Shipping + custom charges + delays.

[Fragil1ty]

I know this may be me being a little pedantic, but, my shipping has been stuck on 'awaiting customs charges' for 2 days now, I've ordered online many, many times in the past and normally when my item has cleared customs, it's automatically priced and sent on it's way to the local office depot near my area for delivery and what not.

Is this something that I should be concerned about or is customs just being slow/annoying as per usual?

Another concern that I'm unfamiliar with is this;

I've ordered a HHKB Pro 2 from smartimports and the guy has stated that he's marked it as a low quality keyboard which equates to 4500yen (25gbp), so I pay little to no custom charges and what not, are they able to look inside my package and check it and re-evaluate the cost or will customs take that at face value and charge me per the recorded price that SI have marked it as?


Thanks a lot.

[digi]

That's very normal. I've had items stuck in US Customs for 7-10 days before..

[kenmai9]

I've ordered a HHKB Pro 2 from smartimports and the guy has stated that he's marked it as a low quality keyboard which equates to 4500yen (25gbp), so I pay little to no custom charges and what not, are they able to look inside my package and check it and re-evaluate the cost or will customs take that at face value and charge me per the recorded price that SI have marked it as?


Thanks a lot.

In my unprofessional opinion, I would think that customs agents (government workers) are way too lazy to check whats inside a package to make sure that it's value is correct, cross-referencing the product online with what is written on the package.

[paicrai]

probably bombs

[Fragil1ty]

Oh okay guys, thanks a lot, just wanted to make sure.

My patience when it comes to waiting for parcels? it's not the best. ._.

[Sagii]

Oh okay guys, thanks a lot, just wanted to make sure.

My patience when it comes to waiting for parcels? it's not the best. ._.

Haha, tell me 'bout it.. just to chime in, I've had the same thing happen with customs, so as everyone else has said; don't think it's anything to worry about ^^
What's worse was when I ordered my HHKB. It had tracking within american borders only, and after that I had to suffer silently while also hopefully checking my mail several times a day )

[Fragil1ty]

Oh okay guys, thanks a lot, just wanted to make sure.

My patience when it comes to waiting for parcels? it's not the best. ._.

Haha, tell me 'bout it.. just to chime in, I've had the same thing happen with customs, so as everyone else has said; don't think it's anything to worry about ^^
What's worse was when I ordered my HHKB. It had tracking within american borders only, and after that I had to suffer silently while also hopefully checking my mail several times a day )

Got some relatively bad news, I've been reading around and apparently i'm going to have extra charges on my parcel because of the following message.

15-07-201400:53 - International Hub - Revised charges to be paid

Uh oh?

[kenmai9]

Oh okay guys, thanks a lot, just wanted to make sure.

My patience when it comes to waiting for parcels? it's not the best. ._.

Haha, tell me 'bout it.. just to chime in, I've had the same thing happen with customs, so as everyone else has said; don't think it's anything to worry about ^^
What's worse was when I ordered my HHKB. It had tracking within american borders only, and after that I had to suffer silently while also hopefully checking my mail several times a day )

Got some relatively bad news, I've been reading around and apparently i'm going to have extra charges on my parcel because of the following message.

15-07-201400:53 - International Hub - Revised charges to be paid

Uh oh?

Then yeah I was completely wrong.

Have you contacted the proxy? Maybe he will split the fee or pay for it?

[Fragil1ty]

Oh okay guys, thanks a lot, just wanted to make sure.

My patience when it comes to waiting for parcels? it's not the best. ._.

Haha, tell me 'bout it.. just to chime in, I've had the same thing happen with customs, so as everyone else has said; don't think it's anything to worry about ^^
What's worse was when I ordered my HHKB. It had tracking within american borders only, and after that I had to suffer silently while also hopefully checking my mail several times a day )

Got some relatively bad news, I've been reading around and apparently i'm going to have extra charges on my parcel because of the following message.

15-07-201400:53 - International Hub - Revised charges to be paid

Uh oh?

Then yeah I was completely wrong.

Have you contacted the proxy? Maybe he will split the fee or pay for it?

I'm just going to wait and see what the charges are, if they're over $50, then I'm not going to be impressed what so ever.

[Fire Brand]

Not sure where you are from but assuming the UK since you mentioned GBP if so yeah the customs have the right to open packages and inspect them although I have not seen this happen personally with smaller packages but, I have had it happen a few times with the larger stuff, in which case you need to prove the actual price, and if you where trying to doge the charges just say the real price otherwise you get in a heap of bother :/

Although if it you do only get a 50 charge thats not much at all seeing as a shipment via fedex consisting of around £170 got me a £27 customs fee so its pretty reasonable luck of the draw really with the whole customs thing, interested to know what it ends up being though.

[Fragil1ty]

Not sure where you are from but assuming the UK since you mentioned GBP if so yeah the customs have the right to open packages and inspect them although I have not seen this happen personally with smaller packages but, I have had it happen a few times with the larger stuff, in which case you need to prove the actual price, and if you where trying to doge the charges just say the real price otherwise you get in a heap of bother :/

Although if it you do only get a 50 charge thats not much at all seeing as a shipment via fedex consisting of around £170 got me a £27 customs fee so its pretty reasonable luck of the draw really with the whole customs thing, interested to know what it ends up being though.

I meant 50 quid in GBP, my apologies. (US keyboard, my bad). I mean, the highest amount that I've had to pay for a board thus far is around 30 quid? so that's not too bad, I guess, but it's still a lot for customs and what not in my opinion, I know that it's not the way that things work, but I see it as, i've already paid for shipping and the product, why should I have to pay even more for customs? but heh, it's the way that the world works really.

