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DHL customs duty add-on charges

Dan S
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DHL just charged me for $113 to import a watch, calling it "Duty Charges". That seemed high to me based on my knowledge of the formula used by US Customs and the value breakdown that I entered into the watch worksheet, so I went to look at the calculation. Sure enough, the actual duty was $67, the rest was various fees charged by DHL with names like "Merchandise Processing Fee" and "Duty Tax Receiver Fee". Of course, this is all on top of the shipping charges.

I am wrong in feeling ripped off?
 
seekingseaquest
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I think it’s the same with FedEx, no?

I have difficulty complaining given the costs our friends in Europe incur..
 
akshayluc420
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That's nuts! I received a watch today through FedEx; apart from the duty/HST, I paid CA$ 10 for the processing fee + CA$1.3 (tax on the processing fee).

Edit: adding the image below
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Edited:
 
Dan S
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seekingseaquest seekingseaquest
I think it’s the same with FedEx, no?

Could be. They have my credit card number and just charge me, so I don't generally go look at the breakdown. On this occasion, I had estimated what I expected to pay and had to go to their site to enter my card #, so I was surprised at the add-ons. But maybe it's normal and I'm over-reacting.

And yes, our duties are negligible compared to VAT in Europe.
 
JwRosenthal
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You are having a perfectly natural reaction to being bent over without consent by a provider in an industry with little to no regulation nor accountability.
By clicking the “agree” box, we agree to terms that are nebulous at best, intentionally misleading and vague at worst and have no recourse whatsoever if they fail to meet the terms of the agreement as the burden of proof is on us if they fail to deliver.
 
Davidt
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In my experience DHL are the quickest but certainly have the highest charges.
When I say I generally expect to add up to 30% when importing to the UK it’s as that’s roughly what it amounts to with DHL as a worse case.
 
marco
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DHL seem to be all over the place regarding charges.
I recently bought a Rolex Jubilee bracelet from Sweden. The declared cost was $1300 aud/850 Eur.
DHL in their greedy wisdom decided to charge me $267aud duty and processing fees. This is 20 % of the delared value. Our GST/VAT is 10% so on top of the freight charge they are adding another large fee which seems to be discretionary on their part. There was no itemised breakdown of the $267, just the demand to pay the $267 before they would release the package.

Another Jubilee from UK once again using DHL at a purchase price of $1800.aud had NO duty and associated costs it just arrived !
You would think the processing fee would be included in the freight cost but I think DHL has embedded customs and it looks as though they don't check all parcels but when they do they are going to hit you.
Swings and roundabouts, just expect the worst !
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YYTIN
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Oh just to say : we do have higher custom taxes and vat applied in Europe… sure, but that does not impede exactly the same behavior you mention ! All the third parties that basically don’t do anything either take their share when they can. I notice that a few times and that also ‘annoyed’ me a lot each time it happened. What I find morally wrong is that they hide themselves behind the actual custom taxes…
 
Evitzee
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It's the price of doing business, someone has to pay the costs of doing the importing paperwork and making sure the collected funds are sent to US Customs. How much was the DHL fee of $46 as a percentage of the total cost of the watch? Pretty small. I just can't get excited about these sorts of fees. Pesky, yes, but a deal breaker, hardly.
 
Dan S
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Nice that you're not excited about fees. Just to clarify, I didn't say that it was a high percentage of the watch's value or that it was a deal-breaker. However, it nearly doubled the customs duty, and this was on top of a substantial shipping fee. I see it as analogous to the obnoxious resort fees charged by hotels. Not transparent in advance, and tacked on after it's too late to make a different choice of courier.
 
lindo
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I ave endured this in Australia too. Taking it up with DHL some years ago drew a 'suck it up' response.

You can ask senders to use national postal services - if you and they are prepared to take the risk. In my experience posted items come straight through without GST or other duties. But they take longer and often have no tracking to speak of, so you can get bitten down nails before things arrive.
 
josiahg52
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I just pay the duty and leave out the other miscellaneous charges. Been doing that with FedEx for over a decade. IIRC, DHL won't ship on the package until you pay their ransom, unfortunately. I don't use DHL often.
 
