Royal Mail Customs Charge query

[spoffle]

The Postal Services Act 2011 allows them to charge a fee and to withhold any such item pending payment.

This is the odd bit, as whilst they claim they can, they can't really as they would have to return to sender if enough time passes, thus they would be directly obstructing the receipt of your mail due to having held it for ransom.

I have had this issue with them myself, I have had them admit that I am liable for nothing as there is no contract between myself and them, and I have walked out with my parcels on more than one occasion without having paid them a penny, and that includes not reimbursing them for the customs fees they paid. This was because they were being so stubborn that they wouldn't accept ANY payment without their handling fee, so I opted for no payment at all.

It's easily enough to argue them in to submission that they bring your parcel out and hand it to you, which I did, and there is no chance they are going to attempt to take it back out of your hands, despite them telling me I couldn't leave without payment, they didn't attempt to stop me.

They sent me two letters threatening police action, and threatened that they were going to call the border agency on me due to non-payment of customs fees, despite it being a completely civil matter.

I found their letters extremely amusing because they knew I knew my rights, but still tried it on by using "police" and "UK Border Agency" as threats.

 

[arknor]

I've heard of many people having the opposite experience so maybe you are just fortunate to have a friendly depot or at least one that doesn't really care.

if you want to get your own back on them any mail to your address that is not for you or just to the householder.... stick it in a postbox you can almost guarantee it will come back again
keep doing until they realise

I thought I would do the decent thing and stick someone's letter back in the post I even wrote on it "previous tenant or never lived here"
it came back again 2 days later so I just binned it, tbh that's a lie I opened it and it was from a solicitors and full of the account's and projections for some company in birmingham.
then I binned it after tearing it up

 

[spoffle]

I've heard of many people having the opposite experience so maybe you are just fortunate to have a friendly depot or at least one that doesn't really care.

if you want to get your own back on them any mail to your address that is not for you or just to the householder.... stick it in a postbox you can almost guarantee it will come back again

keep doing until they realise

It was anything but friendly, the guy was very clearly unhappy about the situation. But there was NO chance he was going to try and put his hands on me to get the parcel back after he'd given it to me, there was a CCTV camera right in front of us so anything he would have tried would have been recorded.

It wasn't a lack of caring either, he definitely cared. It was a case of knowing what to say in a very specific way. I argued him down to letting me inspect my parcel (he wouldn't even show it to me at first), as there is no chance I am signing for something when I can't even see it and its condition.

As soon as I had the parcel to inspect, I refused to pay their handling fees, but stated I was more than happy to reimburse them for the VAT that they paid on my behalf, and he wasn't interested. It was basically all or nothing, so I chose nothing.

I was of course polite about it, but I was firm with my assertions that I wasn't going to pay the ridiculous handling fee which was near enough the same amount as the VAT. What got me annoyed is the lies they come out with to try and get you to pay.

I've been told that there is no handling fee, it's all a charge from HMRC/Border Force directly. A lot of what he had to say were lies basically and it made him very uncomfortable when I pointed out that I knew he was lying.

The trail of logic was extremely confusing, as I didn't understand how he expected me to be compliant when he was continually lying and I was catching him out on it.

 

[arknor]

the handling fee is nothing to do with customs only the customs charges are.
the handling fee is what the carrier charges you for paying the customs release fee on your behalf.

it's something an individual can not do themselves although some companies such as Amazon have started allowing you to prepay the customs fees which I would assume makes any handling fee impossible.

RM's fee wasn't so bad but if parcel force picked up your package it was twice as much at the time at I believe £14

AFAIR whether RM or PF collecting your parcel depended on what shipping you had rather than the package size which I guess is just another excuse to charge more.

 

[spoffle]

the handling fee is nothing to do with customs only the customs charges are.
the handling fee is what the carrier charges you for paying the customs release fee on your behalf.

I know, that was the point I was making. He tried to convince me that the whole fee was going straight to HMRC and that I'd be in trouble with them if I didn't pay it.

His face changed when I pointed out that I knew how it worked, and that no money at all was due to HMRC as they had paid it for me on my behalf.

it's something an individual can not do themselves although some companies such as Amazon have started allowing you to prepay the customs fees which I would assume makes any handling fee impossible

You can specify on the box that customs fees to cleared by recipient, which means the company dealing with the parcel can't clear it on your behalf and try and levy a handling fee.

RM's fee wasn't so bad but if parcel force picked up your package it was twice as much at the time at I believe £14

AFAIR whether RM or PF collecting your parcel depended on what shipping you had rather than the package size which I guess is just another excuse to charge more.

Parcel Force's fee seems to be dependant on the parcel's size. As my larger parcels with them, they ask for £13.50, and the smaller ones, £8.50.

 

[arknor]

surely that just means any fees are the recipients responsibility and not that the recipient will pay them directly to customs rather any charges being the shippers responsibility ,as far as I'm aware it is impossible to manually pay and collect your parcel from customs unless you are registered with them

 

[spoffle]

surely that just means any fees are the recipients responsibility and not that the recipient will pay them directly to customs which as far as I'm aware is impossible unless you are registered with them to be able to do it.

It's supposed to mean that HMRC bills you for it, so you get a bill for the VAT and that's it.

I have not used this method, though I have heard it does work.

Most of the time, I don't have an issue with either anyway, it's very rare any of my parcels get stopped, checked and then require fees, even with most of them having been declared above the threshold.

 

[arknor]

It's supposed to mean that HMRC bills you for it, so you get a bill for the VAT and that's it.

I have not used this method, though I have heard it does work.

Most of the time, I don't have an issue with either anyway, it's very rare any of my parcels get stopped, checked and then require fees, even with most of them having been declared above the threshold.

I've had ever ordered 3 things from abroad all stuff from hobbyking.

only one of them got customs fee's although all 3 were above the limit and that was he most expensive one
$160.69
I think the actual customs fee was half of what PF charged me for handling

the depot was so far away I couldn't be bothered to go there and argue with them so just paid it online

 

[Lopéz]

This is the odd bit, as whilst they claim they can, they can't really as they would have to return to sender if enough time passes, thus they would be directly obstructing the receipt of your mail due to having held it for ransom.

Again, the revised postal act allows them to do exactly this. Which is as it should be.

 

[Scougar]

Now they know, they are coming for you.



One of the few times I got charged was thanks to the seller. I bought a discounted item, and they left the original price on the invoice without a mention of the price I actually paid. (Also as a side note, the customs charges are based on the perceived value of an item in the UK, and not what you actually paid for it. I.e. if they start looking into more expensive items, you could pay more than you expected.).