The Parcelforce charge is applied apparently when there is duty and/or VAT to be charged. If there isn't there's no charge (so says the HMRC website, which is a good source of info once you've worked out how to find your way round it). Not all parcels are pulled out and handed to HMRC I gather, especially ones with a small value (maybe because of the huge volume of parcels), so it looks as if one of yours was and the other wasn't. Still a good question, of course, whatever the threadbare justifications. Like most people, I quite often trot round to neighbours with misdelivered mail. There should be some way of imposing a 'handling charge' on Royal Mail for this service (say £13.50?).

Many thanks for this suggestion, whitecraig_wizard, though it does mean drawing attention to your parcel, which might otherwise slip through, as quite a lot do, as noted earlier on this thread. I'll give it a try.

To go back to the beginning of this thread. I recently tookdelivery of a parcel from Japan on which I paid £5.00 VAT (no duty) plus £13.50Parcelforce Clearance Fee. It is not the first time I have been charged. I do not object to the VAT (any more than onenormally objects to this extortionate imposition), but I do object to theClearance Fee, and having read a lot of the other posts on this thread, would addthe following : 1. Japan Post and Parcelforce had, by their reciprocal agreements,already shared EMS (Express) postage of 2400 Yen (= c £20). Most reasonablepeople would assume that this is for getting the package from the sender to therecipient, whatever hazards may lie between (like customs inspections, which they KNOW maybe imposed and should therefore be factored into the total cost, which is alreadyhigh enough, goodness knows). 2. To the best of my knowledge HMRC is financed by my andyour taxes. It is not a PLC, and therefore should not be charging me a SECONDtime for doing its job by contracting out part of its work to Parcelforce at mydirect expense. In this it resembles my Local Authority, which screws me for awhacking great Council Tax to have my ‘environmental bin’ emptied, then chargesme a fee for emptying it. (A trend of our Del Boy times.) 3. There is (as always in this country when jobsworths canhide behind the law and regulations) no redress. HMRC refers those who don’tlike the Parcelforce charge to Parcelforce, as if farming out its work had nothingto do with it, some act of God. Parcelforce whinges about the facilities itprovides for HMRC, the arduous task of pulling out parcels and showing them tothe Customs Officer, paying the VAT on the punters’ behalf and the backbreakingwork of sending out a form letter to recover it, etc, etc. (Why on earth don’tthe customs people, whose salaries you and I pay, levy the damn thingthemselves?) And then, as in the case of my parcel, when Parcelforce failed tolive up to Express 24 Delivery once the charges were paid—wasting yet another ofmy days staying in waiting for them—they refuse me redress on the grounds thatit wasn’t their fault ‘because our system went wrong.’ Big deal. Very big deal. I cannot agree with the apologistsfor Parcelforce. 14 days for Express Delivery and charges not far short of thevalue of the goods! No way! And why do I think that nothing will change, except maybe for the worse . . . ?