Customs Crackdown

CptSternn

Has anyone else noticed the extreme measures customs has put in place recently? I have been buying things online for years. Once in a while if I purchase something large like a new laptop or DVD player I might get a notice from customs telling me it was stopped and I have to pay VAT.

I have no problem with that sure.

However in the past two weeks myself and at least two other people I know have had a dozen items bought on ebay stopped by customs.

Now, I know the law says anything over €22 can be stopped for VAT, but the items I have been buying and my mates purchased were all small under €20 items (i.e. cosmetics from America, some batteries from China, a car light from Hong Kong, etc). The total price with shipping in many cases was only slightly above €22 - the cosmetics with shipping were €25 and my batteries were €28.

On top of this they didn't alert me for two weeks. They claimed they are back logged with all the packages coming in and because of this it is adding an extra two weeks (and counting) to everything being brought into the country, which screws you if your using ebay because you can only file a complaint an get a refund if the seller doesn't ship the item or the item is damaged within a 30 day window. If the seller is shipping out of the country it usually takes two weeks. Tack on another two weeks and now you have no recourse if the item doesn't arrive or is damaged.

Whats really silly is they stop a package worth €14, €25 with shipping. They then charge me €6 for VAT. I live out in the country. They have to send a special courier to me to sign for the item, and usually if my mates in Ireland send me packages it costs €10, so they are losing €4 by having to bring me the package.

Doesn't seem like good math to me.

Anyone else notice this going on more now than usual?

artful_codger

yes, someone i know has just had a phone held by customs until he pays import duty on it and this is the first time it has happened.

skibum

I ordered a battery for a dell laptop from ebay, cost €32 inc P&P. Got a letter from revenue asking that I send them a copy of the purchase invoice or paypal receipt to them. Sent them a copy of the paypal receipt and was told that I owe them €7.01 and An post €6.

I have attached a copy of the revenue letter, they will nab you for anything over €22

This is the reply email I got from them:
"Many thanks for your email. Your parcel will be delivered to you on Friday
by An Post, with a Customs charge of €13.01 (€ 7.01 Vat plus €6
post office handling fee). You can pay the postperson on delivery Cash,
Cheque or Postal Order (made payable to AN POST.).
Regards
Mary Bohan "

When I got it this morning I asked the postie about it and he said that he has recently seen a huge increase in cases like this........

Nody

Sorry but why are you all surprised? Every Christmas for at least the last three years customs picks up their controls as they know period up to Christmas will have more then usual number of packages of high value coming through.

Now add in to that the general poor state of the economy I'm not surprised they are evn harsher then usual (used to be 45 EUR and below was ignored iirc) to scare people to buy local/VAT paid items instead. Give it another two/three weeks and we can have our yearly RTV "Customs will check packages and make you claim VAT" interview and articles again.

jor el

You should question that VAT charge of 7.01. Although shipping attracts VAT, the rate is 13.5%, and not 21.5%. You should ask them to recalculate, with the correct rates applied to each of the item value and shipping value.

Gamesnash.ie: Pat

My understanding is that VAT is levied at 21.5% on the entire amount including shipping.

skibum

Nody wrote: »

Sorry but why are you all surprised?

I'm not surprised, been buying stuff on ebay for a few years and never got stopped, was always aware of the chances of getting caught.

It's the €22 limit that got me, I wasn't aware it was that low.

jor el

Gamesnash.ie (Pat) wrote: »

My understanding is that VAT is levied at 21.5% on the entire amount including shipping.

That seems to be what happens, but should it? Why are they allowed to charge more VAT on this service than is normally levied on the same service? If I got such an invoice, I'd question it.

Gamesnash.ie: Pat

To the best of my knowledge vat is charged at 21.5% on all domestic and international courier services. Internal mail from An Post is vat exempt for regular, standard and express post though but if sent by courier post includes vat at 21.5%. The exemption is solely for An Post though.

