Custom charges how bloody much

nutbox

Hi there, I brought a module for my randall rm50 from someone in Canada ,it took over 2 months to get here because of Xmas supposedly . Anyway I recieved a letter from parcel force and the charges are more than the bloody module. I paid C$135 for the module and her majesty greedy bar stewards want £135 for the pleasure . Is this right or am I being ripped off. Cheers dazz

stickyfiddle

That's definitely too much. It should be duty + VAT plus handling fees, which usually amounts to around 25%.

Could be a cockup this end, or could be that it's been over-declared on the import form (presumably by mistake on the part of the Canadian sending it)

nutbox

Well they charged me £113 import vat,£13.83 customs duty and £8 clearance . The bloke I brought it off said he valued it at C$100 and postage was about C$60 . It's deffinately a rip off

imalone

nutbox said:

Well they charged me £113 import vat,£13.83 customs duty and £8 clearance . The bloke I brought it off said he valued it at C$100 and postage was about C$60 . It's deffinately a rip off

That seems way too much for the import charge (are you sure about the names? Don't think there's such a thing as import VAT, should just be the same as regular VAT at 20% of price, so the £13.83 would be about right, but the import duty at £113 seems crazy).

Panama_Jack666

Wrong thread! ignore this post

nutbox

Yes details are correct

nutbox

I wondered Panama funny though

VimFuego

the government's skint, so they gotta raise money somehow. Just be grateful they ain't come for your organs.

Panama_Jack666

Ha! Was hoping to get it removed before anyone saw it!

Hope you get your customs stuff sorted mate!

ICBM

nutbox said:

Well they charged me £113 import vat,£13.83 customs duty and £8 clearance . The bloke I brought it off said he valued it at C$100 and postage was about C$60 . It's deffinately a rip off

Are you sure he didn't accidentally write $1000? A £113 VAT charge would indicate a valuation of £565, which is… C$1000 give or take a small rounding error/exchange rate fluctuation.

Or maybe Customs made the mistake. Worth challenging it, anyway.

chillidoggy

VimFuego said:

the government's skint, so they gotta raise money somehow. Just be grateful they ain't come for your organs.

You're just worried about your own supply. Selfish bastard.

nutbox

I hope not icbm ,I put the rough calculations into the customs calculator and it came up saying I should look to pay about £30-40 . I ll ring them in the morn

Sambostar

Maybe they thought the sender deliberately undervalued it and are playing hardball.  Would imagine that is their brief, especially at Christmas when there is loads of money to be made on Vat on imported gifts.  Direct them to a website to the value of the thing.

The VAT is charged on shipping + item value + insurance premium, ie the whole package to get it here.

Duck houses don't build themselves you know.

gavin_axecaster

You can find links to the exchange rate HMRC use for the date of import here
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/exchange-rates-for-customs-and-vat
$195CND (value+shipping) would be about £107.93 at January 2015 rate of 1.8067
What is the duty rate on a module? See if you can find a suitable category here
https://www.gov.uk/trade-tariff/sections
For the sake of argument let's say 5% - £5.396579
Total value+duty - 113.32815
20%VAT (£22.66563)
Total duty+vat = £28.062209 + handling fee £8
So your charges (assuming 5% duty rate) should be about £36.
Here's the problem - Parcelforce refuse to discuss incorrect charges until you have paid and collected the item, then you have to contact them and dispute the charges (I am about to do this, although mine is a measly £30 overcharged). You will have to provide evidence to support your claim. If the seller declared an incorrect value on the customs form you might have a problem, but providing copies of original receipts/invoice might be enough to convince them.
The figures certainly look like they have taken the value as $1000CDN with 2.5% duty.

nutbox

I paid about £88ish all told with item and shipping costs. This module has been cursed since day one lol.

FelineGuitars

There is definitely something wrong here. I import Randall and Egnater. Modules a lot myself and the duty is about 6% and 20% vat and £8 admin fee. Either the declared value has been misread or is ambiguous in how it looks there is no way the fees should be this much.

FelineGuitars

Sounds like they have read 100 as 700. That might make sense if the 1 is written with a down line at the top

Philly_Q

If you copy all the relevant documentation and write to HMRC explaining the situation, they'll refund most of that VAT (and Customs duty, presumably).  I've done that quite a few times.

nutbox

Thank you people,I know it was a crazy amount ,this is the first time I have been charged customs so wasn't totally sure. So do you reckon I'll have to pay the full amount and then write to them and claim it back?

digitalkettle

This one time, I ordered four things totalling $200...somehow the declaration got filled in as four *times* $200!

I paid Parcelforce to release my goods, then wrote to HMRC...charges were refunded about two months later, iirc.

digitalkettle

I kept a record of what I sent: covering letter, charge label, customs declaration dispatch note, goods invoice, and parcelforce invoice.