Club Obi Wan

Just a warning to UK customers. I just got a letter from ParcelForce informing me that the import duty + VAT + clearance fee is.... £93.73!!! Ouch!! I didn't think it would be THAT much!!!

Wow.....

Greedy sods. What's that? 40%??

Import Duty: £30.47
VAT: £49.76
Clearance Fee: £13.50

I might have to hijack the mail-van, Indy style

This puts getting a TN jacket waaaaaayyyy off!!

Geeze that's worse than the $95 duty that I have to pay in Canada for my Wested.

What about the £50/$100, I had to pay for the Wested that someone sent to me as a gift. Tax and Duty for sending something to it's country of origin! How does that work?

It's sickening,and what makes it worse is there's nothing you can do about it.I ask for all my international parcels to be marked as gifts and I've been lucky with used stuff,but I got stung on a new Vanson.

Can this be avoided if you have it shipped to a friend living in the States, who then turns around and ships it to the UK?

They could be re-imbursed for shipping it to the UK, but overall, it would still seem alot less expensive than that hideous set of fees/VAT, etc.

Told you a few threads back that Royal Mail are skint & this is easy money for them & it's because they can... So it works out at over £320... Too much

Also do you realise that they can charge VAT & Duty on the shipping fees!

THIS is why people try to avoid the duty. It wouldn't be as bad if we felt they were fair, eg. just the VAT. But this is pure legalised theft, to be frank.

OK you can try getting it shipped to a friend in the States and getting them to ship it to you. I reckon you'd be looking at $30.

Catch 22 is declaring value for insurance should it go missing vs duty. You can also try "sample" or "gift" too. If you are confident of the size strip off all receipts and tags & that will help. Or try a "my mate is sending the jacket I accidentally left behind in the US" note.

Thing is duty should only be charged when the goods are "freely available" in country of receipt. It'll never happen though, they'd just send it back to CA USA so they have you over a barrel.

I'll now stick with my Wested at about $400 less money & $$$s of agro.

Yeah... I thought about getting a friend to send it to me but then decided against it, thinking that the duty etc wouldn't be too much. I thought it may be around £30-40. I really didn't expect that it would be almost $200!!! oh well... I'll just have to eat cheap baked beans for a month... I just hope the jacket fits now!!!! LOL!!

I find Branston Beans to be better than Heinz & widely available in 4 tin packs for £1.00 in rubbish pound shops, Londis & Spar.

I think they have it about right, maybe £10 over. £40 would be VAT alone. Plus Import Duty (used to be about 10%) plus handling (used to be a tenner). But remember they add it to the shipping costs too...

I always reckoned on 27.5% on top of price inc shipping plus a tenner over.

I'm with you... I converted to Branston beans a few months ago

Well.... $200 poorer, I'm now the proud owner of a G&B, Dark Seal, Goat, Expedition, size 42T. I can't post any photos right now but I will say this: I owned a Pre-mod expo which someone else here owns now. The leather for this jacket is a LOT lighter than I thought it was going to be and the fit is pretty much spot on for what I wanted (something I could wear a sweatshirt or something underneath when it gets cold... I generally don't wear leathers in hot weather, unlike Mr Jones). The brand new Leather smell will take some time to wear off I expect. Shame it's touching 90F here now though!! I'll have to wait some time before I can wear it and abuse it!

Tollan wrote:... Shame it's touching 90F here now though!! I'll have to wait some time before I can wear it and abuse it!

with the weather we've had lately you might only have to wait till next week!

Speaking of import duties.... When I received my Wested the other day, the postal lady just gave it to me and had me sign. No duty collected at all.

Not sure whether I dodged a bullet, or if I'll get a bill from US Customs. When I ordered an Aero direct from Scotland I got stung for about $65 duty before I could pick up the package from the Post Office.

Anybody else care to share whether or not they had to pay import duy on a Wested?