Fed up being ripped off by custom charges

[Tank63]

Purchased a two car unit of evil bay for around £76 

get a letter today stating that my item is now in the UK but the ass hole custom and excise want £30.

Can someone explain how they work out this extortion fee because that seems a lot to me.

Well pi%%ed off

[Drunkenclam]

20% vat. 

Parcelforce handling fee. (Processing the customs paperwork and and paying HMRC on your behalf.)

 

Yes. I had to pay my bill on Thursday.

 

Grumble Grumble

 

[bill937ca]

Interesting.  On Thursday I just got a second payment from a class-action lawsuit against UPS for "Brokerage Fees". on items imported into Canada. Show me the money!  Sue da bastards!

 🙂

Edited November 9, 2019 by bill937ca

[railsquid]

Come and live in Japan, also has the advantage that inbound stuff very rarely gets hit for duty unless it's from the kind of company (DM Toys, cough cough) who like to plaster the outside of the their packages with customs documentation which screams "tax me!" (and even then you can pay the postie at the door for a modest 250 yen handling fee).

[Kamome]

The annoying part is the administration fee for Parcel force. If we could deal with HMRC directly then this wouldn’t exist. I am assuming though that they have the contract with customs and therefore make their cut or threaten return to sender.

I got caught a couple of times with this charge and it actually made it cheaper to order through Train Trax in the UK. You sometimes get the odd parcel that makes it through unscathed. I think my Cassiopeia starter set from Plaza Japan made it without incident but most got taken hostage.

And yes, living in Japan means you’re not at the mercy of parcel force and things get delivered even on Sundays.

 

Edited November 10, 2019 by Kamome

[chadbag]

Luckily I've not gotten accosted once for any sort of duty, tax, etc in the US for trains coming from Japan or Europe.

 

[disturbman]

Germany has gotten pretty bad. Since this year, the German post started to add a 6€ handling fee if you have to get your parcel back from them, at the door or the post office. It has become cheaper (and faster) to order through amazon.co.jp where you pre-pay the custom duties and ship DHL.

I still have the odd-package, often packages were the bookcase serves as the package box, that are ignored by customs. Only boxes that looks like proper goods packages get stopped by the customs.

[Socimi]

It probably depends by wich carrier you use: EMS or SAL.

I've read in other forums that EMS speditions tend to be searched far more frequently than SAL ones, supposedly because people transferring illegal items use almost exclusively EMS, and from my experience is true: i used EMS once, it took the packages two weeks to get to Italy, but they got stuck at Malpensa Airport for three weeks or so and then i got a 40€ customs tax; meanwhile, it took SAL almost a month to get here, but i had to pay only the 2.50€ handling fee, and as of now i use only SAL.

[IST]

In Hungary you pay 27% VAT + 5% custom fee + ~12 EUR handling fee. How should I say: we are not happy...

[Welshbloke]

SAL works out cheaper. The Post Office (who handle SAL items on arrival) only fine you £8 for daring to import things while Parcelfarce (EMS) want £12.

 

[MattJS]

Wow!  I feel bad for you. Your  Euro government really likes to cornhole you.  Taxes on top of taxes on top of taxes.  It amazes me that anyone in Europe has any money left over for hobbies

[EdF]

Yet they do

[EdF]

Also for us in the US, we are supposed to declare all untaxed purchases on tax returns if your state has sales tax, and pay them.  It's only a matter of time before they close the net, like they did in Australia. 

[Welshbloke]

It's not so much the VAT as the abusive charges from private companies to collect same, which go straight into their profits. Frequently said charges will be two or three times the actual tax payable.

[nah00]

19 hours ago, EdF said:

Also for us in the US, we are supposed to declare all untaxed purchases on tax returns if your state has sales tax, and pay them.  It's only a matter of time before they close the net, like they did in Australia. 

 

Thank you Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for making eBay tax all purchases now. Luckily I don't get hit on anything else. If they start taxing all that stuff I'll just make myself a 501c3. 

[Socimi]

VAT in Italy is at 22%, it's not a great issue. The biggest issue here are the made-up customs fees and handling fees (but in fact avoidable by using SAL).

[The Next Station Is...]

I've found that my SAL Parcel packages coming into the UK tend to arrive via Parcelforce rather than Royal Mail, so have the higher charge and further for me to travel to pick it up.

 

I'm not so worried about the VAT but I wish that where the handling charge is more than the VAT that they reduced the charge in proportion. 

[Claude_Dreyfus]

Yup, the VAT is a sadly unavoidable fact of life, but the handling fees - particularly Parcelfarce - are annoying. Yes, why don't you sit on my parcel for a fortnight, then charge me a minimum of £13.50 fee + VAT (which includes on the postage cost, despite the fact a good 90% of the transit costs have been incurred before arriving in the UK) and finally not deliver, so I need to traipse over to the Parcelforce depot to collect it!

 

Still, could be worse. Oh yes, once the UK leaves the EU we'll get this rigmarole on all items purchased from the Continent as well! 

[brill27mcb]

On 11/13/2019 at 11:42 AM, nah00 said:

 

Thank you Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for making eBay tax all purchases now. Luckily I don't get hit on anything else. If they start taxing all that stuff I'll just make myself a 501c3. 

 

Not only that, they tax the postage and handling fee as well as the purchase price! Not sure how they justify that...  - Rich K.

[Tnxrail]

I also have paid a lot as I buy lot from Japan and some this you get tax sometimes not and not always on price also on size it seems to? I always see loads of Japanese companies parcels at work they seem to tax HLJ and AMIAMI most times. Have you tired using Amazon Japan you have to pay upfront tax but then you no what your paying before hand.

[marknewton]

On 11/13/2019 at 8:24 AM, EdF said:

It's only a matter of time before they close the net, like they did in Australia. 

The imposition of GST on low-value items bought overseas was to keep a political donor happy, nothing more.

 

Mark.

[EdF]

Yeah that never happens in the US.