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

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

This whole situation sounds like a case of “Monty Python Meets the Three Stooges in a Catch-22”. :stuck_out_tongue:

Well, it’s not so much about the dollar value as the UK VAT threshold. You can buy items for £15 or less - no VAT and no collection fee, nothing.
So the $16.71 wouldn’t have had any vat or fee as it was just below that. The vat over £15 is 20%.

> the $16.71 wouldn’t have had any vat or fee as it was just below that. The vat over £15 is 20%.

I see… thanks for explaining
so, it comes down to the stated $24 value that drop put on the package…

I hope you can convince Customs that the stated value on the package was not correct

I hope you win a refund of the $15.22 in customs fees

certainly hardly seems worth buying a Tool for $16.71 given the way drop fills out the customs value.

at least so far, due to the courtesy refund, your net cost for the Tool is $15.22 (the fees)… so you already got the Tool for less than it cost…

Final update on this, a letter came this morning from the Border Force and I won the case - full refund on the £3.63 VAT :wink:
They won’t refund Royal Mails £8 charge for ‘presenting it’ to customs - even though they didn’t, DHL did :person_facepalming: who then delivered it to my local post depot, all RM did was deliver it like any other parcel.
I could fight that too, but to be honest I can’t be bothered now since i already had a full refund from Drop.

thanks for reporting back to us.

time to found a European version of drop.