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Americans: when sending a package or gift to the UK, please remember these notes on how to prevent your friends paying through the nose.
Brits: When you are buying a £200 item from Ebay, it may well not be the seller that burns you.
Here's the letter I got through my door today.
A few points to note.
1) If I *don't* get the Saturday delivery, I will get a note through my door while I'm at work, saying they couldn't deliver it to me. Once I get that, I can *then* arrange another delivery, to my local post office, for 50p. You can't arrange that delivery at the same time as paying the charges. So the £12 saves a fair bit of time, hassle and potential for things to go wrong.
2) I could get a taxi to the depot and back for about £10, and a couple of quid for tip and waiting fee... so I wouldn't save anything, and in my experience the queue in the depots can be hours long, so the waiting fee for the taxi could end up being a lot more than the Saturday delivery.
3) The £13.50 "Parcelforce clearance fee" is unavoidable, and is not from HMRC, it's from Parcelforce. But since Parcelforce has the complete monopoly on parcels coming into the country, there's nothing you can do to avoid it.
4) They are holding the package hostage without actually telling you what the package IS. Someone could have sent you a box of crap as a joke and you'd still have to pay through the nose to get it off them.
5) I already paid £30 postage on this.
6) These charges would be levied even on used items, gifts, for personal use.
7) There are few exceptions. No import duty is charged for items under £7, or from the EU; no VAT for items bought over the net <£18 (except alcohol, perfume >5ml, toilet water >0.25lt, tobacco); no VAT for gifts < £36 (same exclusions).
8) VAT is charged on the total value of the package including the postage cost! So, if you buy one of those things from China for £1 + £399p&p, you'll still pay VAT on a £400 item.
All told, that's £110 to get a £200 item delivered (Americans: that's well over two hundred bucks in delivery charges). And I knew this would happen when I ordered it. This is why I almost always buy from the UK, even though it costs more.
Rip-off Britain's status quo is being protected from EBay-style internet prices by Parcelforce and the HMRC.
The only exclusion I have found, is product returns. Ask the person returning the goods to the UK to write *very clearly* on the box and packing slip that the item is of no commercial value: something like "returned goods (defective/unsold): no commercial value" should do the trick.
In that case, the delivery cost drops to nothing. No VAT, no import duty, no clearance fee, and no Saturday delivery charge - instead, just the 50p "please pop it in the post office two doors down, kthx" fee.
If you have been charged for genuinely returned goods, you can claim the money back, but you need to apply for it, and there are hefty additional charges for false declarations if they decide that the goods weren't really being returned. You can't be told off for a declaration made by someone else outside the US, so it's best to get them to just declare it on the package.
If you live outside the UK and have been ripped off by a UK resident, a good way to get even is to send them a few packages from a bogus return address, each containing light and non-dangerous junk (have a care for the postmen!), but marked as being "worth" a lot, from a few hundred to many thousands of pounds. If they are regular E-Bayers, they will feel they have to pay the scam-fee get the items and find what they are: otherwise they might lose something valuable that they have already paid for.
Brits: When you are buying a £200 item from Ebay, it may well not be the seller that burns you.
Here's the letter I got through my door today.
We are holding an International parcel for you at our depot. Delivery of this parcel is subject to payment of charges raised by HM Revenue & Customs. These charges are:
Import duty: £11.12
Excise duty: £0.00
V.A.T.: £43.37
Other: £0.00
Parcelforce Clearance Fee: £13.50
[...]
For an additional charge of £12 you may choose to have your parcel delivered using our special Saturday delivery service.
[...]
Parcels awaiting payment will be held at the above depot for 20 days.
[...]
Parcelforce are unable to enter into disputes regarding Customs charges. Unpaid parcels, resulting from disputes about Customs charges, cannot be delivered and will be returned to sender after the time stated above.
[...]
A few points to note.
