Duties and Customs Fees on International shipments

Good Afternoon,
I took delivery of a brush from a U.K. vendor and today received a nice little bill from Fedex for $83.58. Various charges including Duties, Customs fees, and brokerage fees. The only other brush I've ordered from Overseas was a Shavemac and never had this issue. In fact on Shavemacs site they state

"Attention: No customer should ever pay an extra invoice for shipping or duty expect the shipping fee charged with your Shavemac order. If you receive an extra invoice please inform us and we will manage this matter."

I assumed it would be the same coming from the U.K. Has anyone else had this issue come up? Thanks.

 

Hi Chris ,sorry to hear about your troubles !

For starters one has to always be carefull ordering from the UK its tricky but also largely depends on the seller always ask about custom duties and fees a seller can help but not everyone will help you .

Fedex is the worst shipper you can use Fedex is so " official " it will go thru the whole custom desk the Legal way. meaning you end up always paying import duty I too got a surprise that I had to pay 9,02 € for my mac memory . Fedex pays this ahead for you and you will get the bill later ,they do it to save shipping delay not sure if they did with you Chris . a friend of mine I ordered a dvd from Japan for him and he too got a hefty bill from Fedex. it seems Fedex is not the way to go.

Other shippers have a more " Creative way " of dealing with this if you know what I mean some sellers will help you by stating something is a gift , some sellers will help you writing a lower value on it, trust me major million $$$ corporates do it too the stories I have heard behind closed doors !

 

I emailed the Vendor, The Gentleman's Shop, but obviously it's after hours there. They were fantastic to deal with and I'm sure (I hope) it's just a mix up. The brush was the Polo 8 Best. I would've ordered it from a stateside vendor, but neither Lee or Emily had it in stock.

 

I have ordered from Kent (duh!) as well as TESC and have never been charged. However, none of my orders were shipped via FedEx. Just Royal Mail. All were labeled as gifts.

I happen to still have a box rec'd from TESC and I just looked; Royal Mail, Par Avion, "Personal Gift". No extra charge. Wonder why they shipped yours FedEx?

 

Oops. Doesn't matter though. I've ordered from TGS too. I don't happen to have that box, but I know it was not FedEx and I was not charged extra. See TGS on left...smarty.

 

I chose Fedex, had never heard a bad thing about them. $15.60 and delivered the day after I placed the order. I knew it was too good to be true. If it works out that I have to pay, it will put an end to my International ordering. Just not worth the chance. Too bad, there's some good stuff out there.

 

I have done a number of receiving from FedEx and UPS along with a few others and I can pretty much tell you right now that it is the choice of one of the big companies that nailed you sadly. I have been charged upwards of 100 dollars by UPS for items in the past.

Hopefully you can get it sorted out though! Always a chance it was an error.

 

I wonder if you got caught in a random inspection. Let us know if you get a remedy. I would guess there is no remedy absent the shop being kind enought to a refund.

 

Like Michael and JoAnna, all the stuff I have ordered from the UK came via Royal Mail. Kent brush, several orders from the English Shaving Company, and my sister sent me a few items. No worries (yet!).

 

You Americans are far better off than us Europeans, though. Or, Austrians, to say the least. Anything over 22€ is subject to import duties (20% + 8,5€ for the post office for collecting the fee) if it's coming from outside of the EU. You constantly have to check if the item is worth paying the customs fee.
And if you cheat and, say, let the vendor mark the parcel as a gift and it gets inspected (which it surely will) you can get in one helluva trouble so it's better to not take any chances.

 

You should always try to help out a seller Klaus, I too shipped a few times to Austria I help out the guy by being creative.. but if no one asks for it I cant be expected to know every country's customs law. and one thing a vendor can help out with is not printing out the receipt but emailing it for warranty purpose.


Look im not promoting anything illegal here if the money isnt too high I have no objection in paying tax for my memory it was ok but I dont like anything higher then 10,- € and it should be worth it like Klaus says. in mycase the mac memory yes paying 160 € or 1600 € is a 10 times difference. and I think I paid even less then 160...

Advice dont go Fedex. unless its a private to private trade

Keep us posted Chris to me it sounds the customs made a judgemental error on categorising the brush perhaps due to the badgerhair .

 

Rene, there's no customs involved when you (from within the European Union) send stuff to Austria - you could send stuff for 100s of Euros and still be okay

Not printing out a receipt is actually the downright worst thing a vendor can do. When I get a package from outside of the EU with an incomplete customs declaration and the invoice missing I have to print out the invoice, sent it to customs by registered mail and wait an additional 2 weeks for the package to be cleared. If the documents are included in the first place customs clearance is a matter of one or two days.
It's not worth the hassle - If the customs-charges will be to high I don't order from outside of the EU in the first place and if I do, I ALWAYS ask the seller to include a correct invoice.

 

Well, I'll just throw another log on the fire...

NOT paying duties is actually tax evation... and most of the services we have available through the state are funded by taxes (should I stop here?). Evading tax IS illegal. We all have thoughts about taxes, but not paying them is not the correct way to go about things; "Change the system, but follow the rules!"

 

My company, eSaddlery, sells and ships horse equipment worldwide. We use USPS exclusively for international shipments except for saddles which weigh 50+ lbs. We mark all shipments as merchandise and will inform customers that we will not ship merchandise marked as a gift. It may lose us a sale but it is better than U.S. Customs and the Department of Commerce coming down on us with audits, penalties, fees and 100% shipment inspections with the possibility of losing our ability to ship internationally.

 

Rich, I really admire you for doing it the "correct" way - 50% of all companies I shop with "forge" the customs documents - unasked.
In the long term honesty will pay off

Oh, by the way: Those English guys sure are custom-o-phobic. Most of them even include customs-forms for EU-shipments which are not required at all