Customs Charge Question

Former Member

Hey everyone,

I have a question concerning customs charges. I bought some 3/4 length Victoria's Secret 'pants' from a USA seller. I paid all in all including postage and the buy it now price, around £30. I paid on the 19th, emailed her last night saying where's my items and today I get a slip through the door saying their at the post offices depot place and I have to retrieve them and pay £14.33 for a customs charge. Now I'm thinking this isn't overally fair - is this my own fault for not knowing there would be a customs charge, because having bought other stuff from the USA and other countries, I've never incurred a charge before. My intention wasn't to have to pay half the price I've already paid again.

Should I bite my lip and pay it, or voice my problem with the ebay seller. I want the items, but I can't really justify the over expenditure as their not worth THAT much. I just wanted peoples thoughts as I'm feeling fairly peeved about not being aware of custom charges and I do think this is unfair - I've paid for my item, there was no mention of a customs charge being probable on the listing either.
Thanks for any responses.

Former Member

The only person you should be peeved with is yourself, this is not the sellers problem. They're not getting any money out of the customs charges and it's your responsibility to factor them into the price.

Former Member

I'm not too sure at what price customs starts to kick in. To get a prospective though - I bought a £70 doll from USA and the taxman slapped an extortionate £30 on top. I've bought several cheaper dolls, jigsaw puzzles, books, DVDs and several pins all costing £5-£30 and they weren't taxed. The green customs sticker that appear on my packages usually declare my items as "toy" or "gift". So whether it's a toy/gift or not exceeding £30, I'm not too sure.

Former Member

Monserrat wrote: »

I'm not too sure at what price customs starts to kick in. To get a prospective though - I bought a £70 doll from USA and the taxman slapped an extortionate £30 on top. I've bought several cheaper dolls, jigsaw puzzles, books, DVDs and several pins all costing £5-£30 and they weren't taxed. The green customs sticker that appear on my packages usually declare my items as "toy" or "gift". So whether it's a toy/gift or not exceeding £30, I'm not too sure.

Gifts don't get taxed. Customs duty is something low like £7. There's import VAT too but that's higher at around £20

Former Member

Illuminatus wrote: »

The only person you should be peeved with is yourself, this is not the sellers problem. They're not getting any money out of the customs charges and it's your responsibility to factor them into the price.

Alright geez! Is it my fault I've not heard of it before?! I've sold and bought a collective amount of 300 odd different items off ebay from many different countries and at a wide range of prices and I've never had to pay customs charges and its been a few yrs of doing so.

I wasn't going to take it out on the seller, I just needed to know if this was common or something that should of been mentioned from an overseas seller.

Former Member

Well, you were complaining it was unfair and your choice of words made it seem like you were going to 'blame' the seller.

In future just ask them to either lie about the items value or declare it as a gift on the customs sticker.

Former Member

Just a side question here, but still to do with imports: I get foreign post usually twice a week, as I'm an avid collector of Lilo & Stitch merchandise. Due to the sheer number of items I've been receiving (and over all summer 2008 too), will my post man/lady eventually get suspicious of my constant mail? The trouble is that I never get to meet my postie because I work full time and I'm usually out on Saturdays. Just a paranoid question really. I'm hoping that the postal service don't think that I'm importing illegal stuff i.e. narcotics!

Former Member

Sometimes it's a bit of a luck which items the customs get and which they don't.

Being overseas, it's not the sellers responsibility to warn about possible charges when the item arrives to the country the stuff is being sold to. That's your responsibility as the buyer and person living in that country.
You say you've sold items overseas yourself and I assume you've never checked and/or warned that custom charges might follow. Right? Afte all, it's not your responsibility.

There's not much you can do about it now. At least you now know what you can expect in the future.

Former Member

I bought 2 tshirts from cafepress totalling about £25. They took ages to come and I had a £4 customs charge to pay. But then, Royal Mail charged me £8 for TELLING ME about the customs charge I had to pay!

Former Member

FWIW Royal Mail aren't charging it, they are collecting it.

Former Member

Customs are a lottery. Bank on having to pay their fees and if you don't, then it's a bonus.

Bottom line - it's not your fault that you didn't know. But it is your problem and yours alone. Anything you import is liable to incur fees.

Former Member

Mist wrote: »

FWIW Royal Mail aren't charging it, they are collecting it.

No they said it was a £4 charge for customs and an £8 charge of their own on top of that.

Former Member

I have ordered quite a few things from the US, and the only one to incur a customs charge is the one which had the value on the box.

Now avoiding customs charges may well be against the law, but if you asked the seller not to detail the cost on the box its very likely to get through. Not that I'm advising you to do that of course.

Former Member

i have to say its a complete lottery as to weather you get charged customs or not - for example i had two friends who bought dresses from the same company in the states within a month of each other one did get charged and the other didn't

Former Member

Just to confirm, Royal Mail do add an automatic additional charge to anything that gets stopped and needs a custom/Vat charge.

Avoiding customs charges is one of those evasion / avoidance things like tax - I'm not sure it's specifically illegal to try and reduce the charge, but you are expected to cough up if you get caught.

Just to be clear though, I'm pretty certain it's a legal requirement for all businesses, certainly those in the US to detail the full cost of everything being posted - which is why a place like Amazon isn't going to avoid putting the charge in these days. I think they even include the cost somewhere in items sent as gifts.

They've also started pre-charging on some items if I remember rightly, certainly on dvd box sets the last time I was ordering. Mind you I nearly always pay from places like Amazon or Play, I pretty much ended up on a customs watch list I was importing so much so everything gets stopped and checked.

Welcome to another reason I lurve ebay - ain't no VAT to pay on a second hand item passing between two private individuals... least not yet anyway. Just need to ask the seller in advance if they will send it as a private item rather than something being sold - most smaller sellers don't mind.

Former Member

Jim V wrote: »

Welcome to another reason I lurve ebay - ain't no VAT to pay on a second hand item passing between two private individuals... least not yet anyway. Just need to ask the seller in advance if they will send it as a private item rather than something being sold - most smaller sellers don't mind.

I dont see how they could enforce that one. Bit like trying to charge income tax on gambling gains, difficult to prove, very hard to police.