Page 1 of 7dayshop customs charge

I ordered some battery and media cases from 7dayshop and while I was on added a 256kb Compactflash card just to save some postage (same price as my usual supplier).

The cases arrived but I`ve just had a note through the door from the post office that theres an £8.25 customs charge to pay on the card.

Anyone had any experience of refusing delivery and trying to get a refund out of 7dayshop or any other way around it as I`m feeling particularly p*ssed off about this and certainly wont be using 7day again.



Snaps

Ive used 7 day shop a few times and never had any problems, but then Ive never bought anything over the customs limit. It might be a hasle ordering everything seperately over a few weeks but the prices cannot be beaten anywhere on the high street (the XD memory cards that my camera takes are over 3 times the price on average) Ive had no experience of sending anything back or refusing delivery as Ive had no reason to .... why not give em a call?

7 Dayshop are a really good cheap company ,ive used them lots of times and have never had a bit of trouble with them... on reading your post 7 day shop have done nothing wrong at all, it states on the web site that you may get hit with customs if you go over the £18.00 limit, so you took the chance + unfortunetly got caught but thats the chance you take, its not 7 dayshops fault you got hit with a customs charge... if you had done the same with cd-wow you would have had a customs charge( would you never use them again then?????)... blame this country`s draconian tax + customs policey + the greedy tax grabbing goverment not an innocent company .... :/

just checked the 7 day shop website and everything over £18 includes UK VAT (as of 5PM today). Was looking at a 128MB xd card ,have now noticed that it has gone up by about £5 to include the VAT

Seems strange, I`ve just read it on their site. Look on the contact us/p+p page at the top left of the home page.

If you read the bit in red it says as you`ve just quoted, but how can they do this. As far as I know the customs rules haven`t changed, and the Channel Isles are quoted as `Special Territories`, and thus not part of the EU so we`re liable to customs and vat if we stray over the limit.

Customs Guide for International Post Users

Anyone know how they`re getting round it, if what they`re saying is true. I`ve bought from Frnace recently, and you do pay the vat there, as in any EU country, and nothing else to pay here. But that beacuase they are in the EU, which the Channel Isles aren`t?

This item was edited on Friday, 30th July 2004, 19:57

Thomas,

Have a look on Dabs.com. I`ve just got a 256mb Kingston SD card from them for £25 delivered (5yr warranty). It arrived yesterday. They seem to have some deals on memory at the moment. An unbranded one is £35 from 7dayshop.

Dabs Memory Page

Just looked on 7dayshop, and each item has a note against it now. If it`s less than £18 it says nothing will be added as it`s below the limit. So I guess they send each item individually. Items over £18 say you pay the vat when you buy, so nothing will be added later on, not sure how that bit works though. As they`re a vat-free haven I wouldn`t have thought they could charge vat even if they wanted to.

had a look on dabbs you had a good deal on the sd card . On the xd cards they are a little bit cheeper than 7 days shop (on 128MB xd cards) but I will now probably order from svp (blankdiscshop.co.uk) which have it for about 50p more than dabbs but as I`m going to be ordering from svp soon anyway the cost of the postage wont cost anymore (dabbs would be about £2) . I was in two minds about ordering a 128MB xd card from 7 day shop again just in case I got stung with a customs charge

I`ve been trawling through the Customs site and also the link posted earlier but can`t find any definite statement of what should be charged.
The Post office require a fee of £8.25 on a £24.99 item which is 33% and a bloody rip off.

Snaps

I assume the £8.25 charge would be made up of £4.37 (VAT at 17.5%) with the rest being the amount the post office charge for collecting the fee (unless customs charge some other duty on it). Had a quick look at the customs site and like you I could not find any answer (to be honest the site seems to be aimed at buisnesses and seems a bit of a mess). Did look at royal mails website ( www.royalmail.com) as well but cant find any kind of definate answers here either. did find this which may indicate that the post office charge a flat fee for all parcels under a certain amount

(http://www.parcelforce.com/portal/pw/content1?catId=2500042&mediaId=load105044)


Parcelforce Worldwide clearance

If we receive a parcel from overseas for import customers, we will pay any Customs duties and taxes on their behalf to HMCE. However, we will require payment for this, together with our Customs clearance fee, before the parcel can be delivered to them. Parcelforce Worldwide charges a Customs clearance fee which helps cover the cost of additional handling, administration, collection of monies and provision of facilities for Customs clearance of packages.

We have two levels of clearance fee for import parcels. There is a charge of £13.50 for high value parcels (over €1,000), express items through the EMS network (i.e. International Datapost equivalent) selected for additional customs inspection and GLS parcels (i.e. Euro 48 equivalent). For all other parcels, an £8 charge will apply.

These clearance charges are only applied if a duty or tax is payable on the parcel.

We will also make a charge if we have to hold your parcel whilst Customs process it, so we would recommend that you respond promptly to any Customs queries to avoid these charges. We will not levy a fee for the first 10 days, after 10 days however, storage fees will be charged. For more than 10 and up to 20 working days, - £5.50 per parcel. For each subsequent working day over 20 working days - £1.35 per parcel. All parcels valued at over €1,000 are placed in secure storage until completion of Customs formalities.

For more information about these fees, please contact a customer service advisor on 08708 50 11 50.

Quote:
Anyone know how they`re getting round it, if what they`re saying is true

Although the Channel Islands aren`t part of the EU, they are British dependencies, and I think they have an arrangement whereby VAT can be paid in advance on packages sent to the UK. I`m sure I`ve had packages from Play with "VAT PAID" stamped on them.

Quote:
I`ve bought from Frnace recently, and you do pay the vat there, as in any EU country, and nothing else to pay here. But that beacuase they are in the EU, which the Channel Isles aren`t?

Yep.

Mike