How do Customs Charges work?

[TheOnimusha]

Thats about it.... its really not that hard. You can easily work out what the maximum charge would be on a parcel. But remember you may avoid tax and duty altogether, depending on the declared value, who you are buying from, which carrier is used.... Let me know if you have any questions.

Cheers mate! That's pretty clear info 8)

If you happen to know the rate for consoles that would be useful?

[KempStar]

I dont off the top of my head. I would expect it to be a lot higher than videogames however. You will be able to find it on the customs and excise website, the link is in this thread

[Mercian]

Does anyone know if CDWOW will mark down the price and label the product as a gift if i ask them via email because i want to order the EVA collectors boxset for ?55.99 and i fear i will get massively stung on this.

[Abhisara]

I strongly doubt it. You would have been fine a few months ago, but now customs have been aggressively targetting the popular import DVD sites such as CDWOW, and they are now careful to stay in line with regulations.

Marking it as a gift makes no difference as it's not being sent from a personal address.

[Giga_Death]

Is this right, parcel force charge me ?17.30 for this item identicle to this:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...tem=5799539671

only I paid $92.67 including postage to the UK for it UGH. But anyway, 92.67 USD = 51.5779 GBP. So can someone help me break down the calculation for this price? I'm sure it's too high for something that is ?51.5 including postage.

http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsP...yType=document


Do they think this is an effing DVD -player-? No point in trying to make a complaint, i'm just gonna get relatives to send me stuff from the USA as broken second hand items from now on. C***sucker Mothef*/*ers.

[anephric]

Parcelforce have a shockingly high administration fee (twice that of Royal Mail, iirc), which'll be why your customs hit is so hefty. About ?8 of it will be a processing charge, which leaves ?9, which would be about the correct VAT/Duty for said item.

[Giga_Death]

Thanks for the reply. I will not use parcelforce again.

[andrewfee]

Sigh. I ordered an Oppo DVD player from America last week, and asked them to ship it DHL because they have much lower fees; they told me they can only use Parcelforce.

Seems that they don't just ask for it at the door now, got a letter today about it, telling me I have to pay before they can arrange for delivery.

Was $200, so I had to pay ?8.18 customs, ?16.50 VAT, ?13.50 "clearance fee" over the phone so they can deliver it tomorrow.

[anephric]

It's that clearance fee that's the bummer with Parcelforce. Iirc, DHL charge a 2% admin cost, which ordinarily works out far less than Parcelforce's punitive charge.

[Jebus]

If you get something marked as a gift they dont charge for it.

It's not that simple to be honest. That is the best thing you can do, however if you combine it with marking down you have your best bet.

You can still get stung though...

There is no failsafe method of "getting away with it" because the people checking these things do it for a living.

Oh and Royal Mail charge ?4 for a clearance fee no matter what the size, which is what they have to front up for getting the parcel. Annoyingly despite being a RM worker, even managing a RM delivery office occasionally I still have to pay the ****ers.