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Has anyone else in the UK recently started getting hit by customs charges from Intrada orders (or anywhere else)? Placed an order for four CD's which I had been holding out for before summer hols only to get an £11 charge from UK border force / royal mail. Once paid checked the import docs in case value had been marked above the normal $20, no bang on $20 and marked as a 'gift'. No issues in the past from Intrada or LLL etc.
Wasted 5 minutes on the phone to Royal Mail / Border Force to be told to fill out a form and return to Border Force with the shipping label and import docs (copies made before sending). Finally received a response today, showing breakdown of charges and apparently I was 19 pence (yes 19 pence) over the £15 consumer merchandise limit which levied a £3 charge from customs and then £8 from Royal Mail for 'handling'.
Even though marked as a 'gift' it has been treated as consumer merchandise as apparently the gift option now only covers private individuals. Looks like they checked Intrada on the web and found them as a business.
If this is the new import standard I can see my orders building up so I can face only one charge at a time and not possible 1 per month....
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Has anyone else in the UK recently started getting hit by customs charges from Intrada orders (or anywhere else)? Placed an order for four CD's which I had been holding out for before summer hols only to get an £11 charge from UK border force / royal mail. Once paid checked the import docs in case value had been marked above the normal $20, no bang on $20 and marked as a 'gift'. No issues in the past from Intrada or LLL etc.
Wasted 5 minutes on the phone to Royal Mail / Border Force to be told to fill out a form and return to Border Force with the shipping label and import docs (copies made before sending). Finally received a response today, showing breakdown of charges and apparently I was 19 pence (yes 19 pence) over the £15 consumer merchandise limit which levied a £3 charge from customs and then £8 from Royal Mail for 'handling'.
Even though marked as a 'gift' it has been treated as consumer merchandise as apparently the gift option now only covers private individuals. Looks like they checked Intrada on the web and found them as a business.
If this is the new import standard I can see my orders building up so I can face only one charge at a time and not possible 1 per month....
There isn't a lot the INTRADA can do, this is an issue with your government, that who you have to address this with.
Ford A. Thaxton
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Has anyone else in the UK recently started getting hit by customs charges from Intrada orders (or anywhere else)? Placed an order for four CD's which I had been holding out for before summer hols only to get an £11 charge from UK border force / royal mail. Once paid checked the import docs in case value had been marked above the normal $20, no bang on $20 and marked as a 'gift'. No issues in the past from Intrada or LLL etc.
Wasted 5 minutes on the phone to Royal Mail / Border Force to be told to fill out a form and return to Border Force with the shipping label and import docs (copies made before sending). Finally received a response today, showing breakdown of charges and apparently I was 19 pence (yes 19 pence) over the £15 consumer merchandise limit which levied a £3 charge from customs and then £8 from Royal Mail for 'handling'.
Even though marked as a 'gift' it has been treated as consumer merchandise as apparently the gift option now only covers private individuals. Looks like they checked Intrada on the web and found them as a business.
If this is the new import standard I can see my orders building up so I can face only one charge at a time and not possible 1 per month....
There isn't a lot the INTRADA can do, this is an issue with your government, that who you have to address this with.
Ford A. Thaxton
Thanks for that Ford, although if you read the post I was asking if any other UK residents have had similar issues or noted any UK import changes recently. At no point in the post does it mention that I am blaming Intrada for this or requesting them to resolve the issue.
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I used to order from SAE until I started getting hit by customs charges all the time (yes, I know it's not their fault).
So I changed to smaller orders with the individual labels instead, but have also found that Intrada boxes seem to get stopped each time nowadays.
I'm not sure if Intrada offer postage insurance like SAE do, so it might be unwise to bundle more CDs into a larger order, as it would be a much more expensive package to replace if it got "lost" in the post.
I'm sticking with my current ordering method for now, although I might review it and go back to SAE, just to get the benefit of a single larger order and postage insurance.
Used to order at SAE as well until postage prices (yes Ford I know its not their fault) made it more economical to stick with smaller orders direct with the labels. First time I've been hit from a $20 gift order however to be told that it was consumer merchandise. I guess it must be a import change post April 2016 which was my last ordering date from the US.