PaddyThai

My understanding is that there are no charges for goods bought within UK.
For that reason I am reluctant to buy from Hong Kong , USa etc. as VAT can add considerably to cost.

jor el

PaddyThai wrote: »

My understanding is that there are no charges for goods bought within UK.

Anything that originate inside the EU is already VAT and duty paid, expect for special items like alcohol and tobacco, so nothing extra is due.

ei9go

Did some EU law not change the 22 Euro limit to 150 Euro towards the end of last year?

CptSternn

Good to see its not just me.

Per the €150 limit, that was the duty limit. If your item costs more than €150 including shipping they will tack on a duty charge on top of VAT and carriage.

mcaul

jor el wrote: »

You should question that VAT charge of 7.01. Although shipping attracts VAT, the rate is 13.5%, and not 21.5%. You should ask them to recalculate, with the correct rates applied to each of the item value and shipping value.

VAT on delivery charges depends on the item you are having delivered as it is an integrate part of the cost of the item. e.g. vat on shipping charges of books is 0%, wheras a box of chocolates would be 21.5%

Where you may be confused is the VAT on the customs entry charges. This is a service which attracts a rate of 13.5%

Red Sleeping Beauty

It should be interesting to see what the DVD situations are like this year anyways.

Anything to get you into our national DVD shop HMV and pay Irish vat. €74.99 for this DVD in store while it's £14.99 on their site. €54.99 for this dvd

:rolleyes:Lol as the kids say!

corkproducers

Thanks a lot for posting this OP, the last time i checked the revenue site,
(which is an absolute c**t to find what you want btw)
im pretty sure the limit was €35 including shipping fee.

In your letter however it says "goods valued over €22",
and nothing about shipping.

But judging by your post, this limit is inclusive of the Shipping Fee also right?

*prepares to embark on the adventure of navigation revenue.ie*

ttm

skibum wrote: »

I ordered a battery for a dell laptop from ebay, cost €32 inc P&P. Got a letter from revenue asking that I send them a copy of the purchase invoice or paypal receipt to them. Sent them a copy of the paypal receipt and was told that I owe them €7.01 and An post €6.

I have attached a copy of the revenue letter, they will nab you for anything over €22

This is the reply email I got from them:
"Many thanks for your email. Your parcel will be delivered to you on Friday
by An Post, with a Customs charge of €13.01 (€ 7.01 Vat plus €6
post office handling fee). You can pay the postperson on delivery Cash,
Cheque or Postal Order (made payable to AN POST.).
Regards
Mary Bohan "

When I got it this morning I asked the postie about it and he said that he has recently seen a huge increase in cases like this........

Thanks skibum for bothering to scan and "post" the letter.

I think it raises an interesting point, as most of the chinese sellers put a false customs declaration and say either gift, replacement or under value the item so its well below 22euro, that your stuff will get intercepted if it looks like the item might be worth more than 22euro (+ postage of course) no matter what the seller says the value is. Why else would they ask for a copy of the invoice as the customes declaration should include the item value.

rubadub

corkproducers wrote: »

im pretty sure the limit was €35 including shipping fee.

In your letter however it says "goods valued over €22",
and nothing about shipping.

The limit is €22 and €45 for items marked as gifts. In christmas's gone by I have seen customs spokesmen on the news saying the limit is €45, presumably it was not worth the bother collecting on smaller amounts, he made no mention of gift/non-gifts.

Also (anecdotally) the limit usually did not include the shipping when determining if it was over the limit, but once over it was included. So it would have been very unusual to be charge on an item below €22 (excluding shipping).

I contacted customs about this

Posted To: Customs Reliefs
Conversation: Duty on mail order goods.
Subject: Duty on mail order goods.


*************************************

This e-mail has been received by the Revenue Internet e-mail service.

*************************************

Hello,
I was reading on revenue.ie which stated

"Consignments not exceeding a value of €22 may be imported from
outside the EC without payment of import charges."

Does this €22 include the price of the postage? i.e. I am looking to
get a DVD from the US, the DVD is only valued at $5 but express
delivery is $45, so would I be charged duty on this?

Thanks ***


REPLY

Good morning ***,

Please see the attached leaflets.

