If you thought Royal Mail was bad ...

... try Bpost.

3 weeks ago (April 11th, to be precise) I bought some tires from a US-based supplier.
Tracking number received on the same day, so no complaints about their service. Same day shipping really means just that. Nice one, Jeff.
The tires arrived in Brussels around the 20th and entered customs. Yup, I'm screwed. Then again I didn't expect $90 worth of tires to slip through customs undetected.

More than a full week later I received a letter from Bpost to inform me that I need to supply the Paypal receipt so that customs can determine the value.
I didn't intend on waiting another week for the return letter to reach them, so I sent the Paypal receipt straight to customs and within 48 hours the tires were cleared.

Today the postman is at my door. 25.65 EUR customs charges and a 10 EUR handling fee on top because they had to do handle customs and advance the charges. C.O.D. of course, because Bpost have never heard of invoices.
Postman Pat doesn't carry cash and doesn't accept cards, so I need to supply exact change or wait until Monday so I can pick the tires up at the postal office.
There was also a third option, and that was to give him 40 EUR and tell him to keep the change. Yeah, like that's going to happen. :evil:

I really was hoping to get the tires on the bike this weekend to do some off-roading with a few friends. Guess I'll be doing it on slicks. This will be interesting.
Good way to blow off some steam, and I'll need it. The steam is coming out of my nose as I write this.

Re:

Here's one to cheer you up; UK Govt. charges VAT on all good imported from outside Europe... even warranty returns or free replacement parts. :shock:

I found this out when a Chris King hub was returned to my son after a FOC warranty repair; and as it was a warranty repair KC had given it a zero value, but ohhh no that was not good enough for the Chancellor, so they estimated the full brand new value of a CK hub, and charged us VAT on that! Plus of course the £8.00 handling fee from the Post Office.

I spoke at length to the VAT office, and they fully sympathised that we had paid VAT twice on the same item (once when new, and now again after the repair), but apparently the only one who can change the rules is the Chancellor of the Exchequer.. so that ain't about to happen.

I have fallen foul of this too. I have found a courier in the south west. That has extremely favourable rates byte requires payment on delivery Not based on the value of the goods but in cake.

Re:

VAT is not payable on cake, therefore you're saving 20% right there.

what about the one in the East?

legrandefromage":1qze4doo said:

what about the one in the East?

Click to expand...

Ahh you must mean me? Well my international driving licence never arrived here from UK at all. So Royal Mail might suck but postal services elsewhere don't seem any better.

On the topic of paying unfair taxes. While living in Indonesia a few years ago i ordered a locking diff for my Jeep from the USA and had it sent to UK because mail services in Indonesia are like playing roulette. Of course i got stung for UK duties/taxes. It took quite long before i could collect it in person from UK so wasn't able to claim back the taxes on departure. So there's an example where the UK chancellor got taxes for an item that was neither sold nor used in UK. Not complaining though as it was the best way of knowing i'd actually receive the thing.