Welcome to the real world. This is customs brokerage. They all do this. Next time, read the fine print.
No, it is not a matter of being the real world. FedEx doesn't charge such absurdity. In fact, never had any issues with FedEx, even with packages outside EU. Postal was never a problem too, even if the package was retained at customs. DHL is fraudulent, and always disrespects the value from the invoice, adding some extra plus VAT.
Also, fine print, where is it? I already paid the shipping. All I should've payed was the VAT based over the invoice value, and not based on some "reasonable" value they have concocted. The 33.76€ plus VAT on top of that doesn't justify, as they did nothing.
A few years back I ordered 10 TEC (Peltier) devices from China that cost me just under 18GBP and the company I bought them off were doing a promo that gave free DHL shipping, but after the package hade been delivered I got an invoice from DHL because they estimated the shipping cost to be around 43GBP which when added to the declared value of the goods, in this case 10GBP meant I was being charged 20% of 53GBP plus the clearance fee which as I remember all came to a little under 27GBP.
When I contacted them about this they were initially not very helpful but when I pointed out that I had a receipt for the payment to the supplier they did agree to waive the whole invoice.
But this is the exception rather than the rule.
Given the many cases and protests against how DHL operates in my country, it seems that the exception rules here in Portugal.
ask them to provide a calculation of how they arrived at 94,34 euro.
They "estimated" shipping cost and slapped it on top of the declared value. Happens all of the time when I deal with them as a company. They just slap their own shipping estimation on top even though invoice containing shipping cost is provided every time. Though a business I don't care about that crap as I will claim the VAT back anyway. But as a private person it's really annoying.
They basically took the opportunity to steal 6€. They had the invoice, the order screenshot and the payment, all pointing to the correct value. What they didn't had was intelligence. Now the case will be reported, and not to DHL. And they will have to justify the excessive service cost too, since I didn't ask them to do it, and customs takes care of that for free.
DHL is a ripoff, especially shipping from Asia:
Shipping Fee
Customs/Duties/Brokerage Fees
Taxes
Handling Fee $18 for me
I find you end up paying double what your parts cost, just for all this. I use post instead and wait weeks for the boat.
You could try to get the declared value corrected.
Lesson learned. I will do that next time. In any case, if the manufacturer/seller only presents DHL or UPS, I'll just look for another manufacturer that offers postal. I don't negotiate with robbers, neither feed them.
Kind regards, Samuel Lourenço