Just got boned

[royhall]

I need my carbs doing, so as Gerben did such a good job last time I thought I would use him again. What a mistake that was. I sent two sets of carbs to Gerben in Holland to make up one good set via UPS. Just had to pay £92 import charges into the Netherlands then I assume I will have to pay the same coming back. After having to buy replacement carbs in the first place, with Gerbens charge, plus replacement parts, and two lots of government rip off, these carbs will have cost about £650. That will never happen ever again, once bitten etc. I wouldn't mind but I sent them as a gift. What a rip off world, nothing has been bought or sold here yet they want that amount of money. This is simply sending items from one person to another with no financial transaction taking place. Bas***ds.


Edit: Just tried to contact UPS both via email and phone. Impossible to get through with either unless you enter a 6 digit account number that I don't have. Looks like the thieves win again. And yes I sound bitter, that's because I am bitter about it. It appears that Holland have there own ideas on charging import duty different from the rest of the EU. So beware, it's best to just not send things to the Netherlands as the customs there is a mess.

[Trigger]

Bend over and touch your toes, if you are sending or bringing any parts out side the UK it costs. These days you can spend £££ on postal costs, VAT and import duties.

[JamesH]

I need my carbs doing, so as Gerben did such a good job last time I thought I would use him again. What a mistake that was. I sent two sets of carbs to Gerben in Holland to make up one good set via UPS. Just had to pay £92 import charges into the Netherlands then I assume I will have to pay the same coming back. After having to buy replacement carbs in the first place, with Gerbens charge, plus replacement parts, and two lots of government rip off, these carbs will have cost about £650. That will never happen ever again, once bitten etc. I wouldn't mind but I sent them as a gift. What a rip off world, nothing has been bought or sold here yet they want that amount of money. This is simply sending items from one person to another with no financial transaction taking place. Bas***ds.


Edit: Just tried to contact UPS both via email and phone. Impossible to get through with either unless you enter a 6 digit account number that I don't have. Looks like the thieves win again. And yes I sound bitter, that's because I am bitter about it. It appears that Holland have there own ideas on charging import duty different from the rest of the EU. So beware, it's best to just not send things to the Netherlands as the customs there is a mess.

FFS that’s bloody outrageous.


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[K2-K6]

No wonder Roy, I'd feel bitter in the same situation.

It's something that used to be treated differently before common trading rules across us and Europe (my parents travelled with a caravan to france often) in which you'd have to be in possession of a "Carnet" declaration for the equipment you took there and returned to uk in the declared time.
Essentially a temporary waver, so you couldn't import and sell your stuff, that had a provisional 12 month duration that comprised of itemized detail of individual possessions over certain value. Included things like cooker, fridge, caravan etc similar to this scenario in that the capital value is travelling sans duty and under control to prevent permanent importation.

Wondering if there's anything of this resulting nowadays and after we've left the free movement ability behind.

[MCTID]

Mmmmmmm......I recently challenged a US E Bay Dealer how it could possibly cost 94 US Dollars (to post to the UK) the small Latch Assembly that locks the Fuel Tank Cap.................

He did offer a way around it but I think that was more from embarrassment rather than anything else....although he did appear to be as surprised as I was annoyed TBH ! I came to the conclusion that E Bay is trying to 'bump up' the Shipping Costs as they also take a % of those costs - which are actually nothing to do with E Bay....Shipping Costs are Shipping Costs when all is said and done, and if an unscrupulous Seller is trying to 'fiddle E Bay, they should punish the Seller and not their Customers' !

This was his reply:

That sounds insane!
I offer 4 levels of shipping service, make sure you check the First Class international option, I have a feeling E Bay is steering you towards the Priority Express option!
Sometime if you click on shipping details, it will only give 2 options, you may need to add the item to your cart before you can choose from all 4 options.
It should be 1/3 of what they are showing you.
All the best
Steve

I recently bought three Chrome CB750 Rear Mudguards from another US E Bay Dealer.......the Shipping Costs for each were about £100, but after some shenanigans the total cost worked out at around £125 ! The Dealer was really helpful (once again) but I felt that E Bay were just doing their best to rip me off. If they carry on like this much longer, they might find their overseas business has gone the same way as the Dodo ! (or Gerald Ratner).