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Not had any issue with items from La La Land Records as yet, theres have always come under the customs radar, even the Star Trek original series box set !
Although quite a few people i know have been getting stung more and more.
It certainly puts me off buying direct from abroad now and use Elite Soundtracks based in Nottingham, may be a little bit more expensive but not compared to getting stung by customs or Royal mail.
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Thank Brexit for our newly screwed exchange rate. It's all to do with the converted pound value, not the dollar value on the package.
Yup, this exactly! Unfortunately for those of us in the UK, the cost of our hobby/obsession has increased significantly since June, due to the plummeting pound vs dollar and euro...
:-(
SG
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Posted: |
Aug 23, 2016 - 7:23 AM
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By: |
MusicMad
(Member)
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Thank Brexit for our newly screwed exchange rate. It's all to do with the converted pound value, not the dollar value on the package.
Yup, this exactly! Unfortunately for those of us in the UK, the cost of our hobby/obsession has increased significantly since June, due to the plummeting pound vs dollar and euro...
:-(
SG
Every silver lining has a cloud 
I needed an incentive (read: kick-up the backside) to put my credit cards away ... it was always too easy to buy two, three or four (sometimes more) CDs on odd occasions but the weak Sterling v Dollar and Euro means I now stop and think: do I actually want those CDs? I posted on another thread re: Quartet's summer sale how, this time, I have foregone the purchase of titles which previously I would have bought just for the chance of finding a new score (even a new composer) I like.
It's not that any individual CD has become too costly ... I've just spent mega-bucks improving my hi-fi set-up so a few extra pounds should be okay for a CD I want (e.g. a new John Barry release! ) but the extra costs just to experiment, given I have too much music to listen to already, means that Brexit has been that incentive.
Without implying anything political, this is Brexit's sliver living for me.
As for the OP query ... I've posted before about import VAT and I am aware that there is a UKP15.00 limit for personal imports. This does not, in anyway, imply that the non-UK retailer should mark the package as "Gift" ... to me that is straightforward fraud. I'm less certain on the matter of valuing the package at production, rather than retail, costs but have appreciated the number of times SAE has chosen the latter re: packages I've received.
Mitch
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Posted: |
Aug 23, 2016 - 7:53 AM
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By: |
Rameau
(Member)
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I've been very lucky, of all the hundreds of CDs/DVDs/Blu-rays I've ordered from America over the years, I've only ever been caught by customs once, the season one DVD box set of the US sitcom, Son Of The Beach (quite brilliant!), & that was about 15 years ago. Many two disc sets, the big FSM MGM Treasury Box, & two seasons of Married With Children (much more expensive then than it is now). Amazon was doing a buy one get one free offer, but they printed the full price on the (quite big) parcel, printed quite large as well, but it got through somehow. And yes, the new Ten Commandments set could be quite expensive if stung by the customs, & no one could blame that on Brexit
Checking the currency converter, I see that a price of $19.75 would be just under the limit, so it's tight, the pound only has to go up another cent to be okay (I think). I read somewhere that the customs set the exchange rate every month, & it stays at that rate no matter what's happening to the rate during the month.
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Cheers all.
Didn't really factor in the Brexit part (mainly because it hasn't effected any other part of my life so far) and that my past CD's were being treated as consumer items, due to the usual gift marking the US labels use. With it being marked as gift in the past and never having a customs charge, I took it that I was still under the £34 gift value for personal items. Never mind though, thanks for the heads up that other have also fallen foul recently.
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GET IT OFF EBAY THEN, EBAY ONLY GIVE 1 CUSTOM'S CHARGE WHEN YOU MAKE A PURCHASE OVER A CERTAIN PRICE NO POST OFFCES FEES THEN. I'VE DONE THAT A FEW TIMES. CUTS THE POST OFFICE OUT.
Prefer buying them at the labels cost and not a eBay jumped up price while the CD is still in production. Not to sound too awful though, you do know that the caps lock can be turned off, right?
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