I can confirm the value for Customs purposes is the CIF price, Cost,
Insurance and Freight.

If there is anything further please get back to me.

Regards,

***


*** ****
Customs
Office of the Revenue Commissioners
Nenagh
Co. Tipperary

So in theory if somebody sent you a letter which costed €22 couriered to send, then you could be charged, they could value the paper it is printed on at 1cent.

corkproducers

rubadub wrote: »

The limit is €22 and €45 for items marked as gifts. In christmas's gone by I have seen customs spokesmen on the news saying the limit is €45, presumably it was not worth the bother collecting on smaller amounts, he made no mention of gift/non-gifts.

Also (anecdotally) the limit usually did not include the shipping when determining if it was over the limit, but once over it was included. So it would have been very unusual to be charge on an item below €22 (excluding shipping).

I contacted customs about this


So in theory if somebody sent you a letter which costed €22 couriered to send, then you could be charged, they could value the paper it is printed on at 1cent.

Thanks a lot for verifying it.

Red Sleeping Beauty

I'm contemplating ordering two DVDs through ebay from USA. Total comes to $34 which according to XE.com that's €22.88 and paypal's exchange rate makes it €23.49 EUR. It'd be USPS/An Post delivering.

If they come after me for the VAT + An Post's €6 fee it'd have been cheaper to pay for both DVDs to be posted seperately. Hmm, what to do, what to do...

dobh

The same thing just happened me. They said if the vat was not paid the items would be returned to the sender. In this instance I am delighted as had ( for the first time ever and feel stupid ) been duped into buying what I thought would be real Uggs but have since discovered, when double checking the company when the uggs had not arrived, that the company are one of the rubbish ones who produce very bad quality copies.

As I had not received them in time I thought they would not be arriving at all. I contacted my credit card company to reclaim the payment which is happening as we speak.

In the circumstances I am quite happy for the customs to send the rubbish uggs back to the manufacturers. If they had arrived on time, without being stopped by the customs I might not have been in a position to reclaim the payment.



I am ignoring their notice to me and off the uggs go to China........

ttm

dobh wrote: »

The same thing just happened me. They said if the vat was not paid the items would be returned to the sender. In this instance I am delighted as had ( for the first time ever and feel stupid ) been duped into buying what I thought would be real Uggs but have since discovered, when double checking the company when the uggs had not arrived, that the company are one of the rubbish ones who produce very bad quality copies.

As I had not received them in time I thought they would not be arriving at all. I contacted my credit card company to reclaim the payment which is happening as we speak.

In the circumstances I am quite happy for the customs to send the rubbish uggs back to the manufacturers. If they had arrived on time, without being stopped by the customs I might not have been in a position to reclaim the payment.



I am ignoring their notice to me and off the uggs go to China........

Let us know if you get a refund?

Sounds like a bit of a grey area?

Not saying your in the wrong but the company that sold you the boots hasn't done anything wrong as you can't prove the boots aren't genuine and the Chinese have no control over how Irish Customs works, thats for you to sort out if you buy from overseas. If the boots were late they may have been stuck in Customs again your problem not the sellers.

Don't worry I can see where you are comming from but I can also see that you might be posting back here that the credit card company didn't refund your money?

Does anyone know for sure how a credit card company would treat this situation?

dobh

I appreciate that completely except that they are claiming the boots they sell are genuine Uggs and not copies. I have no interest in buying copies as could do that at home without a bother.

The description " not fit for the purpose required " comes to mind. Other posters on other sites re this company , which for peoples interest is ukuggboots.com , say the boots are not sheepskin lined, etc etc. I could go on and on about what is wrong and diff about the boots other people have received.

When I put in the claim to the credit card co I genuinely believed the boots had not been sent as five weeks had expired without a word, when the original time scale was 5 to 10 working days ( basically two weeks approx ). The total sum is just over 120 euros. Not getting it back would not exactly be the end of the world but i hate the feeling of being ripped off no matter what the sum.

