EU members - ordering from Amazon

[ndictu]

So ... I order my Kindle few days ago from Amazon (since most local shops think that taking Amazon price, +shipping/other fees in dollars, changing $ to € is OK... even the cheapest I found is still more expensive than ordering directly from Amazon).

Anyways, it calculated the shipping fees and "import fees deposit". I assumed everything was taken care of but then DHL wrote me a mail about the delivery, requesting some paperwork (scanned ID, document saying I'm not going to use it to destroy the world, which I had to print, sign and scan ... it's 2011 people...) and that I will have to pay some import duties. I asked them about that since I already gave Amazon money for that, thinking that they would take care of this crap for me and I'd just receive a nice box.

They are not responding of course, after 3 days. Which is longer than it took for the package to get here. It's now sitting somewhere in customs offices. Also, as I was told in the mail, the customs processing will take 2-3 weeks. 

- Edit: forgot my question . So, do any EU members have experience with this? Do I get the "deposit" back and pay the delivery guy, or was that just a mistake on their part or what?

[alm]

If you order from Amazon US, expect to bay VAT, import duty and brokerage fees. If you order from Amazon UK/FR/DE, they should care of any customs issues, but they usually ship from within the EU. This is the same for any order from outside the EU. On smaller orders you may get lucky that your package doesn't get picked out by customs, especially if it's shipped via regular mail. In that case you're expected to report it yourself, unless it's below the threshold for VAT or import duty. With products from major shops send by courier, customs is almost guaranteed to catch it. Brokerage fees are purely to cover the courier company's costs, and may differ between shippers.

[Bored@Work]

Contact Amazon and ask them for an explanation and to deal with DHL. Amazon clearly states that the Import Fees Deposit is supposed to be used by the carrier to pay import fees.

Avoid wasting your time with DHL. The thing with carrier companies like DHL is they give a shit about the receiver of the goods, because they are paid by the sender. Dealing with them as a receiver is like pulling teeth. (The sender is often paid by the receiver, but carriers don't care about this. They do, however, care about large senders like Amanzon.)

It of course depends on what Amazon did tell the carrier and put on the shipping papers (e.g. INCOTERM DDP) and (this is where it often goes wrong) if the carrier imported the goods according to that instruction. Often the minimum wage workers of carriers don't have the slightest clue that their company is supposed to handle some goods differently. But let Amazon sort this out. They should check if they put the right instructions on the package and if the local DHL dolts managed to understand and follow them.

[ndictu]

... If you order from Amazon UK/FR/DE, ...

I would, they won't ship to me. It says:

uk Live outside the UK? Kindle is available on Amazon.com for shipment outside the UK. Click here to shop on Amazon.com.
de Kein Kunde in Deutschland? Besuchen Sie Kindle auf Amazon.com.
fr Vous n'êtes pas en France ? Retrouvez le Kindle sur Amazon.com.
it Scegli il Kindle che fa per te e ordinalo su Amazon.com
es Si estás buscando nuestro lector de eBooks puedes comprar en Amazon.com la versión en inglés del modelo que desees

I ordered the International Shipping version from Amazon.com.

BoredAtWork: Thanks, I'll try that tomorrow. I think I replied to their mail on Tuesday and still nothing...

Also, for some reason they didn't actually charge me the deposit yet. I also order a sleeve that is out of stock so I had it split in two shipments. The deposit is in the total, but my CC was only charged for the Kindle+part of shipping costs. Maybe that is the issue here.

Anyway, from what I've heard/read Amazon has amazing customer service (they even gave me $10 discount for my next order because the Kindle sleeve is out of stock. When I received that mail I was like, wow, thanks guys, but it's my fault, I should have order sooner, no need to do that...), so I'm hoping to resolve this. Worst case I'll refuse the package and have my bank do a chargeback.