Bill from FedEx?

[arknor]

If fedex have been kind enough to pay the import duties for you, then you should pay them back, which im sure op will. If every did as some people have in this thread, everyone would be ripping everyone else off.

you make it sound like they are doing him a favour... they chare a handling fee ranging from £10-20+ depending on which delivery company is it.

often this is more than the postage cost in the first place and can be double any fees for customs

 

[Pudney]

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

a) Because they've paid your taxes and handled the paperwork for you.
b) Go whine to the shipper over who they chose, not the poor courier that has the misfortune to deal with you.
c) Because you can't go into minute detail for thousands of shipments a day. If you can't understand that then I hope you don't run any substantial businesses.

Who you ship to outside the EU? Maybe they have an account with the courier. Maybe they pay charges directly.

If you don't like the charges, you know what, set up an account with couriers, set up a deferment account with HMRC and handle your imports yourself. Voilà, no more charges. If the systems are anything like what I worked with they can identify you quite easily with an account and all these problems would be solved.

Edit: Oh, and the other reason for the handling charge is to compensate for those who don't pay.

 

[ntg]

a) Because they've paid your taxes and handled the paperwork for you.

I didn't ask them to, thank you, I can do that myself. Oh, I forgot, I am not given the option, they are so nice they decide I want this - at a fee of course.

b) Go whine to the shipper over who they chose, not the poor courier that has the misfortune to deal with you.

The shipper many times has no choice over who handles the parcel once in UK, the same way as Royal Mail has no choice over who handles UK parcels once they enter a foreign country. Also, poor courier? It's a private business that decides I want to use their services without me - the customer - being asked. They seem to make quite a nice profit out of something that must take literally seconds through a largely automated system (please correct me if I'm wrong but I have trouble imagining employees going manually through all parcels and filling in forms and making manual payments for all the thousands of parcels every day - surely it's automated? which doesn't justify the extortionate handling fees).

c) Because you can't go into minute detail for thousands of shipments a day. If you can't understand that then I hope you don't run any substantial businesses.

My third question was not why the fee is a flat fee across all parcels, but the fact that they set the fee arbitrarily to whatever they like, it could be £10 today, and £20 next year and so on. Also, it looks like collusion to me when there appears to be no competition in these charges between different couriers (let alone when I, as a customer, do not get to choose who handles my custom).

Who you ship to outside the EU? Maybe they have an account with the courier. Maybe they pay charges directly.

I had shipped stuff to a Balkan country, to an individual, they had no account or anything like that. They did not pay anything aside from taxes and duties.

If you don't like the charges, you know what, set up an account with couriers, set up a deferment account with HMRC and handle your imports yourself. Voilà, no more charges. If the systems are anything like what I worked with they can identify you quite easily with an account and all these problems would be solved.

I hope you are saying this in jest. You can't really expect the average person who receives a parcel from friends/family or makes the occasional internet order overseas to go through all this. It also kind of proves my point, that you have to go through all the actions you described to avoid being force-fed the handling fee which you seem to be opted in by the courier companies. It should be the other way around, i.e. be asked to deal with your own parcel customs clearance OR set up an account with a courier to handle it for you, and then you get to accept any fees you are charged later on.

 

[philip2009]

It's a good favour. Our Parcelforce friends would spend days waiting to tell you that you have to pay before they deliver.

IIRC the quick way to get your international parcel from Parcelforce is to do the following -

a) Watch the tracking until it tells you your parcel has cleared customs but has a charge.
b) Ring Parcelforce up with your tracking number and pay them with your debit card(they'll already know the charge).

That way your parcel doesn't spend days sitting in the local depot, on hold, while they send a letter out demanding payment.