UK custom charges

[tinchy]

Could anyone who's purchased components from the US and had them delivered to the UK help me out...

Looking at buying a replacement caad10 fork from cannondale experts, a US based site. Will the forks be subject to customs charges upon entering the UK - or is it too small a package etc. to qualify for such things?

Thanks

[ultimobici]

Depends.

If Royal Mail are involved you're looking at VAT at least.

Have you looked into getting the forks through a UK based Cannondale dealer?

[tinchy]

Yeah looked for UK based ones but to no avail. This site/shop in the US seems to specialise in cannondale parts.

The site uses USPS international service, and, from what Ive read on the net this means its transferred to parcelforce in the UK - not royal mail.

[deltree]

Have you not tried a LBS that deals with CSG?

[5 8 5]

Parcelforce is Royal Mail. Factor in VAT and a handling charge.

[tinchy]

So by the looks of it thats 20% VAT + £8 handling fee according to royal mail. Is that all the possible charges?

[Beancouter]

The only bits that I have got from the US which haven't been caught by customs have been small (in a jiffy envelope). Typically, it gets caught. You will probably pay vat, duty plus handling charge. I usually budget about 25% of the cost plus £10. That way I'm not dissapointed.

The UK importer of Cannondale is Csg in Poole. Not sure what is wrong with old fork , but don't forget that they come with a lifetime warranty. May be worth a call....

[KB]

I ordered a Firefly seatpost from the States. Firefly were fine, no criticism of them; once Royal Mail and Parcelforce in the UK got there hands on it, it was a cluster f**k. Delays, VAT and Duty.

Never again. Suggest Beancouter's suggestion.

[legs 11]

If you order anything from the US never use US Postal as they have a tidy little arrangement that allows them to only pass packages on to Parcelforce/Royal Mail. There is a 90%+ chance you'll get screwed over.
I used to get loads of rims sent over from the states and always got shafted, an enormous handling charge and VAT at a minimum. And if the tax man decides the value isn't correct or the value has not been filled in by the exporter they tend to come up with some crazy estimated values to work out the VAT charge on.
DHL have a nasty habit of delivering your parcel and then sending you a mental bill a few weeks after (I had one that appeared over 2 months after delivery!) If you don't pay it within 14 days they hand it over to a debt collection agency and you get pestered constantly, even after you've paid the damn bill.
The best solution in my experience was to pay for Super Express by UPS and just take the extra cost. They fly straight through customs and you never get any hassle. I have had well over a dozen UPS deliveries and never had any hassle at all.

[tinchy]

What sort of delivery times did you encounter legs11 when just using usps/parcel force, including getting though customs?

[legs 11]

I was getting quite large boxes of rims, so big parcels. It would take 10-14 days for the cheaper options (of which 6-7 days would be in UK customs).
Although it did vary quite a bit with Parcelforce, depending on the time of year etc.
UPS were 48 hrs maximum, they went straight through customs without ever even being stopped.
The cheap option was costing around £40 plus charges, while the superfast option was around £100 all in, I decided it was always worth taking as I was getting totally ripped off by Parcelforce as they were hitting me for a holding bill of £20, a handling and paperwork charge of £10-15 (this also often varied) and very unreliable VAT import charges.
For a box of 14 rims I was being charged anywhere from £80 right up to over £200!
If you're unlucky and get Mr Jobsworth customs man they can just slap on an estimated value!
It's tricky when you're trying to cost up the prices of your wheel builds with such a big variance in import costs.
Whichever option you go with, make sure the value is clearly written on the export document as 9/10 times this is what leads to over valuing in my experience.
Best of luck, Rob.

[tinchy]

thanks for the info !

[giant man]

It's expensive importing anything from the states. Anything over £15, would you believe, and you will incur import charges. If poss, get it over here, much cheaper.

Take a look at this site and you will be able to find out how much you will be charged. http://www.dutycalculator.com/

[tinchy]

OK thanks. Looks like for the value of the forks (£170), import charges will be around £30. Is that excl. VAT though?

Sorry, Im a student being stingy.

[deltree]

Have you even tried CSG? I'm fairly confident it'll be cheaper and less of a PITA. You may have to wait a bit longer though.

Alternatively Dr. Cannondale based in Germany, you won't have to pay Duty or Tax.

http://www.cannondale-parts.de/epages/6 ... USI/BBQ%22