Importing goods from USA

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adrianr

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21 Nov 2010
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Hoping someone on here has a little experience with this and can confirm some points (FedEx being unsurprisingly unhelpful). I purchased some clothing items from a company in the states, total cost including shipping was around £197. It sat in customs for a couple of days until I rang to find out why, was told there were charges of £74 to pay before it could be released.

Breakdown of the charges are £41 VAT, £21 Duty, £12 direct processing fee (bit of rounding but near as dammit). Now first off I've no idea what has been 'directly processed' - I'm guessing this is paying the charges up front and giving me an invoice for them, as I've had with other couriers in the past. Secondly duty from what I can tell should be 2.5% or less, so if VAT is £41, how is duty £21? Am I missing something? If I've just been overcharged, has anyone successfully received any money back without jumping through a lot of hoops?
 
The direct processing is the fee Fedex charge to do all this, all these fess is one of the reasons I stopped buying from abroad, I tend to,find stuff in the U.K. can be the same or cheaper unless it’s a specialised item
 
FWIW some years back, I had a row with Fedex and refused to pay the "processing fee" on the basis that I had not agreed to such terms nor to pay any such fee. They tried to argue that I had agreed by virtue of accepting the supplier's terms and conditions. I told them this is bullshit and the suppliers t's and c's make no reference to any such fee. Reluctantly they backed down and dropped the charge.
 
Yep, the £12 fee is the FedEx minimum charge for paying import fees up front.

The duty starts at 2.5% but depends on the items. Eg Cotton T-shirts are rated at 12%, it seems, according to the HMRC website (link through from the second URL from Dickie Davies).

In other words, you're stuffed. You could argue you didn't give FedEx permission to pay the fee on your behalf, but is it worth it.
 
Last edited:
nimrod said:
Breakdown of the charges are £41 VAT, £21 Duty,

Jesus, the UK is such a fucking rip off
Click to expand...
VAT is much higher in the Eurozone, we're probably below average in comparison. I'll take a guess that import fees are pretty much similar across the EU member states, too. Don't see a problem with it, myself. Surely it encourages people to spend money within their own country borders which is generally a good thing, isn't it.
 
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