The Yak Shack Forum

The post came this morning and brought my Superman Returns Cape Card from the USA, No one was in when the post came and it was just in the door.
When I came to open it on the envilope it has a big sticker on the front of the envilope and one on the back saying "Charge" and on the back a total of £5.32

Underneath that it says "This package can't be delivered until the charges are paid" but our postie mustn't have seen this envilope and just put it through the door so I got away with the charge  ;D

Considering the card was only worth $25 and the seller put a value of $50 on the customs label I don't see why I should of paid the charge anyway!  ???

Did you ask the seller why he/she doubled the price on the customs form?

I have e-mailed him to ask,

But I just found out my neighbour paid the charge so I didn't get away with it so I over my neighbour the charge now!  :(

The postman normally leaved signed for items there so he must of knocked there for the charge :(

Ouch! That was a HUGE mistake on the sellers part. Whether it was marked gift or merchandise you would not have paid taxes on a $25 item. If it's marked as gift you should get up to $50 without being charged. Sure lots of things slip through the net especially with the volume of items that filter through the royal mail rather than the parcelforce/courier's systems, but those seem to be the 'rules'.

It's not really the Royal Mail that sucks in this case, it's the seller who didn't understand or think of the consequences of his action.

That makes no sense... Sure, the card might be worth $50, but if you only paid $25 for it that's the price that should be listed on the customs form.

I see no reason to lie about the price on the customs form, but I do regularly check "gift" as I'm not a registered business.

I had someone in Germany get peeved with me because I sent $170 worth of items, listed that amount on the customs form, and included the invoice because of the number of items sent to her.  She had to pay customs & was highly annoyed....  I had no sympathy because with or without the invoice being included she would have paid the same amount.

I'm having a problem right now with a buyer in France who won an expensive piece of electronic equipment.  He sent me an email today, very angry that he has to pay $210 in customs charges.  The buyer paid for insurance and I had to put the correct info on the customs forms.  I certainly didn't inflate the worth of the item on the form.  The way I look at it, it's up to the buyer to know about his or her country's customs fees and then bid accordingly, especially when a high-priced item is involved. 

I have people ask me all the time to mark it as a gift with a value less than $50. For people I deal with numerous times I do not mind, but for new buyers I just cannot bring myself to do it.

I can't see how a seller is responsible for paying the customs fees when they state the price on the customs form.

In Martyn's case the seller listed the wrong price and she got nailed for it...

How should Martyn and the seller resolve this?  It was the seller's error that resulted in the customs charge.

While I believe it's the buyer's responsibility to pay any customs fees on their end, because the seller put the wrong value on it, I personally feel the customs charge should be split.

tialessa I'm really a he  ;)

Well just got in and checked my e-mails and the seller has refunded me the charges I had to pay to get my package from customs. So I'm very happy  ;D

What a great seller, that was very generous ;D

Whoops!  It's so hard to tell with nicknames...

That's really good of the seller to have paid the full charges!  Congrats!

I'm glad it all worked out for you Martyn. ;D  I hope the seller has learned not to inflate declared values in the future after this fiasco. ::)

The question is WHY did they do that in the first place? ??? But I am happy its all sorted now Martyn :)

I mostly send cards by letter post as you don't need a customs form even when sending it by international signed for from the uk