Welcome to the real world. This is customs brokerage. They all do this. Next time, read the fine print.
Welcome to the real world. This is customs brokerage. They all do this. Next time, read the fine print.
If I use DHL or UPS as a private person, I submit necessary documents through tax agency website and don't pay a dime in brokerage fees. In the past DHL charged EUR 25 ($29) for brokerage if you did not want to visit customs and submit documents personally.
Welcome to the real world. This is customs brokerage. They all do this. Next time, read the fine print.
The fine print of a contract you are not a party to?
Quote from: wraperIf I use DHL or UPS as a private person, I submit necessary documents through tax agency website and don't pay a dime in brokerage fees. In the past DHL charged EUR 25 ($29) for brokerage if you did not want to visit customs and submit documents personally.
Is this available in the UK? I have to admit pretty much everything I get now comes from China/Taiwan using other postal services and there is never any brokerage, customs duty or VAT. It's odd how that works. But if I was to use a big name courier for goods from the US it's nice to know I can pre-empt the brokerage fees scam before they try it on.
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.
Hi,
About a week ago I've ordered 10 boards and a stencil from ALLPCB.COM . I've paid $37 for the boards, $13 for the stencil, plus $18.63 for shipping, fees, plus a discount, giving a grand total of $68.63, or 61.29€.
However, it seems that the Portuguese customs, still living in the stone age, declared the value to be 94.34€, and the VAT now is 21.23€ (a 6€ ripoff). But the worst is that now I have to pay to DHL 33.76€ plus VAT, yielding an added ripoff value of 63.22€, which by itself is more than what I already payed for the package.
Has anyone had such a ripoff with DHL? Really, doing business with this carrier is worse than doing business with thieves. IMHO, German companies such as DHL are the worst at thieving.
Kind regards, Samuel Lourenço
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 "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.The shipping was already included.
Welcome to the real world. This is customs brokerage. They all do this. Next time, read the fine print.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I say that it does not matter. Often they just don't care, take a whole value (including shipping) and slap on top their own shipping estimation.
I say that it does not matter. Often they just don't care, take a whole value (including shipping) and slap on top their own shipping estimation.Of course it matters. This isn't some magical process. It's a simple calculation.
I say that it does not matter. Often they just don't care, take a whole value (including shipping) and slap on top their own shipping estimation.Of course it matters. This isn't some magical process. It's a simple calculation.I say they often don't care if there was shipping cost in the invoice. They just take the whole figure written and slap their own shipping on top. Have you ever seen "statistical value" in customs declaration from which taxes are then calculated. Basically means they can shit on your invoice as they wish.
I'd suggest contacting DHL customer directly and showing them proof with your order or receipt that the items costed less. I've done this before in the past and they've refunded me the difference.
Having said that... if the paperwork from the supplier had a higher amount on it then any courier you used would charged VAT and duties on the higher amount. You may also want to ask the supplier which tariff code he's using sometimes you choose a different tariff code which won't have a duty fee or a lesser duty fee.
Joy Torres
Instruments 4 Engineers Ltd
www.instruments4engineers.com
I second your experience with DHL.
DHL's customs fees are obscene. Every time.
What could explain weird VAT amounts: I think they may actually include their own shipping fees in the grand total before applying VAT, which may seem right on a purely accounting point of view but something you're not necessarily expecting. This also represents the total seen by customs and thus you're not waived customs taxes on goods that you thought you would be.
Then they have added fees to handle customs fees and files on top of that.
So typically for a $50 product bought in China and shipped via DHL you will end up paying practically twice that. Had that experience with my last order at PCBWay.
Other private shipping companies are pretty similar, but IME, DHL is the most expensive.
The only way you can drastically reduce overall shipping costs is to use postal services. From China, it can take 3 or more weeks though... so...
This is why I tend to go with suppliers who lie on the customs declaration.
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