So I ordered something from the EU and got contacted by the courier today to say that I owed about £110 in custom fees which was A LOT more than Id expect to pay. Considering the company has a UK address I didn’t even realise it was coming from outside the UK.
I wasn’t in today when they tried to deliver and they called me back and we arranged for them to leave it in a safe place as I’ll be at work.
There was no talks of me paying the custom fee and from the sounds of it the package will be left for me without a payment being made.
Does anyone have experience with this and know if I’ve dodged the fees or if I’ll get chased up.
If I have to pay the fees I think I’ll just send the item back as the custom fees are extortionate.
I tried googling this but couldn’t find any useful info online and for obvious reasons don’t want to directly ask the courier.
6 comments
You’ll get an invoice in the post most likely.
Only parcel force tend to require payment up front before delivery.
It may be several weeks before it comes, but it most likely will as the courier will have already paid the duty on your behalf.
You’ll probably get chased up and if you refuse get blacklisted
They may come back to you with an invoice, so be prepared.
But you should go back to the company you ordered from and complain if they never made it clear you were ordering from outside the UK
Most couriers, other than Royal Mail/Parcelforce, tend to pay customs/VAT speculatively in order to clear parcels through customs quicker. They don’t have any legal right to demand you pay them, seeing as you haven’t agreed to reimburse them and have no contract with them – only the sender does.
It would be the same as if I went to your house and just randomly decided to mow your lawn or wash your car, and then demanded to be paid. Yes, you’d have received a benefit but because you didn’t agree to pay beforehand, I would be SOL if you refused to pay.
Expect them to maybe chase it a bit more with scary-sounding letters, but unless you actually receive a Letter Before Claim or a Court claim form, you can quite safely tell them where to stick their speculative invoice. Come back for advice if they do take it further.
They have up to 6 years to chase you for this money, so don’t count your chickens just yet
You sure it’s not a scam message and a coincidence in terms of timing?