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Custom fees, aka highway robbery

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  • Member since
    July 2019
Custom fees, aka highway robbery
Posted by Robotism on Thursday, April 16, 2020 12:00 PM

I got a nice little post card through my door today with a bill for £12.59 from the royal mail. This seems pretty high already right? Well my order total without shipping from Japan was £20, I only bought a couple of kits on sale and a pen. Really small order cost wise and custom fees are insane for such a small box... But wait! The actual customs fee is £4.59, so I'm being charged almost double that for some berk to look at the box and decide I owe them money. The box won't have been opened or examined in any way, it will arrive untouched but costing way more than it should.

I don't object to reasonable custom fees. I bloody well do object to being sent to the wood shed with insane charges like these. I doubt there's any way to get it reformed and have the handling fee set to a reasonable price but it gets on my nerves when this happens. If the fee was £2-3 on top I'd think that was a fair price, but £8's worth of work this does not make.

  • Member since
    September 2012
Posted by GMorrison on Thursday, April 16, 2020 12:19 PM

Aren't you glad you've left the EU?

Sounds more like VAT as well.

 Modeling is an excuse to buy books.

 

  • Member since
    July 2019
Posted by Robotism on Thursday, April 16, 2020 12:27 PM

Customs fees were the same in and out of the EU. It's always been this way and always will be.

  • Member since
    December 2002
  • From: NYC, USA
Posted by waikong on Thursday, April 16, 2020 1:26 PM
There's no custom fees within the EU, but Japan is not in the EU, and I guess neither will the GB. But yeah, insane that they charge an extra cost on top of the custom - that's being paid by your taxes.
  • Member since
    July 2004
  • From: Sonora Desert
Posted by stikpusher on Thursday, April 16, 2020 1:56 PM

Kind of chips away at the price advantage of buying from those low cost overseas dealers. It sort of levels the playing field for the local merchants, their distributors, and their importers. 

 

F is for FIRE, That burns down the whole town!

U is for URANIUM... BOMBS!

N is for NO SURVIVORS...

       - Plankton

LSM

 

  • Member since
    July 2019
Posted by Robotism on Thursday, April 16, 2020 2:01 PM

stikpusher

Kind of chips away at the price advantage of buying from those low cost overseas dealers. It sort of levels the playing field for the local merchants, their distributors, and their importers. 

 

I don't often get hit by them, it stings when I do but still ends up cheaper in the end.

I've tried to buy local and I can't do it. Bandai don't have a UK seller and any one selling here is paying the same prices I am and then adding their profits and UK taxes on top. If Bandai paid any attention to Europe with models I would support them. But I don't see that happening after Danball Senki / Little battles experience flopped so hard. The kits didn't sell and no one picked up the games or the anime series. But Bandai Namco are releasing games in English globally and with similar release dates to Japan so things could change. Blue Fin in America is getting support and even limited edition kits from this year forward.

  • Member since
    December 2002
  • From: Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, England
Posted by Bish on Thursday, April 16, 2020 4:29 PM

Its always the stuff from Japan i get a customs charge on. And ye, i have noticed that. The customs charge is not that bad, that extra 8 quid is nothing to do with customs, its the Royal Mail charge for putting the card through your door.

I have never had to pay customs for stuff from China and the US is hit and miss. But Japanese ones get caught every time.

There are UK sellers on E-Bay with bandai kits, but when i bought a couple last year, it was still cheaper to pay the charge.

I am a Norfolk man and i glory in being so

 

On the bench: Airfix 1/72nd Harrier GR.3/Fujimi 1/72nd Ju 87D-3

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