Bartertown.com

Hey B-town,

I come seeking your collective sagely advice.

I ran into a situation that I'm not sure how to handle. Thus far in my trading career I've had nothing like it. I worked out a deal with a new fellow on btown (I'll leave his name off in case it matters). He was pretty green so I walked him through the entire process of negotiating, shipping etiquette, paypal payments, etc. He paid me for a small lot of WHFB daemons. The cash cleared and I shipped the minis to England on 8/2/2010. On 8/27/10 I messaged him to see if the package had made it okay. The message moved into my sent mail, but I never heard from him.

A little over a week ago the package showed up in my mailbox all banged up marked "return to sender." There is a sticker that says the individual to whom the package was sent never showed up to pay the customs charges. It appears that the package was sent back my way on 10/8/10 as he never paid the customs fees. On 10/31/10 I messaged the guy to ask him what happened and if he would like to try to work out an arrangement where I resend the package and try to minimize custom fees. That message has sat in his box for a week untouched. I feel bad as for his part he was a solid trader.

I'm just curious about the etiquette for this situation.

1) How long do I wait for him to recontact me to rectify this trade.

2) Is this package going to be flagged somehow with an outstanding customs charge making future attempts to send the package futile?

Thanks for your help btown. I'd like to do right by this, so any input is appreciated.

Jeremy

Britain has extremely draconian customs laws and fees. If the package is, (if I remember correctly,) over 10 GBP and not a gift or over 20 GBP and a gift it gets hit with like a 20% customs fee. Yes, even gifts get taxed in the British Isles. It's stupidly expensive. (free trade my butt)

Seeing as you said this individual was new he probably never received an international package before and had his jaw drop when the post office left him a message and told him to bring a duffle bag full of cash or never see his package again. (Yes, I do liken the process to a kidnap and ransom.) He probably got embarassed and decided to cut communications. This is just my opinion of course. I have no idea who this guy is.

However, nothing in my hypothesis grants this guy the right to simply stop communicating. At this point I'd probably recommend you try to contact him once more and then, if you are so inclined, put him up in the backouts forum. But remember, backouts now have a 30 day time limit so make sure you're safe in that regard before you post. I'd also refund him his payment sans cost of shipping.

HZ, Bartertown Watch

Rather than speculate, below is an excerpt from the Royal Mail website re customs:

All mail that enter the United Kingdom may be examined by customs, but normally letters, postcards and packets containing only documents or similar forms of correspondence are excluded.

If you are receiving a package from overseas (unless it’s from another EU Country), please be aware that it may incur customs charges. Any package assessed by HM Revenue and customs as being liable for customs charges will also incur a Royal Mail handling fee of £8.

Any goods imported into the UK over the value of £18 are liable to import VAT. Gifts between private individuals over the value of £40 are also liable for VAT. Goods and gifts over these values may also be liable for customs duty. You no longer have to pay customs duty for goods up to the value of £135, however you will still be required to pay import VAT and excise duty where applicable.

Please note that these limits do not apply to alcohol and tobacco goods where both excise duty and import VAT may be charged. It is not permitted to send alcohol and tobacco products into the UK from another EU country unless prior arrangements have been made to account for the excise duty.

More details can be found here: http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/customs/post/internet.htm

In the absence of a response from this guy within, say, 30 days, I'd say your responsibility is ended. You held up your end of the deal etc.

Now, if he should get back in contact reasonably soon, it should be possible to work this out. He should have to pay for any relevant shipping fees, since he clearly did fail to pick it up.

Unless, of course, there was some error in addressing, which you may want to double check for.

HarlequinZero wrote: However, nothing in my hypothesis grants this guy the right to simply stop communicating. At this point I'd probably recommend you try to contact him once more and then, if you are so inclined, put him up in the backouts forum. But remember, backouts now have a 30 day time limit so make sure you're safe in that regard before you post. I'd also refund him his payment sans cost of shipping.

I don't agree that this is a Backout. The guy paid. Nothing says he has to receive the package.

Now, if he kicks up a fuss about the customs fees etc, that'll be a different story.

At this point, you've done your part.
As a concientious trader, though (IMO), you should hold onto the package for a bit. After all, he DID pay for it.
If he gets in touch with you & wants you to re-ship, he should pay shipping fees again. No reason you should be punished for his mess up.


Eric

s_o_r_r_o_w wrote:Rather than speculate, below is an excerpt from the Royal Mail website re customs:

If you are receiving a package from overseas (unless it’s from another EU Country), please be aware that it may incur customs charges. Any package assessed by HM Revenue and customs as being liable for customs charges will also incur a Royal Mail handling fee of £8.

I implore you to take anything Royal Mail tells you with a grain of salt. I sent a friend of mine a birthday present that was worth 25 GBP that I marked gift and they refused to allow it through customs without him paying import duties on it. In my experience, after having shipped roughly a dozen packages to Britain, I just tell everyone to brace themselves for the extortion regardless of the package's value and if by some miracle the package makes it through WITHOUT being taxed it winds up a pleasant surprise rather than a negative one. The US and Japan are the only two countries I've discovered thus far, (I've shipped to approx. 20 different countries,) that let pretty much anything through untaxed as long as it isn't really expensive. By really expensive I mean north of about $200 USD. That's not quoted from the customs laws of any countries; it's from personal experience.

*edited to add* Also, check out the snip from Royal Mail's rules above. Basically what that means is that if you force them to actually have to collect import duties they will charge you an additional fee for inconveniencing them. That fee has nothing to do with taxes or customs. It really is a, "We can't be bothered to do our jobs so we're going to charge you extra for making us have to work," fee. If I lived in the UK I'd be pretty ticked off.

Funny thing... The EXACT same thing happened to me with a trader from Britain. I tried contacting him for months, with no luck. Finally about 6 months later he contacted me and asked for his goods. I had some similar items still so I asked him to pay for the extra shipping. He declined the deal.

I know I have been tempted a few times when someone has labeled customs paperwork incorrectly at full retail value for used minis and I got stuck for $100 Duty charge to just Return to sender, however I have never done it, I am always in too much of a hurry to get my minis. This could very well be the case in this instance.

I would keep the package together for a month and message him once a week asking for instructions for proceeding. Give him a due date, and explain what will happen if he does not contact you by the due date.

As a Canadian I find a good way to avoid customs fees is to get my senders to ship expedited.
It costs more but has a lot less hassles.

Thanks for all the feedback guys. I certainly have no plans of tagging the guy with a stigmatizing label. He did his part. The only person getting shafted here is him. I feel bad about it. I'll hang onto the package through the holidays and see if he comes around again. I'll shoot him a PM with the deadline and ask him how to proceed.

Best,
J

As a side note, thanks for sharing. It's nice to hear about what may happen if I trade with someone in England. I hadn't realized this could happen, so its nice getting a heads up.

Regardless where you're sending TO or FROM, bounced packages can happen from anywhere.


Eric

Keep all messages you sent him, and take pictures of the package and scan your shipping receipt. If he goes the paypal complaint route, you'll need all of the information you have to possibly not lose the whole payment. Heck, I'd offer to go ahead and refund him the paypal money minus the shipping you paid. That way he's not totally screwed, and you have a better leg to stand on (rather than he file a complaint, get the full amount refunded, and you're stuck eating the shipping you paid). But paypal is a turkey shoot, and he might end up getting a full refund if he goes that route.

Since we're not at 36 days since the OP, and that was both after he had sent it and received it back, the 45 day PayPal limit is either close or past.