Post from Australia

Hi All
A British friend of our received a parcel this morning from her sister in Australia. It was as hand knitted sweater (knitted by her sister) as a birthday present. It’s value was declared as €25.

The post demanded €100 duty to deliver it, she declined and they said they would return it to the sender.

I cannot believe €100 was really payable is this now policy as Australia cancelled the French submarine contract!

Regards

Nick

I work as a rule of thumb on 33% extra on the item(s) value being payable for non-EU. For handling and VAT and all the little miscellaneous rubbish charges that each participant in the chain likea to salami-slice off the consumer then the VAT on that total.

That’s for items on which normally no duty would be charged - which would increase the 33% by the duty, then by service charges down the chain on the duty, then by more VAT on that…which can get really extreme.

I can’t see how a handknitted sweater of that value, which does seem to be a fair value, got to 100 Euros. Was there a mistake? I,d have denanded a full breakdown with the aim of challenging it

It’s as though with the removal of the concessions on small personal gifts and packages, all the governments of the world and all the still-too-big post office organisations have got together to rip off the consumer because there aren’t many letters or publications being delivered by post any more but these huge government and former-government organiaations are still in place

Oh gosh. I’m think I better tell mum not to send presents this year! It does my head in anyway as she doesn’t spend a lot then spends aud50 in postage!

I agree @KarenLot it is really unfair hitting gifts. Oz still has aud1000 duty free for orders / parcels.

What were the contents actually worth?

I am certain I would have refused it as well, but would be worried about the cost to the original sender when returned. Do you know if it was received and how much was demanded?

If the amount was similar, and refused again, does it bounce back and forth for eternity? :thinking:

It’s nothing new. Maybe 5 years ago we looked after gites for some Auzzie friends who would travel here every year out of season. He was a very keen cyclist and rode what I thought were ridiculously expensive bikes one of which he would bring one with him every year.
One year he decided that instead of travelling with the bike, which was extremely lightweight, he sent the bike ahead of them via courier having found it was a cheaper option and given assurances by the Auzzie courier that their price was all inclusive. The insurance part of the deal required the contents value which was declared as 10k, for a bloody pushbike !!!
The bike arrived here before they did and I was to take delivery. The courier arrived and would not hand the bike over until nearly 600 euros in duty was paid.
Needless to say I didn’t pay it, or get the bike. The bike returned to Bordeaux and stayed there until our friends arrived. Many phone calls were made protesting the charge until eventually our friends drove to Bordeaux (5 hour round trip) to collect the bike and pay the duty with the intention of getting a refund from the Auzzie courier on their return, which never happened.
The moral of the story, parcels sent from one EU to another EU country is fine and cost effective, anything else, forget it.

Well I owe the French post an apology, my wife went into the local post office and the lady there was horrified but tracked down the postman to the local sorting office.

It turns out the cost was only €10 somehow with a lack of French our friend managed to misread the bill as €100.

Unfortunately it was too late to recover the item so it is on its way back to Aus and her sister might have to pay €10 to get it returned.

The post office pointed out that the sender can pay the VAT at their end so no charges are applicable in France.

I I have just bought a service kit (all filters etc) from the UK for my LR Disco as I have done since 2017 when we got it. The price was considerably cheaper than buying it in France but had gone up by about £25 to have the sender paying the VAT upfront.

Now our local garage are doing the service for €150 so total cost of about €300 as opposed to the LR concessionaires price of €750

Regards

Nick

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