3
Aug 27, 2015
So I have a problem. I arranged a trans-Atlantic swap of bras and was excited to receive them. Unfortunately the parcel didn't turn up. What did arrive was a grey card informing me I had to pay £16.25 (that's $25) customs charge on this parcel, which was being held at my local delivery office. I have received dozens of bras from the US without a problem so I went along to check things out. What it turns out to be is that the swappee had declared the bras to be merchandise rather than a gift then given their value as over the (much lower) taxable threshold. So I have to pay £8.25 VAT plus an £8 Royal Mail Handling Fee else it's returned to sender.
Anyone experienced something similar? Any ideas as to how to progress? Thanks.
Filed under Bras ups and downs
15 comments
That really sucks, and I hope it works out.
I thought any fees for shipping internationally were paid beforehand by the sender, honestly, unless it was shipped COD, etc. Maybe you could ask your swapmate to pay half, since it was their mistake?
If it was a swap, that means you compensated her materially for these items and thus it wasn't a gift, so she was correct in declaring it as merchandise... she is not in the wrong here. You cannot assume sellers or swappers will take the initiative of lying on customs forms, nor even to know that import duties in your country mean that you might want them to; you are responsible for finding out the customs situation in your country of residence, so if you were ONLY willing to swap or purchase on condition that the other party lie and label it a gift, that should have been stated before the swap was agreed to.
So basically you need to speak with her and sort it out. If she is willing to bend the truth and call it a gift on the customs forms, and you're not in a rush, you can simply let the parcel be returned and then she can resend it (this entails some more effort from her as she will have to repackage and redo forms etc.). If not ,the two of you will need to determine what outcome you are willing to live with... perhaps you can let the parcel be returned and she can pay you for the bras she got from you. But again, unless there was an explicit commitment on her part to mark it as a gift, she didn't actually do anything wrong--the oversight was yours --so if she is not willing to go to any further trouble for you, unfortunately you don't have much of a claim.
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