Customs duties mafia TNT + Royal Mail - is there any regulator?

[poustilaki]

Hi All,

 

Recently I have had 2 issues related to customs. Off the bat I will say that I agree with customs charges to some extent but my situation relates to no commercial transaction or private benefit of any sort.

 

• Case 1 - (TNT)

 

We have some relatives who are residents in Portugal (EU) and who are very old and frail with numerous illnesses such as diabetes and dementia. As they were flying to the UK to visit us (we are British and residents in the UK) they decided to send 2 packages (which were under a single shipment) containing items of theirs that were for their own personal use and that they would either consume whilst here (due to their strict diets) or wear whilst here, using the Fedex service and thus taking the strain off of their travel since they have limited mobility as well. 

 

So to break it down, the 2 packages in this shipment had: 

 

1st package - contained personal items of clothing ; This was mostly their used underwear, pyjamas, socks, jackets and some shirts. They own all those items and have used them for years and subsequently left with them again.

 

2nd package - contained some food that they consumed whilst in the UK. Again due to their illnesses they needed to eat certain food and decided to bring food they normally eat in Portugal and consisted of some cheese and dried meats.

 

Both packages contained personal items of theirs for their sole use, nothing was being given to anyone else or left behind.

 

In terms of the values of these 2 packages, for insurance purposes each package was set to 100 EURO mainly because they were not shipped in the normal cardboard boxes but these were in suitcases and some of the items were hard to replace hence those figures. The actual values of the contents of each of the packages at most would amount to £35 or less.

 

I asked a few times how a value of £75 duties was calculated but all I got back was a poor response saying the calculation is correct. No justification why the charge is there, or response to my descriptions above, or anything of that nature. All subsequent questions I had were ignored as I have to date received no other comments.

 

I was never told exactly how the charge was calculated. I was never told why I was charged for both packages. I was never told why this charge was even applied as the items were for personal use by the senders. 

 

The items were not imports, nor were they gifts, nor were the goods purchased. these were not imports. They were personal items for use by the sender. Used personal clothing they own for use while visiting family and the other had some items for the sender to consume (food as they are on a strict diet due to their age and health conditions).

 

• Case 2 - (Royal Mail)

 

A family member in Greece sent me some hand knitted items and a few pairs of socks and chocolates as a little Christmas gift for my kids. On the customs form they put a value of around £45. I then got a form asking me to pay a customs fee of:

 

£1.45 to HMRC (I dont have a problem with this)

plus a couple other fees around £18 to Royal mail for admin and other activities

 

So in essence I paid £20. Surely there is something wrong here. How can they by default charge these admin fees, without any other alternative and only giving less that 10% to HMRC. Is there no regulator?

 

If anyone can point me in the right direction please I would really appreciate this, it's really not on and these people are taking advantage of everyone under the hat of "oh, you got an item from abroad then you have to pay ... and pay a lot!"

 

Thanks!

Chris

[dx100uk]

if you got the items and in both cases these were charges levied afterwards, next time ignore them all!

 

lost count of the numbers of times ive had uncle tom cobbly and all chasing bogus custom fees from me.

ups, royal mail admin offices, Hermes, process control ltd. etc etc ....not alot anyone can do to you.

 

dx