Courier "Customs Clearance Fees" Scam

[Paul]

I bet some of you here have bought goods from overseas worth more than 18
quid and had the little card from Royal Mail or couriers like FedEx and
DHL asking you to pay them £8-£15 for clearing your parcel through Customs
and collecting VAT?

Many just pay these fees unquestioningly but I think it's outright
racketeering and these companies are on very dodgy legal grounds if they
try and collect these charges with enforcement threats.

Someone with better legal knowledge correct me here if I'm wrong, but my
understanding of the law is, a burden, in this case, a burden of debt can
only exit where there a contractual agreement obligation between parties.

We are not been asked whether we wanted these companies to Customs clear
our parcels and collect VAT on them. Neither were we informed of the fee
or did we enter into any agreement to pay it.

Therefore no legal contract exists with these companies and they have
absolutely no legal basis to send threatening letters and court recovery
action on unpaid fees.

I recently had such an encounter with FedEx which encouraged me to
explore this issue further and write this article to raise awareness.

I received a bill from FedEx for the VAT after my parcel was delivered
and it included a £9 fee from FedEx for services rendered. I paid the VAT
portion of the invoice and ignored their fee. About a week later I got
the same invoice saying "reminder unpaid" requesting the full amount
again. So I just ignored it. A month later I received a final reminder
saying to avoid recovery action, pay the amount due. Again, the full
amount was requested. They obviously are incapable of seeing when an
invoice has been partially paid.

Even if I am wrong on this and there is some legal basis for this charge
which companies can enforce via the County Courts, I still think it's
worth following the tactic I have used above. Make it as a DIFFICULT and
expensive as possible for these companies to collect their extortionate
fee. Drag it out and keep requesting contracts and writing emails and
letters, until they get to a solicitor and court stage if need be.

The more people who do this the better. It will send these greedy
exploiting companies the right message. These kind of business practices
are unacceptable and won't be tolerated.

Now if they had just asked for a reasonable fee, i.e. £1.50 or £2 I
probably would of just paid it for providing a service. But when you see
fees of £9-£15 for what is an electronic transaction and often more than
the actual cost of the shipping, it's just an excuse to make money.

[Peter Crosland]

"Paul" <pa...@nospam.net> wrote in message
news:mNmdnV1DcL5TsS7T...@brightview.co.uk...

>
> I bet some of you here have bought goods from overseas worth more than 18
> quid and had the little card from Royal Mail or couriers like FedEx and
> DHL asking you to pay them £8-£15 for clearing your parcel through Customs
> and collecting VAT?
>
> Many just pay these fees unquestioningly but I think it's outright
> racketeering and these companies are on very dodgy legal grounds if they
> try and collect these charges with enforcement threats.
>
> Someone with better legal knowledge correct me here if I'm wrong, but my
> understanding of the law is, a burden, in this case, a burden of debt can
> only exit where there a contractual agreement obligation between parties.
>
> We are not been asked whether we wanted these companies to Customs clear
> our parcels and collect VAT on them. Neither were we informed of the fee
> or did we enter into any agreement to pay it.
>
> Therefore no legal contract exists with these companies and they have
> absolutely no legal basis to send threatening letters and court recovery
> action on unpaid fees.

This has been discussed ad nauseum in the past. The bottom line is that the
companies are acting as agents for HM Revenue and Customs to collect a tax
and are entitled to charge a fee for doing so. Hence no contractual
arrangement has to be proved for the debt to be legally enforceable. Customs
clearance attracts a fee with the exception of those conducted personally
such as at airports or sea ports by international travellers. For example
when freight imports have to be formally cleared by employing an agent who
deals with HMR&C.

Peter Crosland

[Richard McKenzie]

This is the reason why being part of the EU fiscal area is good, no
additional fees or paperwork for every country it passes.

[Paul]

Hi Peter thanks for the reply. I would however strongly dispute what
you're saying and believe this could be tested in court if it hasn't
already.

Whatever arrangements or duties companies have HMRC should not transfer
a burden of debt onto consumers for a service they have not contracted
into or been a willing party to. The rule of law has to be applied here.

