Perhaps an email from a senior Royal Mail employee (Alex Murie, Senior Customer Service Advisor), will serve as the QED on this matter: 'Firstly, please accept my apologies that it has been necessary for you to bring this matter to my attention. I fully appreciate how important it is for our customers to have confidence in our ability to provide a reliable service and it is always disappointing when a customer expresses dissatisfaction with any aspect of what we do. I should explain that we are obliged to release any item of mail if you elect to pay the VAT charge so by way of apology I have advised the Delivery Office concerned to waive the £8 Royal Mail handling fee altogether. If you wish to either collect your item or arrange a re-delivery we will only request payment of the VAT charge levied by Customs and Excise. I have also contacted the Regional Operations Director’s Office, which is responsible for the staff and services we provide in the London postcode sectors. All the staff serving in this area will be briefed on the correct process to follow for Customs & Excise fees. Again please accept my apologies for any inconvenience this matter has caused. I would like to assure you that we at Royal Mail are constantly striving to ensure that our customers receive the level of service they have every right to expect. I hope that the action above resolves your enquiry and concludes this matter. However if you are dissatisfied with my response you can ask to have your case reviewed by the Postal Review Panel.

Further willful obfuscation, very disappointing. My argument is not with HMRC, they levy the charges established by statute and I am content to pay statutory duties. I suspect that you understand, only too well, the relevant issue but choose to ignore it. Royal Mail does not have the legal right to detain parcels pending payment of the clearance fee - the law on this point is absolutely clear.

"...undertake customs clearance at no cost to you for items you imported" We are expected to pay the relevant taxes AND for the (often greater) cost of administering said taxes? Absurd.

I am concerned that Royal Mail supporters/employees continue to obfuscate this issue by refusing to engage with the relevant points. Please reread my email. I understand that the clearance fee is a substantial 'cash cow' for RM, and they will do and say anything to defend it.

Here's a copy of an email I sent to Royal Mail following an incident in Reading. Believe it or not, I managed to forget about this and only remembered while reading this forum that they did not reply. The email was resent today: Dear Sir or Madam For the Attention of a Senior Offical and the Legal Department I am writing to complain about the heavy-handed and possibily unlawful behaviour of the staff at the Reading Delivery Office on Saturday 29 November 2008. I had received a notice that a parcel was awating collection at the local delivery office, with a customs charge to pay totalling £16.88. As I had previously imported a parcel of the same value, I was aware that these charges consisted of £8.88 VAT and £8 Royal Mail/Parcelforce 'Clearance Fee'. You will no doubt be aware of the controversial nature of your 'clearance fee'. Royal Mail rely on the Postal Service Act 2000 as legal justification for this charge, which is disputed by many critics. I have previously used the 'fee to pay' service online to settle the VAT on an earlier international parcel, while withholding the £8 clearance fee. This parcel was subsequently released to me by the delivery office without challange. On this occasion, the Royal Mail card did not include a parcel reference number nor a web address for the 'fee to pay' online service. I was therefore required to settle the charges in person at the local office. I handed my card to an official in the office and she immediately demanded payment of the outstanding amount. I asked to see the parcel of details of the charge, which she was relucant to do. She eventually however handed the parcel to me for inspection. Upon confirming the breakdown of the charges, I stated that I would pay the VAT, but not the clearance fee and she attempted, unsuccessfully, to snatch the parcel from my hands. She called for her manager to come to the window. The manager appeared and demanded that I return to the parcel to him. I refused, asserting that the parcel was my property, and that Royal Mail had no authority to detain the parcel as a lien given that I had offered payment of the VAT. He stated that unless I paid the full amount shown (£16.88) he would call the Police to have me arrested for theft. I explained, several times, that I was prepared to pay the VAT and that Royal Mail should write to me requesting payment of their clearance fee, and outlining the legal grounds on which they believed payment was due. He refused to accept my offer of payment, and reiterated his threat to call the Police if I refused to pay the clearance fee. While I was confident of my legal right to offer payment of the VAT, and refuse to immediately pay the clearance fee, I could not be sure that a Police Constable would understand the legal issues involved and not defer to a complaint by a Royal Mail manager accusing me of theft. I therefore wrote two separate cheques (one each for the VAT and the clearance fee) to confirm that my payment was made under protest and duress, and obtained written details of the manager's name. Upon returning home, I immediately contacted Thames Valley Police to seek their advice. They advised that they would not have attended the delivery office to settle a civil dispute regarding postal charges (unless the manager misrepresented the situation), and that I was within my rights to offer 'part payment'. They were also unhappy that the theat of Police action was invoked in this situation. In summary, a Royal Mail delivery office threatened me with arrest and subsequent detention for challenging your clearance fee. In doing so, he has possibly commited a criminal offence under the Postal Services Act 2000 by unlawfully detaining the delivery of a mail packet, and has acted unlawfully by denying me my right to challenge your charges. Royal Mail has been unable to provide any evidence that the Postal Services Act 2000 confers a right of lien over a customer's property in respect of its clearance. That right exists only to the extent that the VAT remains unpaid on the parcel. While I do not expect Royal Mail delivery office staff to be familiar which such relatively arcane legal concepts, they are nevertheless applicable and effective and its staff should receive rudimentary training in this respect. I therefore demand a repayment of the £8 'clearance fee' paid under protect and duress, along with an apology for, and an investigation into, the unlawful conduct of your staff in the delivery office. A copy of this letter has been sent to Postcomm, Postwitch, Thames Valley Police and my MP. I will not hesitate to take legal action if I receive an unsatisfactory reply. Yours faithfully