just had to pay £14.10p customs for a $75 record ,is this the norm ?

Yes pretty much Span. Import Duty, VAT and a charge from the PO for the pleasure of charging you!

Half of that charge is the Post Office bending you over and sticking it to you....

just had to pay £14.10p customs for a $75 record ,is this the norm ?

Always pays to ask seller not to put true value on package!

once had to pay £33

Mind , it did say $900 on the front of packet

The Post Office don't have any say in how much they charge you for the 'service', it's part of an international agreement. The point is, before they can get your package past customs they have to pay the import levy for you, so what you're really paying for is them lending you the money, and also a fair whack because some barbarian in Tierra del Fuego or somewhere refused to accept the parcel and left the post office stuck with the bill.

You're paying for the service and also for all the recalcitrant miscreants who don't pay up.

There's one dealer in the USA who will rough up your record sleeve/jewel case a bit so that it looks 2nd hand or identify it as a 'gift' and then scrawl "Happy birthday! Love ya!" followed by an undecipherable sig. Now that's what I call service.

Edited February 9, 200817 yr by JJMMWGDuPree

If the item is up to $50 in value its not normally charged over $50 you will get charged. A good idea to ask the shipper to put not for resale gift on invoice. If you insure package and invoice value is different to insured value. The package goes missing you will have difficulty getting paid out. I always give the postie a tenner at xmas and he just puts them through the letter box, much cheaper.

In good old Britain, anything which is imported should have import duty paid on it.

But people dont wanna do that, so we dont declare it.

So they just pick parcels at random, maybe one in a hundred.

I had £60 to pay last year and also had to drive to Preston to collect (Tony Galla)

Robbing feckers!!

I'm sensing an oppurtunity here.

You all send the records to my adress in Orlando. Once a month or so everyone who has sent a record gets to chip in on a flight.

I bring em over distribute at a designated location.

Bobs your Uncle and fannies yer aunt.

It may cost a little more but you know that you will have beat the bastards.

i'll happily pay tax or customs fees if it's some brand new DVD or something, but it does seem a bit off when it's 45 year old second-hand record that was unavailable at the time (and when imported records were actively discouraged by the music industry etc)

Its called REVENUE RAISING.......they have a team of monkeys sat around a

table devising more and more ways they can trouser yet more of or hard earned

to pay their sons for "researching" or their 85 yr old mother as a secretary.

Or am I being cynical?

Do you think they have finally cottoned on to the Record import trade ? If so it's taken a long time ! Just seems there have been quite a few instances of this mentioned on here of late !

Do you think they have finally cottoned on to the Record import trade ? If so it's taken a long time ! Just seems there have been quite a few instances of this mentioned on here of late !

>>> SIMILAR THREAD - U.S. POSTAGE TIMES <<<

Could this be one of the reasons why records are taking longer to arrive.

Must admit that so far I haven't noticed any Customs Activity,

other than a Longer wait for the records to arrive

Edited February 9, 200817 yr by 45cellar

>>> SIMILAR THREAD - U.S. POSTAGE TIMES <<<

Could this be one of the reasons why records are taking longer to arrive.

Must admit that so far I haven't noticed any Customs Activity,

other than a Longer wait for the records to arrive

Hadn't gone into that thread Roger as i haven't bought anything since last Autumn but does make you wonder

One other possibility on the delivery times, which is rather worrying, i remember that happening before & it was around the time of one of the terrorist activities & stuff was held up due to a security threat.

Edited February 9, 200817 yr by Bogue

Hadn't gone into that thread Roger as i haven't bought anything since last Autumn but does make you wonder

One other possibility on the delivery times, which is rather worrying, i remember that happening before & it was around the time of one of the terrorist activities & stuff was held up due to a security threat.

Thanks for that, I suppose they can't be too careful.

Just hope that they are if they open our packages.

i'll happily pay tax or customs fees if it's some brand new DVD or something, but it does seem a bit off when it's 45 year old second-hand record that was unavailable at the time (and when imported records were actively discouraged by the music industry etc)

Especially when you consider how many of them came into the country free gratis as ballast.

Which reminds me. I seem to get caught for tax more often on surface mail than airmail, which means the longer I have to wait, the more I have to pay.

BTW. The current official entry limits are £18 including postage for commercial items and £28 including postage for gifts. In practice it's a case of the bigger the parcel, the heavier the parcel, and the higher it's value that seems to decree which ones they pick on. If you know you've got a very high value item coming in you can 'phone the customs people (They're amazingly friendly) and they'll give you a number to put on your parcel to speed it through the process. They even warn you how much it's going to be.

always ask yer seller to stick value of 3$ on it,, dont cost ya nothing then x

Thanks for that, I suppose they can't be too careful.

Just hope that they are if they open our packages.

Just hope they repack them correctly

Just hope they repack them correctly

Not had one opened, they usually use the green customs form as a guide.

Likelihood of your parcel getting stopped is variable and depends on

1) whether the value declared is high

2) how busy they are......

Interesting (and sad to reflect on this) but after 9/11 they didn't do any of this, and I remember not paying for anything for at least a year. They were all too busy checking parcels from Iran, Africa etc.

For expensive items use FedEx or UPS Costs a bit more, but a lot faster, and I don't recall them ever asking me for money.

Steve

just had to pay £14.10p customs for a $75 record ,is this the norm ?

Span

Always get your seller to declare "value for customs..........." as low as

possible, this is legal and not tied to the price you paid and will not affect

your insurance. You know what my job is, so you know that I speak with straight

tongue. Just had a $310.00 record come in on a Customs value of $7.50.

You know it makes sense.........................

Just to cheer you here is a pic of my son wearing a Indian headress and

3 snakes.....................

Cheers..............

Chris L