Customs Charge - Goods Shipped from Hong Kong

Hi All,

Hopefully someone can help me with the following:

I ordered shampoo from strawberrynet.com last week. There was no extra charge for shipping and the total cost was €21.50

I was under the impression that goods under €22 were not subject to customs charge.

Postman just called to drop it off and requested €40.91 in customs charge. I didn't have cash or cheque and they don't take credit card so I sent it back to the depot to collect another day. The postman said that the goods shipped from Hong Kong.

I called customs in Dublin, explained the cost of the item etc and they have told me to send the parcel back to be re-evaluated.

Does the goods under €22 rule still apply to goods shipped from Hong Kong? The guy I spoke to in Customs didn't ask where the goods had shipped from.

TIA,
Ginger

I was under the impression that goods under €22 were not subject to customs charge

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AFAIK this is correct, check www.revenue.ie

Still don't know where they got 40 odd euro in charges for a declared value of 21.50 !

Let us know how you get on

I got stuff of that site earlier this yr and it was not my first purchase. I did opt this time though to have it registered as I had bought quite a bit. it was the first time I got a customs charge on my delivery but it was only about 23 odd euro for about 200 euro worth. Definitely worth getting it revalued.
Best of luck.

Seems a bit strange to me, when I bought products from Strawberry net (May 08) I got a letter in the post from the Revenue asking me to e-mail the invoice to them once they had that they sent me back a mail asking for paymeny which was €20 odd on goods costing €95.00 I sent off the cheque and the postman delivered my package 2 days later. Haven't heard of a postman asking for money before, did he have a letter from the Revenue?

The last time I got a customs charge (for DVD's on Play - didn't realise they shipped from Jersey and the value was above €22) I got a letter in the post too, and didn't collect them, just had them returned & received credit on them from Play.

This time the postman called with the parcel and there was a customs sticker on it indicating €40.91 to collect, but he didn't have a breakdown of the charge, as he said "I only deliver them".

I then called the customs section and was told that it was the "landed charge" - i.e. price of goods & carriage that the customs was calculated on. When I told him it was shampoo and the total charge to me was €21.50 that was when he said to tell the post office to return the goods for re-evaluation. I just wasn't sure if the €22 rule only applied to EU states or something. Not sure how they came to €40.91 though!

Anyway I will update with what happens next......

It is worth knowing that strawberrynet, as a matter of goodwill, will refund customs charges if you email them a receipt. I ordered more than 20 euro worth, got a customs charge, paid it, emailed them the customs note asking politely if they could help (it says they can on their site).

I got an email back within an hour, and the refund within a day. How's that for service?

I saw on that the site alright but as it states "We will endeavour to assist and cover in cases where duty is charged to the customers in some European countries, but we emphasize this is ONLY on a goodwill, and not on an obligation basis", I wasn't quite sure if they would be willing to refund almost twice the cost of the item. For me it's the principle of the thing - if the goods were below the threshold, then I shouldn't have to pay anything.

I was on to the An Post depot this morning to ask them to send the parcel back to be re-evaluated, and the guy I spoke to said that the value / weight on the customs declaration was difficult to read i.e. he wasn't sure if one number was a 1, 2 or 7 so maybe that's why such a large charge was applied.

It's my experience that the customs team in Portlaois (I think) have recently increased the number of packages they stop for customs purposes. It's been a bit hit and miss - some packages get stopped, some don't, but there's definitely been an increase in the number where I've had to pay.

My postie recently asked me for the cash, he had an invoice document, and it included a €5 charge for his time!! He would have been delivering the package anyway .... beats me.

BC

Just an update:

Received the parcel this morning to work, with the normal post. No customs charge (package had been opened) - so that's a result.

I didn't even get charged the €5 postie fee!

BetsyClark said:

, and it included a €5 charge for his time!! He would have been delivering the package anyway .... beats me.

BC

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This is a customs clearance fee.

Its €15 with UPS / Fedex and €65 on larger shipments manually cleared at the airport via customs clearance agent.