I have been purchasing on the net for a number of years, including eBay but this is the first time I have been conned. I just was not careful enough.

jor el

dobh wrote: »

When I put in the claim to the credit card co I genuinely believed the boots had not been sent as five weeks had expired without a word,

If the company has a tracking number, then they'll be able to prove that the gods were sent, and are with customs. Your charge back may well fail on that point. The company are likely to charge a fee for re-stocking, and also won't refund the shipping charge.

Then again, you might get all your money back.

dobh

they quoted a tracking number for parcel force. i contacted parcel force who said they do not ship from china to ireland. the number does not exist.

Incidentally they also took more money from my credit card than I had agreed in the purchase. This has also happened other purchasers. They are in breach of any contract i might have had with them.


Honestly, I had done everything I could to get the boots to me initially. I e.mailed the uggboot co at least five times asking where they were. I got various answers from saying they were shipped , to saying i had not paid the money and i should re-order, to saying i had paid some money but not all, and to re-order, to saying that the manager who was in charge of my account ( !!!! ) was not in the office.

I just want shut of the whole thing at this stage. I am not trying to pull a fast one.

gman2k

I recently bought a mini helmet mount camcorder (for cycling etc) from a Hong Kong Ebay seller. The buy it now price was $50.
I received the usual letter from customs regarding duty etc, so I faxed off my paypal receipt, as I don't mind paying!
Now, the customs letter stated that the item was a camcorder - no alarm bells yet!
When I received the item eventually in the post (had to pay around €13 to postie) I found that the seller had marked the item as gift, and the value as $6. (I had not asked the seller to do this)
There was no identification on the outside of the package what was contained therein.

Customs had opened the package and found out it was a camcorder.

So, it looks like they will ignore value/ gift etc, and open packages to find out what is going on inside!
I'll wait again till post Christmas before buying from Asia/ Stateside!

ttm

gman2k wrote: »

I recently bought a mini helmet mount camcorder (for cycling etc) from a Hong Kong Ebay seller. The buy it now price was $50.
I received the usual letter from customs regarding duty etc, so I faxed off my paypal receipt, as I don't mind paying!
Now, the customs letter stated that the item was a camcorder - no alarm bells yet!
When I received the item eventually in the post (had to pay around €13 to postie) I found that the seller had marked the item as gift, and the value as $6. (I had not asked the seller to do this)
There was no identification on the outside of the package what was contained therein.

Customs had opened the package and found out it was a camcorder.

So, it looks like they will ignore value/ gift etc, and open packages to find out what is going on inside!
I'll wait again till post Christmas before buying from Asia/ Stateside!

I've found a few decent ebay sellers in Hong Kong for low value items (under a tenner including postage) that use a jiffy type bag with a string closure. The string wraps around a couple of eyelets and allows the package to be easily opened, the "*****" still mark the item as a gift but at least make it easy for the customs to check and I guess as a result customs might not even bother as delivery times are often quite good around 9-10 days.

jor el

gman2k wrote: »

I found that the seller had marked the item as gift, and the value as $6. (I had not asked the seller to do this)

All t he HK eBay sellers do this, because they mistakenly believe that it works.

gman2k wrote: »

So, it looks like they will ignore value/ gift etc, and open packages to find out what is going on inside!

They've always done this, when they think it's necessary. Seems that with the tax take down, they're on a mission to get as much as they can now, hence verifying the outer package declaration on everything.

ryaner012

I ordered parts for an iphone from hong knog at the end of november and they still haven't arrived. i'm not sure if this is because an post is brutal or cause customs might have them cause of a back log. i've not received any thing really in the way of post other than a few bills.

jor el

You're jumping the gun a bit. Your first port of call should be the company you bought from, get proof of delivery, or tracking info if available. If they have none of that, then ask for a refund.

rabbitinlights

Just got two letters from the revenue regarding this. Both items are about 20 euros and postage is around 6 euros.

How on earth can they charge duty & VAT on the postage costs? It's the item that I'm importing.

Also, the goods are both second hand, does that make any difference as Revenue doesn't state this.

S.