Import duties.

A couple of weeks ago, I bought an old vivitar light meter, on US ebay. $15 Dollars, (£10.40)and another six quid to get it here. This morning, the Postman gave me a card, saying that I had to pay £19. Import duty! Apparently, the Royal mail pay this automatically to Customs and Excise, and Won't release the package until I pay them. I could not believe that import duty would be payable on a second hand light meter, costing ten quid! - After doing some Googling - I find that import duty is payable on goods, new, or second hand, OVER THE VALUE OF £18. excluding postage cost.
The meter cost £10, so I have been unfairly taxed. Yes? - I will now have to pay the Post office the fee, and go through the no doubt long and complicated process of claiming the money back from HM Customs and Excise. All for a ten quid meter!. It must be somebody's job to open parcels from the States, and make a wild guess as to how much it might be worth. - So, be warned,.. Careful when buying from outside the EU.

I thought the Limit had gone up from Dec. 08 link but maybe i'm reading it wrong.

Oh, yes... So it has! - I've been well diddled, then.

Maybe they take into account what they percieve to be the value of the item and not what you actually paid for it. For them to levy you with £19 they must place a fairly high value on your light meter.

I could be wrong in my assumption though, and you are right, you did get diddled.

I was stung last year buying from Adorama in New York. The Lens was shipped using UPS who charge a "brokerage fee" for them to pay the import duty and VAT. I can't find the paper work. but i'm sure the package contents and value were stated by Adorama.

Only part of the £19 is duty, around £8 (from memory?) is the Post Office's handling charge. Could be worse, UPS once charged me a £40 handling charge for c.£10 of unpaid duty - hence I now refuse to deal with sellers outside the EU who ship via UPS.

The limit INCLUDES postage costs, and you pay tax on postage as well as the goods. It would be dead easy for sellers to supply below the limit otherwise by falsely inflating their shipping charge.

Actually the limit for Import Duty for mail order recently went up to £120, but the limit for Import VAT is still £18.

See http://tinyurl.com/95t7dy

I don't think you should have been charged anything if the total order really was £16.40. But if the postage was a bit more than £6 and the authorities are using less favourable exchange rates, then maybe it does come to £18. But anyway for an £18 value, the charge should only be £2.70 VAT + £8 handling charge.

For Import Duty but not for VAT.

Check what the seller put as the value on the customs sticker on the parcel. I once had an idiot USA seller who put a far higher value on the customs sticker than I paid...they did not understand you are charged by customs on the value they write down.

If the value is corect, then UK customs have screwed up. You need to send the relevant paperwork with PROOF of the value you paid to get your refund. The last one I did took about 6 weeks.

cheers Steve.

I had the same happen to me on a camera bought for spares, the seller had scribled the selling price on the customs docket as $10.00
the two "zeros" they do as small above the line customs read it as $1000
Remember they have got to make loads of money to pay the bankers bonuses
B****Y stupid or what?

Thanks Chaps.

I have sent off prints of the ebay transaction details, and a copy of the email from the seller, confirming the price paid. We'll see what happens.. In six weeks!?