Unless you know of some specific law you can cite which suggests
otherwise?

Even so, I still think you would have legal grounds to challenge the
level of the "fee" for them acting as agents for HMRC in a County Court.

[Alex Heney]

ftp://ftp.royalmail.com/Downloads/public/ctf/rm/Overseas_Parcel_Scheme_2001Final_April%202008.pdf

Part 2, section 9 details the fees.

The first part of the document refers to the actual law enabling it.

>Even so, I still think you would have legal grounds to challenge the
>level of the "fee" for them acting as agents for HMRC in a County Court.

--
Alex Heney, Global Villager
I still miss my ex-wife.....BUT, My aim is improving!
To reply by email, my address is alexATheneyDOTplusDOTcom

[nospam]

Alex Heney <m...@privacy.net> wrote:

>ftp://ftp.royalmail.com/Downloads/public/ctf/rm/Overseas_Parcel_Scheme_2001Final_April%202008.pdf
>
>Part 2, section 9 details the fees.
>

>he first part of the document refers to the actual law enabling it.

There is no law enabling it. Sadly a 2011 amendment to The Postal Services
Act 2000 gave regulated postal service providers the right to refuse
delivery till their clearance fees have been paid, something they have been
doing illegally for years unless pushed.

The same amendment also gave the postal regulator (Ofcom) the power to
regulate such clearance fees. The waste of space Ofcom are means I doubt
that will happen any time soon.

The Royal mail is a regulated postal service provider (or whatever the
exact legal definition is). I doubt FedEx and other international couriers
are. The status of ParcelFarce is unclear to me.

As far as the Post Office and ParcelFarce are concerned yes it is a scam
with them charging more to move a parcel and some virtual bits of paper
around a warehouse in Coventry than it cost to send the parcel half way
round the world.

The Universal Postal Union (of which the Royal Mail and ParcelFarce are
members) regulation allow a customs clearance fee to be charged and state
it must be based on actual costs incurred. I have seen a freedom of
information request to ParcelFarce asking for details of their customs
clearance costs (and so demonstrating their compliance (or non-compliance)
with UPU regulation). The request was refused, ridiculously on the grounds
of commercial disadvantage, seems to me a clear admission of their
non-compliance because if they were compliant the charges would match their
costs and already be known by competitors.

I have also seen a reference to a UPU recommended clearance fee of 3.3
euros for 2010 but I don't know where that came from and can't find it
again.

[Graham Murray]

Paul <pa...@nospam.net> writes:

> I bet some of you here have bought goods from overseas worth more than 18
> quid and had the little card from Royal Mail or couriers like FedEx and
> DHL asking you to pay them £8-£15 for clearing your parcel through Customs
> and collecting VAT?

Apart from the amount of tax/duty actually charged (which they obviously
have to pay), how much extra does it cost the courier to handle a
package on which HMRC charge tax/duty and one which passes through
customs with no tax/duty charged?

[Graham Murray]

"Peter Crosland" <g6...@yahoo.co.uk> writes:

> Customs clearance attracts a fee with the exception of those conducted
> personally such as at airports or sea ports by international
> travellers. For example when freight imports have to be formally
> cleared by employing an agent who deals with HMR&C.

Surely, all international[1] packages have to pass through customs. So
why do the couriers not also charge for customs clearance on packages
(from abroad) where no VAT/duty is paid?

[1] At least those from outside the EU.

[Nightjar]

When I worked as an import clerk, many decades ago, it took about a
quarter of an hour to complete the forms, including checking that you
had the correct classification of goods from what were often quite vague
details supplied by the importer. I rather doubt that the fact that the
forms are now electronic makes them a lot quicker to fill out.

Colin Bignell

[Graham Murray]

Nightjar <c...@insert.my.surname.here.me.uk> writes:

> When I worked as an import clerk, many decades ago, it took about a
> quarter of an hour to complete the forms, including checking that you
> had the correct classification of goods from what were often quite
> vague details supplied by the importer. I rather doubt that the fact
> that the forms are now electronic makes them a lot quicker to fill
> out.

