UK Customs Charges

[Guest SisterRay]

I ordered a t-shirt from the US, it cost $47.50 including postage. I have just received a charge of £11.57.

I can't believe this is correct.

Has anyone have any experience of this and how these charges are calculated.

Thanks

[Darkeside]

with parcel force you pay Uk VAT on the item, plus a handling charge.

last time i yelled at the woman calculating this, she informed me its usually just items over $100 that get stung but technically everything entering the Uk should have VAT added.

it sucks, basically, and without marking items down and as a gift its pretty unavoidable.

[euphor]

I live in canada but i had the same problem recently.

I ended up paying around 20 bucks for shipping, and when it arrived i had to pay an additional 35 for canadian customs charges. Ive ordered other things without that happening though so i was really disapointed. The charge was just for extra random taxes...

[FaSHioNaBLe_MoDErN_MAn]

I bought 2 cardigan from US before and that seller was stupid enough to mark it at 200USD. I was left with no choice but have to pay 40+pounds for taxes and handling fees.

Nowadays when I buy something from Japan, I have to make sure the seller or those ppl that do japan proxy service mark down the value, mark it as a gift and NEVER put the brand on the description. Just write it as 'shirt' instead of 'dior shirt' or just write it down as second hand item like 'jeans(used)' then you will be fine.

[bapelolol]

I live in canada but i had the same problem recently.

I ended up paying around 20 bucks for shipping, and when it arrived i had to pay an additional 35 for canadian customs charges. Ive ordered other things without that happening though so i was really disapointed. The charge was just for extra random taxes...

so you got an item delivered from UK (you live in canada) using parcelforce, but didn't have it marked as a gift or low value and got taxed to shit ? correct ?

[tomtom]

Customs in the UK is fucking rediculous. I dont know how many times ive ranted on forums about them but its a complete joke. I think the charge percentage runs around the 30-40% mark.

Once i bought shoes from the states worth £70 and somehow they managed to value them so high that i got a £40/$80 charge.

How they can justify charging such rediculous amounts is beyond me. And how the value items is another question that id like to have an answer

Over the past 2 years ive coughed up over £250 for customs, i always ask shops and ebay sellers to mark them down buy they either dont read the email or theyre simply to thick and dont know how to fill in a customs form

England=Financial Rape

[agentbuca]

The UK customs site says there is 12% duty to pay on clothing imported into the UK, and then VAT at 17.5% on top of that. Plus 'the Post Office may charge you for clearing your package through Customs'. I haven't been stung recently, but I've had some bad charges in the past.

Baseball caps have their own duty charge of 2.5% for some reason, and may be exempt from VAT.

At least I'm buying clothes and not tobacco - there's a 74.9% duty charge on packs of baccy!

[ally fu]

I bought stuff from Rakuten last year whch was about £100. Postage/handling and customs added another £60 on top. Fucking ridiculous.

[innA]

It is an absolute rip-off and seems completely random.

I just ordered some skincare from www.strawberrynet.com and the total cost was £28 - they slapped a customs charge on of £12.90 (including their wonderful 'international clearance fee'). Had it been marked as a gift it would have been free - doesn't make any sense... but thankfully the company were nice enough to reimburse the extra cost.

My girlfriend ordered a great vintage coat/jacket from eBay in the US and the seller marked the value on the sticker much higher than the purchase price.. ending up having to pay £22 for it

[cookiecook]

In my experience, royal mail charge an £8 handling fee for international items, Parcel Force £13.50.

You only get charged this if the item gets flagged in customs, which is usually when the value is marked as £35 or more. A lot of the time the customs fee is far less than the handling fee which is why it gets annoying. Royal mail dont give you the option to pay customs directly, thus charging 8/13 pounds for the pleasure of having them sort it out.

[khaltire]

damn, sounds like UK customs is way worse than canadian

[ProfMonnitoff]

I just recently paid 40 Euros of charges on an item marked 100 Dollars. Customs likes screwing Europeans. First, they converted dollars to euros 1:1. Then, it was 12% of something, 20% of something else, and after that they added another charge of 6 Euros for good measure.

[evisu 2000]

the worst is when people agree to mark shit as a gift and a certain amount but end up not doing it. fucking haters.

[Felix]

^^haha i know how you feel....i had to pay 50euro for my samurai bk's

fucking dicks!

[Felix]

wow that would be really good news!

have to search for more info....

[Clockwork_killa]

The last few items Ive ordered from the states didnt get charged, but I have been stung before. I think it just depends if youre lucky, but usually anything under $50 doesnt get checked, and as long as what youre ordering doesnt look like its undervalued when its been marked as a gift or marked down then youre ok.

The worst is sending stuff back to the us. I got fuckin raped by parcelforce, I bought a backpack whcih I wasnt happy with, so I sent it back for a refund. Somehow a backpack that couldnt have been more than a few hundred grams ended up weighing a kilo, which in turn meant I could only ship it via a specific service and ended up costing me 45 quid!!!