Yours disgustedly,
A grassroot from Eccles.

[royhall]

Here's one to watch for and the reason I got boned. I put on the form a value of £50 and it's a gift. Unfortunately I insured it for £300 which is roughly what two sets of carbs are worth, and they took that figure as it's value. But UPS also take £15 plus vat for collecting it although it is totally automatic. Nice line of work there. So I will have to get Gerben to return them without insurance.

[K2-K6]

I guess technically they have zero value coming back as you aren't buying them, you already own them.

How duty is considered on a service supply I don't know.

[SumpMagnet]

couple of things to note here.....from someone who worked in the parcels industry for nearly 30 years...

1) It's not a gift....and actually, its an offence to falsely declare items as gifts when they aren't. They could actually sieze them, and you don;t have a leg to stand on. It also gives them leeway to decide on a value and charge based on that, as your valuation is ignored. It's revenue fraud.

2) What you DO need to make clear is that the goods are sent to be worked on and then RE-IMPORTED to the UK. Not shipped out of the UK. The Dutch customs have treated them like you sold them.

3) Insurance valuations are often used to work out the true worth of goods. Especially when an exporter has massively different insurance to the declared value. But...as I have sen happen many times, when folks sell £300 of stuff and send it with a value of £25, they get quite nasty when the £25 cheque arrives for their missing goods.

People make false customs declarations to avoid duty so often, and have kind of got to think it's OK ..... like cyclists running red lights. Then, every now and again, it gets picked up....and the results are never pleasant. You have to consider how many times you bought or sold goods and avoided paying the VAT and duty and write off the times you get caught. Usually, unless your luck is really bad, the VAT man isn't winning.

[royhall]

That's all well and good but where on the UPS website does it give you the opportunity to say it's being worked on then brought back into the UK. That option simply isn't there.

It's okay if you do this sort of thing on a daily basis as you get to know the system, but for users like myself the websites for postage are simply awful. They give no guidance whatsoever on how to post correctly from a customs point of view, and they all have a different way of doing it. The only way to not get ripped off is to find UK suppliers.

Not sure how you can say the VATman doesn't win, they win every single time.

[Trigger]

It has nothing to do with UPS, they are only collecting on behalf of HMRC. It is your responsibility to know what the tax will be and fill out the forms in the correct manner  https://www.gov.uk/guidance/using-outward-processing-to-process-or-repair-your-goods.

To move any good across borders is a mine field after coming out of europe 

[royhall]

It has nothing to do with UPS, they are only collecting on behalf of HMRC. It is your responsibility to know what the tax will be and fill out the forms in the correct manner  https://www.gov.uk/guidance/using-outward-processing-to-process-or-repair-your-goods.

To move any good across borders is a mine field after coming out of europe 

You could say that about anything from driving to HMRC, but a little bit of guidance from the courier companies, is that really too much to ask?

[Trigger]

For UPS to advise on how to export and import. They would need a whole department of lawyers and other staff as, the HMRC keeps moving the goal posts on TAX laws and to cover those costs, then they would have to put the prices up of there services to cover this and customers would complain that there services are too expensive 

[royhall]

Exactly, HMRC keep moving the goalposts. As we appear to have people on here that know these systems well, how about we start a thread about how to send things abroad to get work done, or how best to minimise charges when importing/exporting. Like most people in the world I wasn't born knowing how to do this, and as Trigg correctly states, it's a very complicated system that needs lawyer's. We need all the help we can get so a thread on the subject may be a fantastic help.

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[Trigger]

If you cross my palm of my hand with silver i could of advised you how it is done. All the forms are on the GOV site but, you have already sent the package and made a false declaration.
I would of said, i bought the carbs from Holland before the date we left europe and that they have to go back for repair by the supplier  You may have to prove the original receipt of purchase   

If you want to ship goods in from anywhere in the world. First you need a UK VAT number. Open a business in the country which you would like to buy goods from, and you need a VAT number for that business in the that country. Then you can do a stock transfer from one of your companies outside the UK to your business with in the UK. You do not have to pay VAT or any import duties then. There is a catch, if you sell any of those good then, you must charge VAT at UK rate and pay VAT.

HMRC are not stupid and have it very well sewn up 

[royhall]

Like I said, in future source all services in the UK. That last post just proves the hopelessness of the venture.

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