Anyone ever appealed a FedEx import charge?

ubersonic

ubersonic

ubersonic

Soldato
Joined
26 May 2009
Posts
22,174
Kinda as title, has anyone here ever appealed against one of FedEx's charges for delivering good from outside the EU? If not does anyone know if you can? (I assume so as this isn't Nazi Germany, but you never know).

Quick summery of events: Bought a set of four LED lights off Amazon in March, one didn't work, contacted seller and complained, was told they would send me a warranty replacement one when they could but they were now out of stock as their factory in China was quarantined so they couldn't bring any more stock in, I couldn't really complain about that so okay I waited a while and messaged again in June, they apologised for the delay and said they would send one right out, a few weeks later it arrived.

That's where I thought the story ended except a few weeks later I received a £17 bill from FedEx for customs charges and administration fees. Apparently according to them the bulb had come direct to me from the UK sellers factory in China. I know most people on this forum are good with technology but in case anyone reading isn't, £17 is significantly more than the value of a LED bulb, especially considering the one in question was a warranty replacement so technically worthless.

I'm not really sure what to do here, but I feel I should defiantly try to fight this as I never consented to import anything so feel it's unfair I'm being charged more than the value of an item to receive a warranty replacement for it from a seller just because said seller tried to save on postage by having the factory post straight to me instead of sending it to their UK base then to me.
 
Have you contacted Amazon/Seller direct and asked them to reimburse?
Likely get offered the money in credit from Amazon just to make you happy...

FedEx have done their end of the deal so if there is monies owed that isn't really their issue.
 
Yes, told them to go stick the admin fee and they did.

Not sure you can get away with avoiding the custom charge though as that goes to HMRC.
 
Yes, more than once, emailed them nicely to ask for the admin fee taken off but say happy to pay the tax and duty.

They obliged both times.
 
Yes I did challenge them back when Amazon JP were still using them for international orders (they now use DHL).

They sent me a admin/tax/duty bill which when you looked at it had some completely made up elements on it which they then used in their calculations to come up the amount owed. I.e. the Amazon final figure included the shipping value in the total. They then added a completely fictitious figure for shipping on top of this before doing their percentage calculations and then adding their admin fee.

I of course challenged this quite strongly and reported it to Amazon. Fedex backed down completely on all charges.

Of course I've had DHL screw up too but that was due to an issue between Amazon and DHL's systems and Amazon ended up refunding both any fees incurred as well as the original order cost in full for my trouble as it was their fault.
 
Thekwango said:
You didn’t enter into any contract with Fedex the sender did. Advise of this and let them chase the sender for payment.
Click to expand...
Except that as the importer you are liable to the taxes, which the sender has no control over.

If the item cost less than £15 before shipping then no taxes should be payable anyway which means it can be appealed.

As the item was a warranty replacement the taxes should be waived, but iirc it'll require showing proof to HMRC then when they agree you show their letter to the courier who should refund their fees.
 
It's something a lot of people don't realise, even if it's a gift if there are taxes due you're the one that pays them normally :( (can be a nasty shock when someone sends you a nice surprise from abroad).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom