Bill from FedEx?

[Pudney]

Not really. Lots of other courier companies insist of the charges paid first before delivery. They ring us up and ask for payment over the phone via card. No payment = no delivery.

It's good that some companies will pay on your behalf and collect later.

Having worked at a centre which handles the majority of UK imports for a company, I have to disagree. At the time it was something like goods over £250 were stopped for prepayment, everything lower was allowed through and payment would be chased later. There were in the region of 6,000-12,000 packages a day requiring clearance (i.e. ignoring sub £18 packages) depending on time of year, with around Christmas and Thanksgiving having higher quantity and higher value items. Of those packages about 1,500 a day would be over the £250 limit at the lower end of the scale, more during the latter stages of the year.

The time spent clearing those packages was disproportionately higher than anything else, and that doesn't even take into account the additional time required for the debt management team to deal with.

Then take into account the worst paperwork was normally with the lower valued goods. At this end you'd be lucky to get a legible name, let alone a telephone number. The storage space and administration time to hold these items would far outweigh any potential benefit from prepayments.

You have to think, it's probably cheaper for the courier to send your item, then bill you for the costs and not have you pay than having to incur the costs of storage and managing those packages.

 

[Feek]

You never agreed to them handling anything on your behalf, you have received your parcel. You don't owe them anything.

Wrong, wrong and wrong. Wrong on every level (except for the part about Craig having received his parcel).

 

[Craig1981]

The one thing I thought was weird was that nowhere on any of the three sheets of paper I got in the letter does it say what will happen if I dont pay. Usually with a bill or credit card statement there will be something in the small print about what they will do to you if you dont cough up. Things like imposing late fees, taking you to court, etc etc. I honestly wondered if they even had any powers to do anything if I ignored it.

I paid it this morning anyway. Bit of a moot point now.

 

[memyselfandi]

It tends to depend on the company, as the couriers with express services tend to delivery then invoice you, whilst ones where people haven't paid for the speedy service will hold the package.

IIRC from memory I've had
UPS - pay at door (used to be cash or cheque, but i think it's now card).
RM/PF card through door which you either ring up a number to pay, or pop down to the delivery office to pay as you pick the package up.
Fed-Ex and DHL - deliver first, bill later.

Parcel Force can also do it by sending you a letter instead of the card through the door. You can then take the reference number in the letter and pay online. But this is in reality really irritating as you have to use the billing reference not the package reference hence have to wait for the letter!

They, and others like DHL, would improve things enormously if when you did parcel tracking on their websites and it indicates that a charge is required then they should link from there to a payment gateway where you can view the invoice and pay it online.

 

[ntg]

However the retailer you bought them from will almost certainly have something similar to the following in their T&C
"If you are outside of (country of retailer), additional charges may be required by customs, by using our service you agree to them".

You agree to the T&C of the retailer, who will almost always warn in their T&C that additional fees may be payable if you're importing to a different country.

For example

Quote:
Originally Posted by Blizzard store FAQ, right under "do you ship internationally
You are responsible for any applicable tarifs and/or taxes associated with your order, and may be required to pay additional charges on delivery.

I don't dispute paying tarrifs and duties. My issue is with those "handling fees" that the private post company decides to slap on the invoice without asking you if you would like them to handle your post in the first place.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Valve store, right under the cart contents.
NOTICE INTERNATIONAL ORDERS: Your order may be subject to additional Import/Duty Fees and/or VAT or other local taxes that are not reflected in your order total. Any such additional fees or taxes are the sole responsibility of the customer and may be charged at delivery

Again, as it said in your quote "may be charged at delivery", not AFTER you have received your goods. Although I wouldn't like it, if I was told that I have to pay XX to receive my goods I would probably oblige (assuming their handling fees were competitive with other companies). But coming after I have received the goods and try to charge me, with the threat of debt collectors etc, is just ridiculous - hence I ignored them and it worked in my case.

The fact that they are doing a job for you without your consent and then charge you an arbitrary handling fee that you have not agreed upon - and may be higher than the competition, is not right in my book and even the T&Cs that you mentioned would not cover such a circumstance from my perspective.

 

[ntg]

Wrong, wrong and wrong. Wrong on every level (except for the part about Craig having received his parcel).

Why is it wrong on every level? I've paid postage at the retailers checkout which covers well..postage costs.

I have no issue with paying customs taxes and duties. Why should I pay extra for handling? Is it because they decided to do me a favour and prepay the taxes/duties on my behalf? Oh the darlings, shame I never asked them for it though so they can go shove it.

When I send parcels abroad in the EU, I pay the royal mail and my stuff is delivered without the receipient asked to pay extra for it.

 

[ElvisFan]

The way I see it is this:

Fedex have shepherded the parcel all the way through the system, including fast-tracking it through customs and paying the charges. Then, being aware that they are in the business of delivering parcels, get it to you at the earliest opportunity seeing as you must have wanted it pretty bad to order it from the USA in the first place. Then, once they've performed their raison d'être of delivering the parcel, they can process the documentation and get it mailed out.

Parcelfarce, on the other hand, hold it at Coventry until their ransom letter has been posted. Then they take it to a depot. You receive the letter two days later than the parcel could have been delivered to you. You can't pay the charges online until you get the code on the letter. What you can do is follow the tracking number and turn up to the depot while that letter is still in the post, and as long as you have ID on you, pick up your parcel.

Where I take umbrage, is parcelforce's handling fee. Fedex are welcome to theirs because they delivered the goods. With parcelforce, they have not fulfilled the contract and delivered the goods at the earliest opportunity. In order to obtain my goods at the earliest, I have had to constantly track the parcel, then travel twenty miles at my own expense to the nearest depot. It's that part which is taking the ****.

I was tracking an item last week. It cleared customs and arrived at Rotherham Parkgate Parcelforce depot at 11:34 on Thursday night. I collected it and paid for it the following afternoon (Friday).

I received the Parcelforce ransom letter today (Tuesday).

I have written to my MP about this (Dennis "Beast of Bolsover" Skinner) and he wrote to the Chief Exec of Parcelforce and forwarded to me his reply. The letter from Parcelforce basically said "accept it or don't use us".

So those complaining about Fedex ought to get their priorities right.

 

[Amos91]

When I send parcels abroad in the EU, I pay the royal mail and my stuff is delivered without the receipient asked to pay extra for it.

Probably because there isn't a general import/export tax within EU states

 

[Robbo]

You have to pay it, it sucks, but you do.

They will chase you, and keep chasing you, they have a whole department just for this because most people choose to ignore it and often require some hassling before they pay.

 

[Lopéz]

Why is it wrong on every level? I've paid postage at the retailers checkout which covers well..postage costs.

I have no issue with paying customs taxes and duties. Why should I pay extra for handling? Is it because they decided to do me a favour and prepay the taxes/duties on my behalf? Oh the darlings, shame I never asked them for it though so they can go shove it.

When I send parcels abroad in the EU, I pay the royal mail and my stuff is delivered without the receipient asked to pay extra for it.

You seem to have a resentful attitude along with a poor understanding of international shipping regulations, so you probably aren't in the best position to comment. Have you caught advice from a legal representative? It might be a better idea than falling back on the "I never entered into a contract with you" argument used by people when trying to justify why they don't want to fill out the government census.

 

[Strife212]

Surely you could bankrupt someone by sending them unlimited parcels if that were the case.

 

[Pudney]

Not before you were either bankrupted from shipping fees/get blacklisted by the courier.

 

[Strife212]

What would happen if I sent someone a brick marked at a £1 million value via Fedex and they accepted the parcel, what would happen when they got a bill for £200000 and refused to pay it?

 

[Pudney]

It would get sent back to you and you'd be charged.

Or they'd open it up and throw away the brick.

 

[Nexus]

Not before you were either bankrupted from shipping fees/get blacklisted by the courier.

Yup, surely if you didn't pay the courier fees, they would likely stop delivering any future deliveries until you paid your dues.

 

[ntg]

Probably because there isn't a general import/export tax within EU states

I have made it clear in all my posts in this thread that I am referring to the handling fees, not taxes/customs

 

[antijoke]

I thought this was going to be about Bill "the super awesome delivery guy" from Fedex.

 

[Pudney]

I have made it clear in all my posts in this thread that I am referring to the handling fees, not taxes/customs

What do you think the handling fee is for

If you're not sure it's the act of clearing goods through customs and paying the charges on your behalf. Which doesn't occur for EU shipments!

 

[ntg]

You seem to have a resentful attitude along with a poor understanding of international shipping regulations, so you probably aren't in the best position to comment. Have you caught advice from a legal representative? It might be a better idea than falling back on the "I never entered into a contract with you" argument used by people when trying to justify why they don't want to fill out the government census.

Ignoring your condenscending tone, what does the census has to do with this (btw, I've never expressed any opinions or posted in any threads about the census so I think this is a really poor effort to apply a label to me)? and since when do I need to consult a solicitor before expressing an opinion in a web forum?

You imply that you know what you are talking about so why don't you help me and the others like me understand better where we are at fault with this? It'd be really useful explaining your authority on international shipping regulations to begin with, so that I can see how you are in a better position to offer an opinion. Please do enlighten me on why:

a) should feel obliged to pay retrospective fees after I receive my parcel (which I may not do if I had known the fees) for which I have paid postage already,
b) from a private courier I did not choose to handle my custom at any point (for example I don't get to choose between Fedex or Parcelforce or whoever else), and,
c) are set arbitrary (they are irrelevant to the parcel value for obvious reasons) and can change at the whim of the company

And I'm not talking abou taxes/duties, just handling fees.

Oh, and since you mentioned I have no concept of international shipping regulations, could you please explain why I need to pay a handling fee for my package to clear customs when I receive something in UK, but people do not need to pay handling fees when I send things to them within EU or outside EU (not USA).

 

[ntg]

What do you think the handling fee is for

If you're not sure it's the act of clearing goods through customs and paying the charges on your behalf. Which doesn't occur for EU shipments!

I know what the handling fee is, duh. I don't know why I'm being charged with it when I never asked them to clear my parcel on my behalf in the first place. I can do that myself (theoritically speaking, and very plausibly for a high value item).

Bear in mind the fact that this handling fee does not exist in other eurozone countries when receiving parcels from USA which are under tax/duties. For example I was in another eurozone country and received a laptop from USA. I had to pay taxes and duties but was not asked to pay any handling fees. I was given the option to go and clear it through customs myself (which I did) or pay a customs officer to do it for me.