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Does anyone know if there should be customs duty on a chessbase magazine with CD from Germany? I ask because Royal Mail want to charge me £2 as a customs duty charge to give me my magazine. We are still in the EU and this is of negligible value (free in fact as part of buying CB14 secondhand unused some time ago). If I have to pay this can I reclaim it from the Post Office or the Government? I suspect that they have made a mistake.
Good sense is of all things in the world the most equally distributed, for everybody thinks himself so abundantly provided with it, that even those most difficult to please do not commonly desire more of it than they already possess. Descartes
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(08-12-2019, 11:38 PM)G Grant Wrote: (07-12-2019, 06:30 PM)donaldheron Wrote: Does anyone know if there should be customs duty on a chessbase magazine with CD from Germany? I ask because Royal Mail want to charge me £2 as a customs duty charge to give me my magazine. We are still in the EU and this is of negligible value (free in fact as part of buying CB14 secondhand unused some time ago). If I have to pay this can I reclaim it from the Post Office or the Government? I suspect that they have made a mistake.
Never heard of custom duty, sounds more like the sender has not paid the correct postage rate and they are asking you for the money before they will release the package to you. I fell foul of that once and had to pay £1 to get a Christmas card from a friend who had forgotten to put on a stamp before she posted the letter.
Hi Glynis: Thanks for your helpful reply. I visited the Royal Mail depot today with the card asking for £2 duty. I thought it must be chessbase magazine because I was not expecting anything else from abroad. As a consequence I had also contacted Customs and Excise saying that I had duty to pay but had ordered nothing from outside the EU and I needed a form to reclaim. It turned out to be a missing stamp on a Christmas card letter with no stamp from Edinburgh. I was misled by the word duty and have complained to the Royal Mail. Fortunately Customs and Excise were of no help anyway and said they do not issue paper forms - they assume everyone is online. This might seem like a big waste of time but it is a reminder that once we leave the EU then we might have to pay duty on anything from inside the EU such as from Germany ot the Netherlands.
Good sense is of all things in the world the most equally distributed, for everybody thinks himself so abundantly provided with it, that even those most difficult to please do not commonly desire more of it than they already possess. Descartes
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Glad I was able to help Donald. When I went they refused to show me the package until after I paid the 'outstanding duy' If I'd known it was only for a Christmas card I would ave told them you can keep it!!
Have a lovely Christmas
GG
