Play.com - I just got charged E12 customs excise

garden

Hi i order a ds game for my son and went to my mam's yesterday and it had arrived but she had to pay our postman E12 for the item. E6 of that was postage and E6something was for customs. The item was worth E32 - I thought being in the EU we could buy from other countries without having to pay customs:rolleyes:

Das Kitty

Where was it posted from?

snubbleste

Jersey, where Play.com is located, is not in the EU customs zone. You are liable for vat if the product&postage is in excess of €22.
I'm not using a rolling eyes smilie though.

Irishrossoblu

Play.com is not registered in the EU as far as I know. Its in the Channel Islands. So you pay duty on any order over €22.

Paulw

Play.com don't ship from within the EU. They ship from Jersey.

See item 38.

http://www.play.com/Help.html?page=playterms#jump-06

garden

ok I thought it was from UK

DesperateDan

I have bought many, many items at over €22 from play and never been charged vat, is it random who gets charged?

Bazzy

its hit and miss they check them randomly

Zab

You just got unlucky garden. The majority of items priced around that just slip through when sent via standard post. However, play aren't even as well priced as they used to be so you could shop around in future (coolshop, thehut etc), buying from places in the EU removes the small chance of being caught by customs.

run_Forrest_run

Revenue are really clamping down on this, now that they need every penny!
Funny how during the boom times I was receiving stuff from the States and never nabbed for customs, makes you wonder what were these people doing back then :rolleyes:

jor el

Plenty of people, including myself, had to pay import duty on purchases during the boom years, this is nothing new. People are just noticing it now, and talking about it. There is no clamp down, as they can only intercept and inspect a certain amount, and always have. There may be more people importing from sites like Play, DealExtreme, CDWOW, etc now than there were 10 years ago, hence there are more people with the potential to have to pay.

Gamesnash.ie: Pat

garden wrote: »

Hi i order a ds game for my son and went to my mam's yesterday and it had arrived but she had to pay our postman E12 for the item. E6 of that was postage and E6something was for customs. The item was worth E32 - I thought being in the EU we could buy from other countries without having to pay customs:rolleyes:

Hi Garden - the €6.00 postage is actually An Posts handling fee for collecting the other €6.00 on behalf of the revenue. UPS charge a lot more if it's any consolation. You coluld have had a €21 bill off them !

As was mentioned already play.com are based outside the EU in the channel Islands - a huge amount of the larger online retailers are based there. Prices from these retailers do not include VAT at 21% which is one of the main reasons they can appear to be a lot cheaper than retailers operating within Ireland. It was unlucky for your package to have been intercepted as a majority do go through.

bcirl03

What would happen if you refused to pay? Said you didnt want the package?

Would the item go back to Play?

noodler

bcirl03 wrote: »

What would happen if you refused to pay? Said you didnt want the package?

Would the item go back to Play?

Not sure if they'd eventually send it back.

You'd have no comeback to play in either case though.

Bought a couple of heavy Duty box sets from Play a few years ago before they forced you to buy in euro and they were delivered via courior strangely enough (obviously a value thing).

Zardoz

jor el wrote: »

Plenty of people, including myself, had to pay import duty on purchases during the boom years, this is nothing new. People are just noticing it now, and talking about it. There is no clamp down, as they can only intercept and inspect a certain amount, and always have.

I'm afraid that there is a clampdown .
I regularly get deliveries off DHL and the drivers with whom I am friendly have told me that customs have gone mad over the last few months.
They said before it was a random check ,now they are checking every second item and opening alot of them.
Its creating extra work for the drivers as they have to collect money ,something they dont like doing.

Zab

Zardoz wrote: »

I'm afraid that there is a clampdown .
I regularly get deliveries off DHL and the drivers with whom I am friendly have told me that customs have gone mad over the last few months.
They said before it was a random check ,now they are checking every second item and opening alot of them.
Its creating extra work for the drivers as they have to collect money ,something they dont like doing.

I have no idea if there's a clampdown in effect or not, but DHL and An Post don't seem to go through the same procedures wrt customs at all (or customs treat the packages differently). I have rarely been charged for packages via an post, but I think I've always been charged via private services like DHL. I had always assumed that being charged was essentially automatic when using DHL etc.

dudara

Moved to Online Buying & Auctions

dudara

Simon Adebisi

Bazzy wrote: »

its hit and miss they check them randomly

Strange. I checked my purchase history with PLAY lately and ive ordered nearly 200 items from then since 2001 or so and have never been hit with a customs charge. And a lot of thoses items were well over the limit too. I must be very lucky

whiterebel

Zab wrote: »

I have no idea if there's a clampdown in effect or not, but DHL and An Post don't seem to go through the same procedures wrt customs at all (or customs treat the packages differently). I have rarely been charged for packages via an post, but I think I've always been charged via private services like DHL. I had always assumed that being charged was essentially automatic when using DHL etc.

Same procedure, just much bigger volumes with An Post, and therefore harder to catch everything. Plus most times you have to declare a value with the couriers, whereas you may not have to with standard mail.

ednwireland

got from memoryc.co.uk recently for VAT, bought plenty

i guess times are hard