SmoothStepper sealed pack

[irving2008]

The good news was that I didn't get hit by the "duty, VAT, handling fees" lottery....

yet... give it time can take up to 3 months in my experience

[Lee Roberts]

yet... give it time can take up to 3 months in my experience

You beat me to it !

[Jeremy]

That's interesting. I buy quite a lot of stuff from the US (another hobby has been building aeroplanes for quite a few years) and I've only once been hit by a late bill unexpectedly. That was a few years ago now and was a package shipped by Fed Ex.

I guess I receive around a dozen or so overseas deliveries a month, may be more, and have spotted a fairly consistent pattern over the past few years. Anything shipped by USPS or EMS normally gets through unscathed, but when they do occasionally decide to charge Parcelforce call and ask for full payment by credit card on the 'phone before they will release the package for delivery. This happened to me a couple of months ago. TNT always need authorisation of payment up front before releasing anything for delivery and always charge fees about a week later - nothing seems to get through their system without being caught. UPS seems random, but if they do decide to charge, they seem to need the authorisation to pay the money up front like TNT.

Interestingly, I received a big and expensive (25kg and ~£800) package of lithium batteries from China earlier this year via EMS and it didn't get caught, whereas they did pick up on a package valued at around £50 and charge me almost as much again in fees, duty and VAT. It does seem random to me.

Most of the people I buy from regularly know how the system works, as do quite a few ebay sellers, so they work things their end to reduce the likelhood of a package attracting charges. As I'm mainly buying component parts, rather than finished goods, this seems to work OK. I also have a HMCR End Use Authorisation registration and number as an importer of aircraft parts, but I've no idea if that really makes a difference - it only exempts me from paying duty, not VAT or the handling fee.

If I'm unlucky enough to get caught for charges later, I'll report back here with an update!

Jeremy