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Paying customs duty


Bobthedog
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Due to no stock in the UK I ordered an USD 90 tem from Gruvgear in the USA. Other than taking three weeks to get to the UK, no problems from the US side. According to the UPS USA based tracking site, the item is now stuck in UK customs with duty to pay. UPS site says “contacting the addressee to pay duty” but that is all.  Because the site is US based it will not let me raise a querie from the UK. 
What is the usual way of sorting this? I have heard from no-one and Gruvgear are just saying I have to pay the duty to get it released. I have no problem with that but do not know how to do that. 
 

Any ideas?

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I’m expecting a delivery from Rush Backstage. The last three from them have been cash on the doorstep to cover all duties when they attempted delivery. I guess it would depend on the carrier. They use UPS, but DHL usually ask you to pay online before they even attempt to bring the item out for delivery. Do you know who the courier is?

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1 minute ago, hiram.k.hackenbacker said:

I’m expecting a delivery from Rush Backstage. The last three from them have been cash on the doorstep to cover all duties when they attempted delivery. I guess it would depend on the carrier. They use UPS, but DHL usually ask you to pay online before they even attempt to bring the item out for delivery. Do you know who the courier is?

UPS in the States but no idea here. The UPS site is US based and will no allow me to raise the question from the UK. 

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You will usually get an email / card / letter from the courier with a reference number for payment. They will have a part of their website where you pay the duties, Vat, and handling fees. Once that has been done you usually book in a delivery slot. 

They possibly have a back log, and you will receive correspondence in due course. 

Edited by Crawford13
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Do you mean USPS or UPS?

If it's USPS you can check the status on the Royal Mail website with your tracking number, but you'll have to wait until Royal mail send you a bill for VAT/customs duty and their handling fee.

If it is UPS log onto their website and make sure you are on the UK portion before typing in the tracking number.

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32 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

Do you mean USPS or UPS?

If it's USPS you can check the status on the Royal Mail website with your tracking number, but you'll have to wait until Royal mail send you a bill for VAT/customs duty and their handling fee.

If it is UPS log onto their website and make sure you are on the UK portion before typing in the tracking number.

I do mean USPS. Thanks and will try that route. 

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4 minutes ago, Bobthedog said:

I do mean USPS. Thanks and will try that route. 

It'll probably be sat in Coventry for a week or so before you receive the bill for the excess to pay. 

Standard at the moment due to the Pandemic unfortunately.

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Glad you sorted. In my experience it can take three of four days to get the payment letter so I normally wait until it’s in the local depot then call the tracking line (and pretend I didn’t realise you have to wait) and they let you pay over the phone with the tracking ref. Normally once I collect or have it delivered the payment letter arrives a few days later!

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1 hour ago, miles'tone said:

It'll probably be sat in Coventry for a week or so before you receive the bill for the excess to pay. 

Standard at the moment due to the Pandemic unfortunately.

This has always been the case for me, long before the pandemic!

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1 hour ago, Bobthedog said:

Thank you @BigRedX!  All done and apparently being delivered on 4th. Great tip I had no idea about.

Glad you got it sorted. I've seen several times people post about UPS (United Parcel Service of America, Inc. - the people with the brown vans) when they actually mean USPS (United States Postal Service - the US equivalent of Royal Mail/Parcel Force) so it's always best to clear that up first.

USPS parcels always get delivered by either Royal Mail or Parcel Force (depending on the size) so once they reach the UK you can track their progress through the Royal Mail web site with the US tracking number.

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I have not ordered from the US for many years. If it was not for the tip above I would still be at a loss as to what to do.  I paid $5 extra for immediate post not thinking of the delays once it left GruvGear. The strap spent a week at LAX, a week at Dallas Airport and a week at Royal Mail somewhere. At no time did GruvGear or USPS let me know how the process worked. 
 

To cap it all the card arrived 30 minutes ago explaining there was duty to be paid but with a big sticker over the what to do next box!

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10 minutes ago, Crawford13 said:

https://www.royalmail.com/personal/receiving-mail/pay-a-fee

 

That's the website you go to. Hopefully you can get your reference number from the card 

Thank you and all done. Soonest BigRedX gave me the tip above, I just typed in Royal Mail tracking, put in the US tracking code from my order eMail and the site took me right through to paying and setting the delivery time. 

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