Customs & f@#$ing Excise

[Focus2000]

OK, do any of our UK members know the deal here?

I ordered 3 kits, 2 Gundam markers and some masking tape from Hobbysearch 3 weeks ago at a cost of about £42 with £25 of shipping. So I'm still saving about £20 on buying the same stuff here in the UK.

I came home yesterday to a letter saying I'd missed delivery and they'd be back on Monday. Horray! Then I noticed a charge of £20.20 I phoned ParcelForce and the woman said it would be a Customs & Excise charge.

£20? That's almost 50% tax on the goods I ordered!!! It wipes out all the saving I was making from ordering from Japan How the hell do they come up with such a crazy figure

[Marco_Wrc]

I had to pay 2£ extra for customs for 1 kit (The Netherlands).

20£ is way too much.

[flyonthewall]

Sucks doesn't it! Anything over £18 is subject to charges i believe, but £20.20 for that lot is not only steep, it F'ing vertical! I got stung for £16 on my HLJ order recently and the order cost more than yours, about £60 i think!? I have noticed though, that the HS orders i've received in the past were marked as 'gift' therefore not subject to customs charges. I can't work out how they decide to charge you, a friend of mine had been ordering from HLJ for 5 years with nothing, now he seems to get charged every time

[Focus2000]

The kits have now arrived

The bill has now been paid

For any UK modellers who might have been wondering, the £20.20 fee is made up of :

£0.53 Import duty
£11.67 VAT (on both goods and postage charges)
£8.00 'Handling' fee for ParcelForce to get the parcel through customs. Wow, it must be really difficult for them to do that and really worth that much money

Oh well, at least my kits are here!

[UKSupraboy]

Its even worse over here in Norway, talking almost 100%!!!! Although sometimes goods slip through without tax.

Off the subject of models but an example of Norwegian tax, I recently decided that I may import an Evo6 from the UK (1/1 SCALE), heres the price:

1 x 2000 EVO6 imported from Japan : £16000

1 x import duty to Norway : £25000!!!!!!!

1 x total :£41000

Neadless to say I decided against it and bought TAMIYA instead!

[RONALD SOLE]

Been there done that, also got stung for £13.12 (what an odd amout) recently. Did actually check the faq on HLJ about this and it does actually now say they have to show orders as their true value. I assume they have had their knuckles rapped by someone for 'fiddling' the order value to avoid paying tax, bummer I know but for the stuff they stock at £8 >£10 you would pay close to £20 here and I have seen some traders at the shows doing just that. I think we should boycot these unscrupulous people and keep ordering direct.

[Vyacheslav]

UPS will charge you even more, but they depend on the price of the package, so most people put the lowest price on there.

[exhaust smoke]

I order from HLJ quite frequently, Hobby Search once. I've never had a problem, now I am a bit nervous about my new order!!

GODDAMN CUSTOMS!!!:rocket: :aug2: :badass:

[Steve Gibbins]

I got stung when I ordered a couple of expensive kits from island collectibles in New York, Parcelforce delivered them I seem to remember, got a bit of a shock when the postman asked for payment of about FORTY quid. Since then I've ordered a couple of kits from Mediamix but I've not been charged anything for them, got a couple more coming soon so fingers crossed.

Steve

[freakray]

Whenever I send anything to the UK I always make sure to label the parcel as a gift(either Birthday or Christmas depending on the time of year), as I know the person receiving the package won't get robbed then.

Saying that though, the next one I have to send to the UK is for some rich bastard that lives in Stafford, so I am going to hike up the value of it by listing everything in the parcel and exaggerating the values of the stuff too

From what I have been told, for model car parts and unassembled kits coming into the USA, there is no custom duties.
I have been stung by customs pretty bad when I lived in SA though, I paid more on customs then I did for the things I brought from the USA.

Ray

[ukemaxxer]

I usually order one kit at a time now, but once did order 4 together, they were marked as gift and I still got stung for tax. How's that for a gift?

[Focus2000]

I think next time I order from HS or HLJ I'll just go with one kit, and see if customs take an interest then. I've still saved money on this order, even after the tax, but only a few quid. If there's a chance it'll go through customs without paying VAT then it's got to be worth a try

[exhaust smoke]

Sorry to bring up this thread again, but I've just been stung by C&E on my recent HLJ aswell.

I ordered a Fujimi BMW 635i Schnitzer and a Studio 27 decal sheet. It arrived late from the shipping notice and I got suspect. Lo and behold, went to pick it up and was landed with a £7.90 charge.

It's my first time being charged, I suppose we were just unlucky. Either that or C&E are clamping down on things coming in from abroad. Scary!

I have one thing to say:

Customs and Excise:rocket: :rocket: :rocket: :aug2: :aug2: :aug2: :badass: :badass: :badass:

[flyonthewall]

Originally posted by exhaust smoke
Sorry to bring up this thread again, but I've just been stung by C&E on my recent HLJ aswell.

I ordered a Fujimi BMW 635i Schnitzer and a Studio 27 decal sheet. It arrived late from the shipping notice and I got suspect. Lo and behold, went to pick it up and was landed with a £7.90 charge.

It's my first time being charged, I suppose we were just unlucky. Either that or C&E are clamping down on things coming in from abroad. Scary!

I have one thing to say:

Customs and Excise:rocket: :rocket: :rocket: :aug2: :aug2: :aug2: :badass: :badass: :badass:

Dont forget Parcel Force! A big chunk of those charges is their handling fee to get it thru customs. Tell me, how can they charge £8 handling fee to get it from probably one building to another when the package can be flown from Japan to UK for the same amount?

[exhaust smoke]

Chris, they probably caught a cab and told the driver to drive very slowly.