I did the math and if my calculations are correct, it'd equate to around 39 GBP for the VAT + their handling fee, so if that occurs then obviously I'm going to have to pay a lot for the handling of it and what not, bit crappy really. I hope that's not the case in the end, but I'll let you know what the final amount comes up too when it arrives.

[Fragil1ty]

Just going to update this thread, so that I don't have to remake new threads while spamming nonsense and annoy people, but I thought I'd keep it up to date and what not regardless.

Another minor annoyance today, so basically, what I did was. I told Parcelforce via: their contact form, can you please send me my reference number as I would like to pay my charges before the card gets dropped through my door in an effort to get the keyboard early as I hate waiting for parcels,  I have stuff to do also, meet with clients, showcase finished work and what not, if that's what they desire and so on, but I digress.

I sent this message through the contact form (10am'ish) and didn't get a response back until 6pm that night, so I replied with my name, address and tracking number and thought, oh that's good, I'll get the code tomorrow and then I should be able to pay for it tomorrow and get it on Wednesday, no problems, but did that happen? nope. It's currently 10pm and I didn't hear back from that guy today, so looks like I wont be getting that parcel tomorrow.

It's currently located at the NW of England processing centre or whatever, so the card is going to get posted tomorrow regardless and then I pay for it and then I get it on Thursday, but in my eyes, this is just a little bit pathetic, here's the reasons why:

1. I pay for EMS shipping from Japan and it's perfect, gets here fast, no problems. Once it's turned over though? completely different story.
2. Customs hold it for longer than necessary for no apparent reason and 'revise' my charges for whatever reason.
3. Takes 3 days to get from shipping to NW processing depot despite being no further than 2 hours away.
4. Parcelforce email support is horrendous.
5. I try to better the situation and pay early to correct some of the wrongs that have happened along the way and poof, I cannot even do that.

Sorry for the rant and what not, just wanted to explain the situation and why it's not a good idea to use Parcelforce, if you're from England, lol.

ANYWAY!

Please look out for my review and first impressions that are going to be popping up in the 'reviews' section, I look forward to the write ups. Thanks for reading if you have gone ahead and done so.

[Photekq]

Parcelforce is ****, but unfortunately they're always who EMS hand it over to. Nothing we can do about that. We just need to put up with their crap.

[Fire Brand]

Yeah I agree parcel force sort of sucks, its the blooming £11 charge they put on top of something that gets me, at least you got it, my experience I hardly ever need to pay customs for EMS then again if it was marked as a low end keyboard maybe we have a geekhacker in UK Customs, that's  scary thought.

PS Edit: If you ever buy anything high value have a think about FedEx as the customs rates for them usually work out cheaper in the end, and the shipment is normally 3-4 days to your door and they pay in advance giving you the item and around a week before sending the letter out saying how much you need to pay, although you will always have to pay fedex, just something to think about.

[Fragil1ty]

It has been quite annoying, I'm not going to lie.

The worst part was actually trying to get them to give me the actual reference number, I had to send them around 3-5 messages on the contact form side of things, I realise that I'm not their only customer, but they should at-least make an effort in trying to reply to their emails and what not, considering that's what the email support team is there for.

Anyway, here's the information as promised.

I used smartimports.net for this purchase btw, so you should definitely check them out.

HHKB Price: $280.67 (163.91GBP)
Shipping Price: $29.47 (17.21GBP)
Total: $310.14 (181.12GBP)
Total customs price: $37.16 (21.70GBP)

Hope this provides some insight for the users hoping to import a HHKB Pro 2 to the UK.

[Fire Brand]

It has been quite annoying, I'm not going to lie.

The worst part was actually trying to get them to give me the actual reference number, I had to send them around 3-5 messages on the contact form side of things, I realise that I'm not their only customer, but they should at-least make an effort in trying to reply to their emails and what not, considering that's what the email support team is there for.

Anyway, here's the information as promised.

I used smartimports.net for this purchase btw, so you should definitely check them out.

HHKB Price: $280.67 (163.91GBP)
Shipping Price: $29.47 (17.21GBP)
Total: $310.14 (181.12GBP)
Total customs price: $37.16 (21.70GBP)

Hope this provides some insight for the users hoping to import a HHKB Pro 2 to the UK.

Going to have to keep them in mind as thats not as much as I thought you where going to say, if or when I get a HHKB will order from them

[Fragil1ty]

It has been quite annoying, I'm not going to lie.

The worst part was actually trying to get them to give me the actual reference number, I had to send them around 3-5 messages on the contact form side of things, I realise that I'm not their only customer, but they should at-least make an effort in trying to reply to their emails and what not, considering that's what the email support team is there for.

Anyway, here's the information as promised.

I used smartimports.net for this purchase btw, so you should definitely check them out.

HHKB Price: $280.67 (163.91GBP)
Shipping Price: $29.47 (17.21GBP)
Total: $310.14 (181.12GBP)
Total customs price: $37.16 (21.70GBP)

Hope this provides some insight for the users hoping to import a HHKB Pro 2 to the UK.

Going to have to keep them in mind as thats not as much as I thought you where going to say, if or when I get a HHKB will order from them

Glad to hear it my man, they're a great company, they do all they can to help you save money on customs and they offer great shipping. It's just when it gets turned over to ****ty Parcelforce is when it becomes a cluster****.