[Zwei]

didnt hv a problem of customs charge but the mail service is uk is fucking useless

[FunkyFrenchy]

with parcel force you pay Uk VAT on the item, plus a handling charge.

Same in France...

But i've ordered plenty of stuff, including package of 500$ declared on the package and never ever been caught...

I think in France they just don't care... (nobody cares of anything is this country...)

[Harry Sledge]

Custom charges piss me off so much I'd rather annoy the seller with multi-messages about marking the value down than just allow it to happen & lose money for the hell of it.

[FunkyFrenchy]

Custom charges piss me off so much I'd rather annoy the seller with multi-messages about marking the value down than just allow it to happen & lose money for the hell of it.

Same thing... But that only works on ebay...

Some stores don't want ot mark the value down because it's "illegal"...

[Harry Sledge]

Same thing... But that only works on ebay...

Some stores don't want ot mark the value down because it's "illegal"...

True...I've tried & understand why official stores can't & won't do it. But if your lucky, what some do is mark the value down to it's wholesale value...that's when you get to see how much they mark things up for R.R.P.

[hhowlit]

UK custom charge is so expensive. i bought 1 pair of jeans and it shipped from U.S and got hold by the custom. i ended up have to pay 30+ pound of charge. not once but 3 times!!!!!!!

[Darkeside]

...I've tried & understand why official stores can't & won't do it.

because it is essentially fraud, and if they got caught they'd be the ones getting charged, not you or I?

[Clockwork_killa]

Does anyone know if you can dispute customs charges? I just receieved some stuff today that I ordered from the US, total came to about $80 including shipping, but on the parcel they marked the package value as $200!! I presume they did this so as to cover their losses in the evnent my package went missing, but I sure as hell dont want to end up paying for $200 worth of customs fees when my stuff is only woth $40.

I didnt get any kind of customs invoice with the package, so I dont know if I will get one, but is there any way I can dispute the feesif I do get one, or will I just have to fork out the cash?

[Felix]

uhm why dont you just show them your paypal invoices or smth else that proves how much you paid?!?

[deadpan]

Does anyone know if you can dispute customs charges? I just receieved some stuff today that I ordered from the US, total came to about $80 including shipping, but on the parcel they marked the package value as $200!! I presume they did this so as to cover their losses in the evnent my package went missing, but I sure as hell dont want to end up paying for $200 worth of customs fees when my stuff is only woth $40.

I didnt get any kind of customs invoice with the package, so I dont know if I will get one, but is there any way I can dispute the feesif I do get one, or will I just have to fork out the cash?

If you're in the UK, you'd get a customs form in my experience, before the stuff gets delivered. They hold your stuff, and you have to pay to get it released. They send you a bill and you take it to the collection depot, pay, and then get your stuff. Once you've paid, you officially can't dispute it, so if you wanna dispute it, they hold on to your stuff till it's sorted out :eek:.

I've never heard of them billing you AFTER delivering your stuff?

[mkei]

Oddly enough, having ordered various clothing items and more from the US, I've only ever been hit once, and the situation wasn't exactly straight forward..

I sent a graphics card back to the retailer I bought it from because it was faulty, they then sent it off to the manufacturer, who was based in the US or something, they returned it directly to me, and I got slapped with a huge custom charge (which I obviously refused to pay)..

but on clothing items, I'm fairly sure they've all been marked as gift, as I've never had to pay customs on them. I agree though, it's completely ridiculous.

[Clockwork_killa]

If you're in the UK, you'd get a customs form in my experience, before the stuff gets delivered. They hold your stuff, and you have to pay to get it released. They send you a bill and you take it to the collection depot, pay, and then get your stuff. Once you've paid, you officially can't dispute it, so if you wanna dispute it, they hold on to your stuff till it's sorted out :eek:.

I've never heard of them billing you AFTER delivering your stuff?

Thanks for that, the reason I asked is that ive had stuff delivered to me by DHL (admittedly not here in the UK) where theyve given me the package and then I get sent a customs invoice a few days later. I guess I can assume then that I wont have to pay customs charges this time.

[deadpan]

Thanks for that, the reason I asked is that ive had stuff delivered to me by DHL (admittedly not here in the UK) where theyve given me the package and then I get sent a customs invoice a few days later. I guess I can assume then that I wont have to pay customs charges this time.

yeah as far as i've experienced, with Royal Mail, they make yyou pay while holding you're goods hostage. Guess they would get alot of people just refusing to pay otherwise...

[magneticbeats]

I can usually persuade eBay sellers to mark items down so I don't get stung.

I ordered a t-shirt from Revolve Clothing the other week though and they refused to mark the item down and I got charged £10 or so.

UPS are one of the worst though. Their handling charge is about £15 I think and I bought some shoes from Medium Footwear (who also refused to mark items down) and got stung for £50 customs which was about the price of the shoes!

FedEx will deliver and then send an invoice later, but UPS come to the door expecting you to pay the driver there and then.