I've just finished a phone call with DHL customer support asking some explanations about their custom charges, but I did not fully understand their reasonig.
This is the story of 4 orders with PCBway:
order no. 1 : PCB price : 23 US$ , DHL delivery : 20 US$ : total 43 US$ = 38.41 Euro : DHL freight charge : ZERO (?)
order no. 2 : PCB price : 41 US$ , DHL delivery : 20 US$ : total 61 US$ = 53.58 Euro : DHL freight charge : 28.25 Euro
order no. 3 : PCB price : 42 US$ , DHL delivery : 25 US$ : total 67 US$ = 58.31 Euro : DHL freight charge : 38.53 Euro
order no. 4 : PCB price : 11 US$ , DHL delivery : 21 US$ : total 32 US$ = 28.06 Euro : DHL freight charge : 31.78 Euro
The DHL freight charge includes import VAT (22%) and DHL administrative charges (fixed at 13.50 Euro + VAT = 16.47 Euro)
A simple calculation shows that DHL used a supposed value of 53.55 Euro for order no 1(correct), 100.27 Euro for order no 3, 69.59 Euro for order no. 4
I asked to explain these differences, and I was told that maybe they added the cost of insurance to the cost of goods + delivery to obtain what is called "statistic" value, even if it is not exposed in the invoice, and I never paid for it..
My opinion is that I was ripped off, but they told me that if I want to open a dispute I must pay them a fixed (by law) fee of 30 Euro.
This is a total rip-off, and next week I'll search for advice.
The nice part of this story is my very good esperience with PCBway The quality is really good, and their customer support is amazing.
Order no 4 was plagued with errors I made in generating the Gerber files (sent on friday evening).
We exchanged e-mails on saturday morning, sunday afternoon, monday mornig.
To-day (friday) I received the PCBs, with only one day delay on normal delivery time.
Best regards