Beware of import duty when ordering from EU

[TerryMcK]

I reordered some wine via Amazon.co.uk last Sunday that I have bought before. £79 and free delivery 12 bottles of Tempranillo from Spain.

It is now in the country and at a DHL warehouse in Manchester. I've just had a phone call saying they had it and the import duty is £57 and they were querying whether I had been informed about this at time of purchase. I said "I hadn't" because I hadn't

They said for me to contact the seller to ask why it is so much considering the low price of the goods. I asked them if they could send it back to the seller and they said they could do.

I have now opened up a dialog via Amazon with the seller asking for my money back and informed them that the wine was being returned.

So beware now "Brexit has been done" that you may get unexpected phone calls from carriers asking for import duty to be paid.

[AstronomyUkraine]

Posted by: @TerryMcK

They said for me to contact the seller to ask why it is so much considering the low price of the goods. I asked them if they could send it back to the seller and they said they could do.

This is strange, according to Customs & Excise, there is no import duty on goods valued at under £135. This total includes any VAT and delivery charges.

[KevS]

I suspect Terry there may be a multiplicity of possible problems:

1) Supplier not aware of legislation.

2) Supplier/DHL endeavouring to rip you off. (Hoping your not aware of the legislation)

3) The goods may have been exported erroneously VAT free, so would have been subject to import charges and VAT, hence the "charge" which will include DHL's "handling fee". 

I have some stuff on order from TS in Regensburg so I will be interested to see what happens with that. 

K

 

[AstronomyUkraine]

Posted by: @KevS

I have some stuff on order from TS in Regensburg so I will be interested to see what happens with that. 

I live outside the EU, and order goods quite reguarly from Teleskop Express or Astroshop.EU in Germany. I pay 10% import duty, + VAT on the total amount including delivery. Import duty is zero with goods with a value of less than 150 euro. The UK has something similar since Brexit, but information is scant to say the least.

[paul]

I ordered a scope that will be supplied by TS eventually. I purchased it from a local reseller pre-Brexit and it went to back order. It was over €150 so its going to be interesting how that pans out.

[MartinS]

Glad I brought forward a couple of expensive purchases just in case we ended up in this position. I suspect it will take some time for the post Brexit processes to be ironed out and people to align with the new arrangements.

A good incentive to support our local suppliers where possible.

[KevS]

Just received a package from TS, (eyepiece & small counterweight) the value exceeded the £135 limit for imports that are now applicable from the EU but no import duty, (Vague Additions to Total) VAT or handling fees were levied. However it did come via the Useless Parcel Service who's tracking said it was to be delivered tomorrow, subsequently this may be a UPS anomaly. Who knows?

[Carastro]

I thought we had a Trade Deal with the EU to avoid this sort of thing?

Carole 

[AstronomyUkraine]

Posted by: @Carastro

I thought we had a Trade Deal with the EU to avoid this sort of thing?

Yeah, 1426 pages of it so far, and they haven't finished yet. The experts say this deal will make it more complicated to buy goods from abroad, but finding details is not easy.

Brian

[Feock]

Normally trade deals are meant to make things easier. Yesterday I had a European vendor decline my order. I somehow think this is the new normal.

[KevS]

I think it will all settle down eventually, obviously the Europeans are as confused as the majority of us with the new regulations. I did notice that with my order from TS that the VAT was charged in Germany. One would have expected that as the goods were effectively for export out of the EU they would have been VAT free at source and charged upon arrival in the UK. But reading the present UK gobbledegook, it appears that this comes in to play after the £135 threshold comes into play. (I think) LOL. 

Changes to VAT treatment of overseas goods sold to customers from 1 January 2021 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

 

[MartinS]

Is it me or have postage costs from the EU gone inexplicably high lately. Last month while pursuing an M68-M54 threaded adapter 7mm long, I was quoted €17-45 for postage from Germany to U.K. The item weighs less than 50g and would fit in a 2” filter box.

Has anyone else had a similar experience.

[KevS]

Posted by: @MartinS

Is it me or have postage costs from the EU gone inexplicably high lately. Last month while pursuing an M68-M54 threaded adapter 7mm long, I was quoted €17-45 for postage from Germany to U.K. The item weighs less than 50g and would fit in a 2” filter box.

Has anyone else had a similar experience.

I have noticed in the past that some of the postage fees appear non-sensical. From the TS site to deliver a 8" Cassegrain to the UK is  15:39 euro, to deliver a 2" filter is 14:40 euro. ? 

