Drop.com the cause of Customs Fee / Handling charge - mispriced customs label

No, I haven’t seen the label yet, I await it tomorrow. As for declared value, it is kind of immaterial, I was told by customs themselves today if I can prove it was under £15 including shipping (which it was) I will have no worries. The total is £14.28 including the free shipping.
This is where DROP may have to shoulder some responsibility…… if they marked it as more they are lying about how much I paid in total - which is what counts. Basically they MAY have caused all this fuss for no real reason. This is all in theory of course lol! Should it prove to be their fault I’ll aim my cannon at them next.

Same here let the last one go, £8 charge to pay £5.

Plainly this is quite a common practice, as I expected and was told by customs. This has only been on here a few hours and already a few are saying the same thing. It is one big ‘hidden’ tax collection, and free cash for RM.
To be fair the guy at customs seemed quite annoyed to, as it takes up most of his day answering questions about £3 etc…

I edited above cos I googled the knife. It’s a cool one, especially in the blue linen micarta.

I got the hell out of Massdrop a few years ago after a titanium hip flask fiasco. They sent it, I paid my fees, it was poorly finished and nothing like the photo mockups, I sent it back at my cost. Another was sent and I was charged again etc etc. I never got my return costs back and reluctantly paid the second lot of fees because the seller wouldn’t communicate. As I said, it’s a headache and it leaves a bad taste. Even though the second flask was ok, I sold it on at less than my costs and stepped away, I never felt I’d enjoy using it after months of emails and getting nowhere.

As far as I know, the customs declaration value on the package is what the VAT and £8 fee is calculated on. It is all that HMRC and Royal Mail have to go on, they’ve no business asking you to prove anything, they should be asking the seller who paid the shipping, not you. The seller, or his point of sale must declare the shipping costs on the label at time of posting. This is what the fees are calculated on. Royal Mail can not pull a figure out of the air and ask you to prove it.

The form to claim the money back (or try to) asks for the invoice showing what I paid. It is customs who want it, not the post office. I am just going by the instructions given.
The form is BOR286 should anyone need it in the future.

Oh, and I recorded the phone call to customs too (always do if I think it will be needed for evidence)

So the parcel came today - as I thought idiots at DROP are to blame and put the value of $24 even though I paid $16.71 as was listed on their site.

CLEARLY on THIS page it says - ‘The prices listed on Drop include the cost of the product and shipping , but do not include customs fees.’
Lets see what they have to say about it. Customs as it goes did their job correctly.
Muppetts. :person_facepalming:

They always do this. I had one brass drop tools basically for free ($2.50 s&h), but they declared $30. Had to pay taxes. Another guy on TLF wrote to the customs office, proving the lower price, and got taxes back.

Why would store/shipper INcrease the value on the declaration form? It really creates problems for the customers and they won’t come back or ever order from them again.
Time has a higher value than the items shipped.

So, this is the rather feeble reply I got.
I would LOVE to know what the point of contacting my local customs office is BEFORE ordering, when they only pull a MRSP out of their butt AFTER you have ordered. If that is the case, the MRSP should be CLEARLY marked on the site for International customers to see. I have now forwarded all this to their CEO, Mr El-Hage. steve@drop.com should anyone else need it.

Katrina Miller (Drop Community Support)

Jul 29, 2020, 10:58 AM PDT
Hi ,

Thanks for contacting us here at Drop Community Support. My name’s Katrina and I’ll be helping out today.

The prices listed on Drop include the cost of the product and shipping. Customs fees are not included in that amount.

All orders shipped internationally are subject to customs fees. While we sell them for around $17.00 USD, we legally have to put the MSRP on the shipment as this is the value that the manufacturer has put on this item. The fees and taxes levied on imported goods is up to the discretion of the customs agent in the country of importation. Before purchasing items on our site, we advise customers to reach out to their local customs office for information about the duties and fees to be expected.

For more about customs fees you can see our Help Center article on Customs Fees.

I hope this helps! Feel free to reach back out if you have any other questions or concerns.

Best,

Katrina ’

Would love to know where the legal requirement is to declare a shipment with the MSRP and not the actual price paid? anybody knows enough about postal/US export/customs law to elaborate?

It’s actually really patronising, making out I’m the idiot for not checking this ‘made up’ amount which was not listed with my local customs. Especially as I made it CLEAR I checked beforehand.
2 orders from the USA both were a disaster. 2 out of 2, beat China hands down, at least they usually try to help.
Imagine they had decided to put a value of £100 :person_facepalming:

The only problem I had from China was that vouchers, discounts and coupons were NOT subtracted from the declared value. Which is also borderline difficult. But I can somehow understand that the logistics and shipping team might not know how the customer funds the order. They only “see” the total price paid. So a flashlight could be 15$ US after coupons, but, say, 27$ US before (just an example). A European customer might have to explain this to customs already.

I am clueless whether MSRP is a must on the tax form when exporting from the US. That would be a real issue then.

Full refund after my email to the CEO.
Amy (Drop Community Support)

Jul 31, 2020, 9:20 AM PDT
Hi,

This is Amy reaching out from Drop Community Support.

I was forwarded your email from our CEO and wanted to reach out. I have reviewed this order and can help provide some clarity.

I understand your concern with us marking the package as “$24” even though you paid a lower amount. Our warehouse goes by the subtotal of the item, this amount is listed on both our product page and on your transactions page on Home | Drop.

For future orders, this means that no matter what discount you used, it does not affect the subtotal (or value of the unit). For example, if you have enough credits accumulated from our VIP Rewards Program and you end up paying your order all in credits, the unit value will still be listed on the package, not $0.00.

I understand this is a confusing experience and so I have issued a full refund to your original form of payment method to help you out this time, but wanted to help you understand how the unit price works on any future packages.

Feel free to let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

Sincerely,
Drop Community Support

Good gesture from their end, but not helpful for future orders.

I’ll order again, but taking into account taxes and handling through DHL based on orginal price. So, prices/discounts must be really good.

This is stupid beyond belief.

Yes, it was a nice gesture.
BTW this part, which they still don’t accept is NOT true. ‘this amount is listed on both our product page and on your transactions page on drop.com/transactions.’
I have just checked again, there is no mention of $24 anywhere on my transactions page.

I think this is exactly as they said it, internal logistics teams see a different price on their end. Had the same issue so many times with other shippers, even AliExpress. seller/CS tells you one story and the guy picking and packing/printing the label has some other information.

These people have no way of knowing at what discount, coupon or what rebate you purchased the product. Gearbest i.e. always put down the original price they had pre-discount from their website. which was a ridiculously high price.

Super confusing.

UK customs sounds like a bitch… I feel sorry for you guys.

> paid 16.71
> they listed $24

How much extra customs fee did you have to pay? :cry:

And congratulations on your courtesy refund. :beer:

The customs fee was a small £3.83 - but Royal Mail charge a whopping £8 to collect it - I say collect - I paid online lol! To be honest, years ago a postman actually collected it - not now, which makes RM a lot of money for nothing - to be honest I don’t know why they are even involved- nowadays you could just pay Customs directly, and I see no reason why that isn’t so - it’s all a big old con.
I have also applied to customs to have the £11.63 returned, and am awaiting the result.
Principals - they should never be forgotten, no matter how petty - not if you KNOW you are right and are being wronged. They EXPECT you not to make a fuss, and that is why they get away with it.
Not with me though. :smiling_imp: :stuck_out_tongue:

ouch!

what was the DIFFERENCE in fee?

between the
> paid 16.71
and
> they listed $24