RIP OF IRELAND IS RIGHT!!

happyoutish

Firstly, apologies to Mods if this is in the wrong place.. feel free to move it.

Ok so i'm mad as hell right now... :mad:

Every year for the past 3 years or so I order perfumes online as Christmas pressies the order never changes. So off I went again this year, did my order through a UK website happy out coz some of the prices had come down..

So thats fine within 3 days my order arrives with the Post man demanding a cheque for €25 for customs???? WTF???? I asked him what for.. and all he could say was customs stuff!! This has never happened me before.. so on the box is a sticker saying "Goods not fulfilling the conditions prescribed by Articles 9 and 10 of the Treaty establishing the European Economic Community" what in gods name does that mean?? I googled it and the bloody thing doesnt make sense! Whats so annoying is this never happened any other year for exactly the same products so why now? And i received another parcel the other day from a UK website to and there was no charge on that.. It contained books and CD's!

Has this happened to anyone else? And can anyone PLEASE explain in plain English what the Articles mean!!

Ok Rant over

inforfun

It was probably sent from the channel islands and those are not part of the EU. That is why you have to pay.

djk1000

If you import goods, you should be paying duty. Due to the number of parcels coming into the country everyday, An Post cant inspect them all, you were lucky before, this time you were stung.

Death and taxes as they say.

An Post do however slap a handling/admin fee on top of the duty, which is a rip off in my book.

rubadub

happyoutish wrote: »

And can anyone PLEASE explain in plain English what the Articles mean!!

Perfume is treated differently, like booze & smokes.

http://www.revenue.ie/en/customs/leaflets/pn1179.html

3. Consignments of Negligible Value
Consignments not exceeding an intrinsic value of €150 may be imported without payment of Customs Duty, while consignments not exceeding a total value of €22 may be imported without payment of VAT. (Intrinsic value is the value of the goods alone, and does not include insurance and freight.) However, it should be noted in particular that there is no relief (from Customs Duty, VAT or Excise duty) under this negligible value provision for importations of tobacco, tobacco products, alcohol products, perfumes or toilet waters irrespective of their value.

djk1000 wrote: »

If you import goods, you should be paying duty.

Agreed.

djk1000 wrote: »

An Post do however slap a handling/admin fee on top of the duty, which is a rip off in my book.

So who should foot the bill for paying all the admin staff? the taxpayer? From the sounds of things customs are taking on new staff and catching everything, makes sense since they must be losing a fortune in VAT to online sales. I expect if you bought from a shop they might have paid handling/admin fees to customs which is passed onto the customer. Or I think in another thread somebody said if you declare your items before importing you might be exempt. I certainly do not want to be paying for people to sift through every single package to collect pittance in VAT from people which would not even cover those admin costs.

I hope some of the rip-off forum frequenters will take note and realise that shops here will include these charges already, so infact it is often the online retailer who is making a higher margin, and they should be the one you are screaming "ripoff" at.

happyoutish

Managed to get the "customs" sticker off the parcel.. My parcel was sent from Sweden, which is part of the EU.

@ djk1000 I don't think anyone could be that lucky to get away with out paying "duty" for this length of time.

happyoutish

All goods that I got were under €100..

This Country is really starting to p*** me off.. Think its time to take flight.. Next we'll have to pay tax on the air we breath!

Cabaal

How is this to do with ripp-off Ireland?
Its a customs issue that the confused OP is pissed off about, custom charges would have applied had he lived in France, Spain etc

happyoutish

Cabaal wrote: »

How is this to do with ripp-off Ireland?
Its a customs issue that the confused OP is pissed off about, custom charges would have applied had he lived in France, Spain etc

True... suppose what i'm really pissed off with is the fact that for every year for the past 3-4 years I have ordered exactly the same perfumes from exactly the same website and have not been charged with anything. And the goods were much cheaper this year then any other year.

Suppose I should have put this thread in the Rant section!

Cabaal

happyoutish wrote: »

True... suppose what i'm really pissed off with is the fact that for every year for the past 3-4 years I have ordered exactly the same perfumes from exactly the same website and have not been charged with anything. And the goods were much cheaper this year then any other year.

Custom charges suck full stop, hell I've ordered 1000's of euros worth of stuff from America and I've been caught on only two items, its luck of the draw tbh

happyoutish

Cabaal wrote: »

Custom charges suck full stop, hell I've ordered 1000's of euros worth of stuff from America and I've been caught on only two items, its luck of the draw tbh

Yep they sure do... I suppose i'll consider myself lucky to have got away with it for the past few years

See something good can come out of something horrible lol..

mukki

maybe you family reported you to customs as they are hoping for something different this year.

happyoutish

mukki wrote: »

maybe you family reported you to customs as they are hoping for something different this year.

ha ha!! I very much doubt it... Believe me I'm trying for years to get them to change perfume types... try something different etc.. Won't budge!! Stick in the muds!!

mcaul

happyoutish wrote: »

did my order through a UK website happy out coz some of the prices had come down..

And i received another parcel the other day from a UK website to and there was no charge on that.. It contained books and CD's!

1st - just because a site has a .co.uk or .ie web address does not mean it is based in that country.

2nd - If you shipped it to any other european country except the originating country you would have had similar charges applied

3rd - books do not have vat or duty applied, therefore you can import any amount of books from wherever you like in the world and no extra charges will be applied.

4th - the duty & vat pays for roads, pensions, child benefit, jobseekers allowance, hospitals, education etc etc etc. Think of it as a small contribution to what we all take for granted.

Fighting Irish

Cabaal wrote: »

How is this to do with ripp-off Ireland?
Its a customs issue that the confused OP is pissed off about, custom charges would have applied had he lived in France, Spain etc

.


Ireland is only a "Rip Off" if you let it be, same with every other country in the world

bcirl03

mcaul wrote: »

4th - the duty & vat pays for roads, pensions, child benefit, jobseekers allowance, hospitals, education etc etc etc. Think of it as a small contribution to what we all take for granted.

Dont forget TD expenses and keeping the banks afloat......or should this be added in as a 5th!

Not everything here is a rip-off, this place really is though, here's one example:

http://www.buytech.ie/index.php?_a=viewProd&productId=16834

€71.42 for LittleBigPlanet (PS3) :eek: :eek:

I bought it new a few months back for €15 in Gamestop.

Captain Flaps

happyoutish wrote: »

True... suppose what i'm really pissed off with is the fact that for every year for the past 3-4 years I have ordered exactly the same perfumes from exactly the same website and have not been charged with anything. And the goods were much cheaper this year then any other year.

Suppose I should have put this thread in the Rant section!

Maybe this is a sign that you should get a bit more creative with your present shopping?

Also, regarding the thread title, where is the Rip of Ireland exactly? I know it's to the right of something, but what? These are the real issues.

barryo2002

happyoutish wrote: »

Managed to get the "customs" sticker off the parcel.. My parcel was sent from Sweden, which is part of the EU.

@ djk1000 I don't think anyone could be that lucky to get away with out paying "duty" for this length of time.

Hi there, I assume that by your description and the origin of the parcel, that it came from "Strawberry.net"? My girlfriend buys from them regularily and this morning a parcel arrived from them containing makeup. I signed for it on arrival and after bringing it inside the house i spotted the yellow "goods not fulfilling...............etc" sticker but I didn't have to pay anything VAT, nothing, just had to sign for the parcel as usual. It's odd that you had to pay, or maybe the way things are going, it's odd that I didn't have to!!

dudara

Zombie thread - closed

dudara