1) If I *don't* get the Saturday delivery, I will get a note through my door while I'm at work, saying they couldn't deliver it to me. Once I get that, I can *then* arrange another delivery, to my local post office, for 50p. You can't arrange that delivery at the same time as paying the charges. So the £12 saves a fair bit of time, hassle and potential for things to go wrong.
2) I could get a taxi to the depot and back for about £10, and a couple of quid for tip and waiting fee... so I wouldn't save anything, and in my experience the queue in the depots can be hours long, so the waiting fee for the taxi could end up being a lot more than the Saturday delivery.
3) The £13.50 "Parcelforce clearance fee" is unavoidable, and is not from HMRC, it's from Parcelforce. But since Parcelforce has the complete monopoly on parcels coming into the country, there's nothing you can do to avoid it.
4) They are holding the package hostage without actually telling you what the package IS. Someone could have sent you a box of crap as a joke and you'd still have to pay through the nose to get it off them.
5) I already paid £30 postage on this.
6) These charges would be levied even on used items, gifts, for personal use.
7) There are few exceptions. No import duty is charged for items under £7, or from the EU; no VAT for items bought over the net <£18 (except alcohol, perfume >5ml, toilet water >0.25lt, tobacco); no VAT for gifts < £36 (same exclusions).
8) VAT is charged on the total value of the package including the postage cost! So, if you buy one of those things from China for £1 + £399p&p, you'll still pay VAT on a £400 item.
All told, that's £110 to get a £200 item delivered (Americans: that's well over two hundred bucks in delivery charges). And I knew this would happen when I ordered it. This is why I almost always buy from the UK, even though it costs more.
Rip-off Britain's status quo is being protected from EBay-style internet prices by Parcelforce and the HMRC.
The only exclusion I have found, is product returns. Ask the person returning the goods to the UK to write *very clearly* on the box and packing slip that the item is of no commercial value: something like "returned goods (defective/unsold): no commercial value" should do the trick.
In that case, the delivery cost drops to nothing. No VAT, no import duty, no clearance fee, and no Saturday delivery charge - instead, just the 50p "please pop it in the post office two doors down, kthx" fee.
If you have been charged for genuinely returned goods, you can claim the money back, but you need to apply for it, and there are hefty additional charges for false declarations if they decide that the goods weren't really being returned. You can't be told off for a declaration made by someone else outside the US, so it's best to get them to just declare it on the package.
If you live outside the UK and have been ripped off by a UK resident, a good way to get even is to send them a few packages from a bogus return address, each containing light and non-dangerous junk (have a care for the postmen!), but marked as being "worth" a lot, from a few hundred to many thousands of pounds. If they are regular E-Bayers, they will feel they have to pay the scam-fee get the items and find what they are: otherwise they might lose something valuable that they have already paid for.
And it slipped through customs and onto my doormat without a comment or a bill.
Another time, I ordered 2 t-shirts from Weird Al's online shop. Discounted in a sale and including postage came to £15-ish. Under the £18 bracket anyway. Joy.
Only they marked the original full retail value on the packet, so I was hit for the tax. Only this wasn't "held at a depot", I had to pay the postie the fee plus collection charge for collecting the fee. Only he'd wrapped it with several other packages with an elastic band and delivered them to an elderly neighbour to look after. So I didn't pay it.
Third time, I had another one with a sticker saying "pay the postman a ridiculous sum" as the exchange rate had changed between my ordering and them despatching, so I was about 3p over the threshold. This garnered me about £15 in fees. Thankfully, the postie didn't notice the sticker. It was on my doormat when I got home.
Way round it - order stuff to be sent to a friend in the US to send on to you. Get them to mark it as "gift" to up the limit to £36. Also, one box can contain many "gifts", *each* up to £36. I'm not sure how this figures with them including in the postage costs. Note that each "gift" or selection of gifts for each person must be separated or marked/identified somehow.
This way, you can receive three things worth £22 each - one for you, one for mum and one for dad (for example) at your address. Or get the friend to open the package, scuff the edges and send it as "returned" as per your post.