Larry S
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Evitzee Evitzee
It's the price of doing business, someone has to pay the costs of doing the importing paperwork and making sure the collected funds are sent to US Customs. How much was the DHL fee of $46 as a percentage of the total cost of the watch? Pretty small. I just can't get excited about these sorts of fees. Pesky, yes, but a deal breaker, hardly.
I have imported a significant % of my collection. These fees are rounding error here in “Murica”. Indeed, I have always appreciated the humans who have helped expedite things. These folks have families to feed too.
 
JwRosenthal
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Dan S Dan S
I see it as analogous to the obnoxious resort fees charged by hotels. Not transparent in advance, and tacked on after it's too late to make a different choice of courier.
This is my issue. I have no issues paying service charges or handling fees- as long as it has been disclosed up front. The cost of filing paperwork is not a sliding scale, they know what it costs. All I ask is transparency- I at least want to be asked before I get fυcked.
 
Dan S
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Larry S Larry S
I have imported a significant % of my collection. These fees are rounding error here in “Murica”. Indeed, I have always appreciated the humans who have helped expedite things. These folks have families to feed too.

I understand all this, and obviously I appreciate the people working for DHL. However, I don't think those extra fees went to them as a gratuity. And even if $50 doesn't mean much to you in the big scheme of things, I suspect that if someone asked you whether you wanted to ship via FedEx or DHL and told you that DHL was $50 more expensive, you'd choose FedEx.
 
krogerfoot
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Dan S Dan S
I understand all this, and obviously I appreciate the people working for DHL. However, I don't think those extra fees went to them as a gratuity. And even if $50 doesn't mean much to you in the big scheme of things, I suspect that if someone asked you whether you wanted to ship via FedEx or DHL and told you that DHL was $50 more expensive, you'd choose FedEx.
I regularly work with English speeches that employees of a giant securities company in Japan deliver as part of a business-unit-of-the-month award series, and half of them laud achievements like “by automatically enrolling users of Investment Plan A into Investment Plan B simultaneously, in only 12 months we gained 200,000 users of Plan B!” Some executive at DHL surely got a huge bonus for the brilliant Duty Tax Receiver Fee.
 
shishy
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Pretty lame, considering their service is garbage. Last time I had a watch from DHL, I explicitly said signature required or whatever and the guy pops out of the van, goes to my neighbor's house, they say "it's the one next door" and he just says "you wanna give it to him later" and hands it off

(I watched this all from my window, because I perch by it when a watch is en route, so naturally I ran down and grabbed it)

Anyway, I don't think FedEx has this type of fee does it? Maybe it will.. Seems common practice now with all services (food delivery, some restaurants, etc.)
 
impalla62ss
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@Dan S same thing just happened to me and I felt ripped off as well.
MERCHANDISE PROCESSING (L1), USD 29.66
IMPORT EXPORT DUTIES (L2, USD 65.26 DUTY TAX RECEIVER (L3), USD 17.00
Total USD 111.92
 
johnireland
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I had very nice watch come from the UK...18k Omega Constellation Delux. The seller listed in on the customs form as "watch parts - assembled" and I paid $49 total...on a $5000 watch. The next time, a different seller listed a $3200 Jaeger LeCoultre 9k gold dress watch and my customs bill was over $300. It's all a crap shoot. DHL was the best in getting here and through customs. FedEx put a watch through customs and they never tell me when to expect getting it. After 10 days and no indication of when I would ever see the watch, I had to back out of the sale. With the changing exchange rates and other bad faith charges by the seller, I was out almost $1000. We roll the dice and take our chances.
 
Dan S
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johnireland johnireland
I had very nice watch come from the UK...18k Omega Constellation Delux. The seller listed in on the customs form as "watch parts - assembled" and I paid $49 total...on a $5000 watch. The next time, a different seller listed a $3200 Jaeger LeCoultre 9k gold dress watch and my customs bill was over $300. It's all a crap shoot. DHL was the best in getting here and through customs. FedEx put a watch through customs and they never tell me when to expect getting it. After 10 days and no indication of when I would ever see the watch, I had to back out of the sale. With the changing exchange rates and other bad faith charges by the seller, I was out almost $1000. We roll the dice and take our chances.

If you fill out the watch worksheet yourself there is no uncertainty in the customs duty you pay. You describe the watch accurately and put values on the different components, and the harmonized tariff schedule is used to calculate the duty. It's not a crap shoot, it just seems that way if you don't understand how it works.

You may have had good luck with DHL getting through customs based on your small sample, but based on my small sample, I have had better experiences with FedEx.
 
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