[AstronomyUkraine]

Posted by: @MartinS

Is it me or have postage costs from the EU gone inexplicably high lately. Last month while pursuing an M68-M54 threaded adapter 7mm long, I was quoted €17-45 for postage from Germany to U.K. The item weighs less than 50g and would fit in a 2” filter box.

Has anyone else had a similar experience.

I shop online with TS on a regular basis. They seem to have a standard fee of 24.14 Euro for small items. Astroshop have a standard delivery fee of 28.90 Euro. What is annoying, I have bought a few cheap items from China, adapters etc, and they arrive quicker than items delivered from Europe.

[AstronomyUkraine]

Posted by: @KevS

I have noticed in the past that some of the postage fees appear non-sensical. From the TS site to deliver a 8" Cassegrain to the UK is  15:39 euro, to deliver a 2" filter is 14:40 euro.

My Esprit 120 was recently delivered from Astroshop in Germany, it was 30 euro for delivery. It took around 5 weeks to deliver it, must have used horse and cart as transport. ? I have ordered a dew heater band from the same company, and it costs around the same for delivery!

[Padraic M]

TS have a standard delivery charge of €18 to Ireland. FLO's delivery charge is similar. Makes you think twice about ordering small items.

I regularly have had orders declined (including by FLO) for shipping, even pre-Brexit. I can understand not wanting to ship OTAs or mounts, but for smaller items it doesn't make sense. 

I don't know about HMRC, but my experience with customs here is that they randomly pick a sample of inbound (non-EU) parcels, estimate a value based on size of package, and look for VAT and duty based on their assessment. You need to email them an invoice to prove the lower value, and they accept that. I had one order from China that cost less than €20 including shipping but was impressively packed; I got a customs bill of €70. They dropped it as soon as I provided the proof.

[KevS]

Don't you just love the way the "retinue" work. In the UK one gets charged import duty on the goods and the postage, the postage going to  an overseas agency. Once they have added the import duty, to add insult to injury you get charged VAT on the bill they have just upped. I also have just noticed that the £15:00 limit before duty/VAT is applied has just been removed as well. So for me ordering electronic components from China via Ali Express has just gone out the window. 

[MartinS]

  There appears to be a strategy to use small accessory purchases to subsidise the postage burden on large value items. Having recently sent a few used items to Europe, I was able to send small/medium parcels with £1000 cover for between £8.80-£12. Why then should we be expected to pay €17-45 for small size, low value items. In my case this was on top of the €60-75 price for M68 & M54 threaded adapters. 

Unfortunately the M82x1 to M68x1 adapter appears to be M82x0.75 and won’t fit my CFF reducer so the Rotator fit is on hold. ?

 

[AstronomyUkraine]

Posted by: @MartinS

Unfortunately the M82x1 to M68x1 adapter appears to be M82x0.75 and won’t fit my CFF reducer so the Rotator fit is on hold.

TS have a few different M82x1 to M68x1 adapters on their site, but they ain't cheap. 50-80 euros.

[Feock]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55734277

 

Interesting article from the BBC on the subject.. 

[AstronomyUkraine]

Posted by: @Feock

Interesting article from the BBC on the subject.. 

It is an interesting article, but I think it is slightly misleading. What people in the UK don't realise yet, is when you are outside of the EU, and order goods from the EU, no VAT is charged on those goods at source. If the same goods had been bought before Brexit they would have been more expensive, as VAT would have been charged.

[Astrodad]

Yep, I just ordered a Aluminium dew shield for my Rasa 8 from Teleskop Express at a cost of 157 Euro's + 18.31 Euro's shipping. Just had an email from UPS with import duty fees to be paid of £44.40

[ApophisAstros]

Cheaper Wine

Try Tescos £3.69 probably from same vineyard , why send your money abroad when they punish us like this.

Just like them to make it worse.

Roger

[TerryMcK]

Well here is an update on the wine saga. I had an email from the vineyard in Spain saying I didn't need to pay any import duty or VAT on my purchase. However I had instructed DHL to ship it back to the sender. In the meantime it must have arrived back at the vineyard, they noticed they had already communicated to me and they reshipped it back to me - there was a label on it saying no customs duty nor VAT required to be paid. It arrived last Friday and the wine needless to say is excellent. So well done the vineyard.

[DaveS]

I've just had a delivery earlier today from TS in Germany which I had been tracking. Was DHL until it arrived in the UK then handed over to Parcel Farce.

I wasn't asked for VAT, and I'm still trying to get my head around the customs form which is in German to see if I may get a knock on the door from HMRC with a tax demand.