threshold for imports from outside of the EU is £15 and that total includes postage and insurance. As of today that's only a tad over USD $19 - so what can you buy delivered for that?
This situation has happened to me so often that a few of the people at the post office call me by my name!
Learned that lesson when my other half ordered a couple of guitar plectrums from the states. Plectrums cost ~12 quid, we were then whacked with VAT and the Royal Mail "handling" fee. Doubled the frickin price!
Must be a real cash cow for the Royal Mail, their handling fee is completely disproportionate in a lot of cases.
And then there's me last night walking down to the post box in the rain, to post a Royal Mail *Tracked* parcel that had been put through our door with a completely different address on it..... Oh and earlier in the year I ordered some bits from Pinball Mania that took TWO MONTHS to arrive by first class post!
Rant over
Must be a real cash cow for the Royal Mail, their handling fee is completely disproportionate in a lot of cases.
And then there's me last night walking down to the post box in the rain, to post a Royal Mail *Tracked* parcel that had been put through our door with a completely different address on it.....
Oh and earlier in the year I ordered some bits from Pinball Mania that took TWO MONTHS to arrive by first class post!Rant over
No, they were deadly serious. Someone messed up wherever the package came into the UK and they tried to pass the costs onto me.