[Elecraft] Re: Ordering form PA (AND UK!)

[David Honey]

At 00:47 05/09/2005, G3VVT at aol.com wrote:

>It would be great if all this worked, but am sad to say you are still at  the
>mercy of the official at the point of import who may not understand or want
>to understand the rules and can place import duty on the package. This ramps
>up  considerably the price you have to pay before the package will be 
>released.
>The  easist route at this point appears to be to pay this cost and go though
>the saga  of reclaiming the amount from Customs, which took about 3 months in
>my case. The  UK Customs involved were unreachable by telephone, did not
>answer  e-mail and the only route appears to be snail mail. Getting 
>agitated does
>you no  good, only tends to raise your blood pressure.
>
>Others have got their consignment without any hindrance of this type. Just
>the luck of the draw on the day or which way your personal Customs  official
>gets out of bed in the morning.
>
>Bob, G3VVT
>K2 #4168

Hi Bob,

Your experience echoes mine. I'm afraid it's worse than that. Mistakes may 
be endemic
in UK customs. I did manage to speak to a representative in customs over the
phone at the International Parcel Force clearing centre. I also got a 
written explanation
of why the error occurred. Apparently, their computer system only allows 
the first part
of the HS tariff number to be entered. Since there are several rates of 
duty for the same
prefix, they can charge the highest rate of duty for all the codes with 
that same prefix.
This is even though Elecraft is stating all the correct information and 
full HS tariff code
on both the customs declaration and the invoice.

It also took me about 3 months to get a refund. UK customs are supposed to 
have a
service charter and respond to claims within a certain period. I had to 
email them twice
to remind them that they had exceeded their own time limits for a response.
I have to say that if their explanation is true, the whole thing is a 
crock. In such
cases, I think the important thing is to always assert your rights and 
claim the
refund. Nils carborundum illegitemae.

Conversely, I have ordered goods delivered by courier. In all cases, the 
customs
handling of these was fast and correct. So I suspect the issue is that it 
depends
which customs clearing centre is being used. The one for International 
Parcel Force
seems a shambles.

One thing I suggested to Pam at Elecraft was that they should specifically 
stamp
on all parcels destined for EU countries that import duty is zero rated. 
Elecraft could
have a ready-made label for EU shipments that stated in bold letters "EU 
zero rated
import duty" or some such. That way, there would be a chance that a customs 
officer
using the "inadequate computer system" and entering just the prefix might be
prompted to actually look up the proper full code.

73, David M0DHO (K2 #4030).