Royal Mail - £8 admin fee for customs charge?

Gimpymoo

Gimpymoo

Gimpymoo

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Just got a card through the door, Royal Mail holding parcel to ransom for £13.

I wonder if profit is made on the charge?

I doubt much manual work is involved in this day and age, mostly printing a label and processing payment.

Item only worth £20 and I had no option of paying customs fees upfront.

£5 customs charge, fair enough... but Royal Mail want £8 as an "admin fee".

Proper boils my ****.
 
Count yourself luck Royal Mail only charge £8. I was once stung with a £25 customs admin charge on £12 of customs duty with a courier.
 
Gimpymoo said:
I wonder if profit is made on the charge?
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Of course. A lot of people in my office are incapable of franking the correct postage on letters. We regularly get cards for 10+ items underpaid. There's a £1 admin charge for each item, even though they still get delivered at the right time.
 
Delvis said:
So it's ordered outside of the EU assumingly, and you're moaning because you got caught? :p
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As I said in the op, I have no problem paying the fiver to the tax man (well, I do, but that is another matter), I just find the £8 charge by Royal Mail to be excessive in relation to the costs borne by them.
 
What are the fees for?

  • If your item had insufficient postage or no stamps attached, a flat-rate fee will be charged as follows:
    • Letters/Large Letters - no postage paid - £2 flat fee
    • Letters/Large Letters - insufficient postage paid - £1.50 flat fee
    • Small Parcel - underpaid/no postage paid - £3 flat fee
    • Medium Parcel - underpaid/no postage paid - £1.50 plus incremental postage rounded to the nearest 10 pence
  • If your item has had a Customs charge applied it will include a handling fee of £8.00
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I wonder if Chinese retailers avoid chargers by just not declaring them.
 
I think it's for items over a certain amount, so most likely the Chinese just lie about the value. I've ordered stuff from Hong Kong before and it never got stopped. It's often cheaper than buying within the EU :D
 
This has been talked about before especially in respect of Parcelforce. IIRC one person in the thread said that when parcelforce placed his package on the counter he just took it, and refused to pay the fee.
 
Gimpymoo said:
As I said in the op, I have no problem paying the fiver to the tax man (well, I do, but that is another matter), I just find the £8 charge by Royal Mail to be excessive in relation to the costs borne by them.
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since when did one relate to the other? Go buy a ticket from ticketmaster and see if their "service" charges are reasonable.
 
managed to get £18.88 through ok from iherb usa ,was expecting a hit
edit import vaty over £18 outside eu ?
 
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Tunney said:
Royal Mail must be rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect of us exiting the EU customs union. :p
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Royal Mail need a boost things are not very healthy, anyone else think the pre tax profits sound very low for a company of such a size?

"Royal Mail has admitted it is having a ‘difficult time’ as it negotiates a fierce dispute with workers over pensions, as profits dipped 30pc despite revenues beating expectations.

While the postal company’s revenues climbed 5.4pc to £4.8bn in the 26 weeks to September 24, pre-tax profits fell to £77m – largely due to an increase in pension costs of £114m."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business...its-having-difficult-time-profits-slump-30pc/

I think more and more businesses are switching to courier firms that offer more flexibility and better pricing.
 
I've been charged more in admin fees than the freaking tax and value of the item before.

I'm starting to think just buy in EU. Sweden is hot on it... Maybe my address is tagged :p

Will be interesting to see if the UK get screwed on this come brexit. That will be a freaking joke, but a great money spinner.
 
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Efour said:
I've been charged more in admin fees than the freaking tax and value of the item before.

I'm starting to think just buy in EU. Sweden is hot on it... Maybe my address is tagged :p.
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Not sure if it's relevant but one of my colleagues says he always gets hit by UPS import duty if he has things delivered to work.

What he does instead is have items delivered to home and wait for them to clear customs, then changes the delivery to come to the office instead :D.
 
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