Customs fee to pay ?

[zsitton]

I ordered a record to be delivered from the US > UK as i have done many times before! I paid the usual $18 for delivery with standard USPS as i always do BUT i received a note yesterday from the UK Post Office saying that i have to pay a customs fee of £11.40 before i can receive the record!I

I have paid the fee to get the record as i had no choice! When i received the record it had a red sticker on reading "Customs fee to pay" and also a more detailed note that basically said

"Customs charges are applied to imports into the EU with a value of over £15 for vat"

It then had a small break down of the £11.40 which was

VAT = £3.40
Royal Mail international handling fee = £8

Ive never heard of this bollox and this is the first time this has happened to me and I've ordered many records of the same value and paid the same postage from the US with no problems what so ever so i'm pretty fucking baffled as to wtf this stupid charge is! It now means I've paid roughly around £23 to just receive the fucking thing!

CAN ANYONE shed some light on this or maybe this has happened to anyone else before ?

Thanks Guys

[pure_evil]

You should contact the border force and challenge the charges. They will look into it and as far as I know they will give you a refund if they've made a mistake.

[yespapi]

Pretty sure that making the buyer pay an import duty upon receipt is a standard procedure when buying goods from the US. Not sure about the exact details but I've definitely paid taxes in the past for orders sent from there.
Maybe in your previous experiences the sellers had registered the shipments as a "gift" rather than a commercial transaction. Anyway I don't think it's worth challenging the charges. In the future, just make sure you ask the seller to fill in the customs form so that you don't get charged - if they agree to do so.
On a related note, I received this message a few days ago:

Are you based in the EU (European Union) and selling on the Discogs Marketplace? Read on.

As you probably know, the EU has updated its VAT (Value Added Tax) policies to include third-party services. This means that we are held accountable for ensuring that sellers in the EU are taxed appropriately for the VAT. Starting this summer, we will add the VAT charge for your country onto your sellers fees.

What do I need to do?

Have a VAT number? Great. Enter it into your Seller Settings. Once your VAT number is validated, you will be exempt from VAT fees on your Discogs invoice.
Don't know if you have a VAT number? No problem. We'll do the work for you. All VAT fees will be assessed to the 8% Discogs Sales fee. There will be a separate line item on your invoice labelled "VAT fee".

[zsitton]

The seller filled in the form as "Merchandise" which tbh i don't know if it is normal or not I've never really looked at the details on the package, i'm normally just more interested in getting the record out and making sure it's in 1 piece etc etc but suppose i should take more notice! Anyway i think i'm just going to swallow this one rather than go through the headache of trying to get it back as it sounds like a headache BUT i will be definitely keeping an eye on this 1 on future orders! I'm expecting another 2 from the states this week so i'm intrigued to see what happens with these 2 but if it happens again i'm definitely taking it further and challenging it as it's a fucking liberty really

[Themis]

Are you based in the EU (European Union) and selling on the Discogs Marketplace? Read on.

As you probably know, the EU has updated its VAT (Value Added Tax) policies to include third-party services. This means that we are held accountable for ensuring that sellers in the EU are taxed appropriately for the VAT. Starting this summer, we will add the VAT charge for your country onto your sellers fees.

What do I need to do?

Have a VAT number? Great. Enter it into your Seller Settings. Once your VAT number is validated, you will be exempt from VAT fees on your Discogs invoice.
Don't know if you have a VAT number? No problem. We'll do the work for you. All VAT fees will be assessed to the 8% Discogs Sales fee. There will be a separate line item on your invoice labelled "VAT fee".

that has nothing to do with it.

Discogs providing a paid service to its customers (sellers). for that they charge fees.
until now they didnt charge VAT for these fees. they will now.

as a buyer on discogs this doesnt concern you.
as a seller you have to pay a tax on top of the fees to discogs.