Though do the forms not have to be filled in irrespective of whether or
not HMRC charge any duty/VAT? It might be different with couriers, but I
have received packages via Royal Mail where the original packaging has
been placed in a plastic bag with an 'opened by customs' sticker
attached but no VAT/Duty was charged.

[Nightjar]

On 05/11/2011 12:49, Graham Murray wrote:
> Nightjar<c...@insert.my.surname.here.me.uk> writes:
>
>> When I worked as an import clerk, many decades ago, it took about a
>> quarter of an hour to complete the forms, including checking that you
>> had the correct classification of goods from what were often quite
>> vague details supplied by the importer. I rather doubt that the fact
>> that the forms are now electronic makes them a lot quicker to fill
>> out.
>
> Though do the forms not have to be filled in irrespective of whether or
> not HMRC charge any duty/VAT?

They certainly did for the stuff we handled, but I have no idea whether
that is also true for very low value packages. We would not normally
have been dealing with less than a container load and sometimes it might
be an entire ship load.

> It might be different with couriers, but I
> have received packages via Royal Mail where the original packaging has
> been placed in a plastic bag with an 'opened by customs' sticker
> attached but no VAT/Duty was charged.

Presumably a random check, to see whether the declaration was accurate.

Colin Bignell

[The Grey Man]

On Sat, 05 Nov 2011 17:28:59 +0000, Nightjar
<c...@insert.my.surname.here.me.uk> wrote:

>They certainly did for the stuff we handled, but I have no idea whether
>that is also true for very low value packages. We would not normally
>have been dealing with less than a container load and sometimes it might
>be an entire ship load.
>

Everything I've ordered from overseas has been conveniently marked by
the sender as "gift".

Doesn't that take care of our over-zealous border officials?

Er, except I hear the head has been suspended - I wonder how many
brown envelopes with used notes were passed before this latest scam
was uncovered?

Is Britain actually any better than Nigeria?

[Nightjar]

On 05/11/2011 18:11, The Grey Man wrote:
> On Sat, 05 Nov 2011 17:28:59 +0000, Nightjar
> <c...@insert.my.surname.here.me.uk> wrote:
>
>> They certainly did for the stuff we handled, but I have no idea whether
>> that is also true for very low value packages. We would not normally
>> have been dealing with less than a container load and sometimes it might
>> be an entire ship load.
>>
>
> Everything I've ordered from overseas has been conveniently marked by
> the sender as "gift".
>
> Doesn't that take care of our over-zealous border officials?

It will not be accepted as being a gift if it originates from a
commercial address; something that would expect to be particularly easy
to check against web sites these days. In any case, VAT is still payable
on gifts if the value exceeds Ł40 while excise duty is payable if the
value exceeds Ł135.

Colin Bignell

[tuscany...@gmail.com]

Now they have a new trick. They claim that they cannot process the delivery unless customs information is completed. If after 3 days the necessary information has not been supplied there is an additional daily charge for storage in the 'customs' department. Fedex ask by email, for specific info and you supply it. The next day they inform you that the information is incomplete but don't state what is missing. You reply and on and on it goes. In my case for 14 days. They request that you phone customer 'service' to examine the issue. Most phone calls cost about €5 as you are often put on hold and they request additional information or ask you to repeat information which has already been supplied.

Eventually in my case I asked the shipper to complain and got an immediate response. They promise to deliver the package tomorrow morning. Another days plans cancelled waiting for them to deliver.

Fedex are criminals in my opinion and I will refuse to deal with anyone who ships with them.

[R. Mark Clayton]

Slime like this must be rubbing their hands in glee after the Brexit vote...

[Davey]

When I returned here from the US, I was still closing on the house that
I sold there, and my agent in the US sent a package of documents for me
to sign and return. The package included a Fedex International Return
label, pre-paid, and with the same waybill number as the first part.
All perfect, according to Fedex.
So Fedex UK did not recognise the waybill number, as it didn't
originate in the UK, and my parcel was delayed by several days. It
could have prevented the sale of the house, luckily the buyer was
understanding.
My letter of complaint to Fedex was totally ignored.

--
Davey.