importing to uk

castro

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Sep 27, 2003
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Hello from a newbie. I hope you guys can help with some advice. I have lurked at this site for six months and listened to what you were all buying or considering as a good buy ( brightness , ruggednes etc ). I chose to buy the Arc lsh premium and have now had the light for two weeks. i`m very happy with the light but not to pleased at what it has cost me . I paid arc $174.95 for the light and shiping which i was quite happy with. things went wrong when it got to me here in the UK . I have been charged Duty and Tax , and by FedEx airmail and admin , in total another $142.91.Kind of takes the shine of what i thought was a great light. I was thinking of getting a Surefire but have been put right off it . Unless you guys know a way of beating these extra charges. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/help.gif
 

kakster

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Feb 6, 2003
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London, UK
Wow. Id query that import tax if i were you. I got £150 worth of surefire stuff from the states, only got charged £28 tax. No way should it be nearly 100% of the value of the goods.
 

castro

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Sep 27, 2003
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Sorry Kakster i`ve misled you a little.Duty was £3.03,Vat tax was £21.23 , and i was charged by FedEx an admin fee on this of £4.50 . The killer was FedEx`s airmail bill (i think ), which was £59.60.I am confused by this second FedEx invoice as i have already paid one called duty/taxes charges that was stuck to the parcel .
 

Size15's

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Aug 29, 2000
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Kettering, England
I got my ArcLSH-P for about £100 shipped. Looks like I got a good deal.
In fact my UltraStinger cost me about £100 shipped and so did the TigerLight (all from difference sources I should add)

At various times we Brits get stung for HM Customs and associated charges. For various reasons sometimes we don't. It's best not to discuss why, or how so openly here on CPF.

Al
 

Martyn1

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Mar 10, 2003
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England
That's disgusting.

I just got an L4 shipped to my door for £80 inc.

Wherever possible, you should use USPS Global Priority Mail rather than Fed-EX.

All the others tend to use couriers at this end (prolly that second part of your bill) which whacks the price up and AFAIK, they are obliged to declare a value through customs. USPS global priority is basically airmail, it's a crap shoot as to whether or not your parcel will get inspected for duty/VAT. The downside is the lack of tracking through USPS.

Ya pays ya money, ya takes ya choice.
 

kev1-1

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Oct 23, 2002
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585
Location
England
Hey Castro, when did you find out about these charges? Did your parcel have a sticker on it...OR...did you get the bill a few days later through the post?
 

PocketLights.com

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Jun 18, 2002
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Norcross, GA
PocketLights.com frequently ships to the UK. Our UK customers are pleased with our service and pricing. We ship via USPS Global Priority Mail which takes about four days to arrive. Our packages are labeled in a way to minimize import duties.
 

castro

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Sep 27, 2003
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Hi Kev1-1
The parcel did have a sticker on it.I have kept it along with all the packageing.It has 2 large barcodes, my address,and the words Cleared and Slide40. It also carries the FedEx symbol and several long number stings of 12 digits.
 

castro

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Sep 27, 2003
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I got the first invoice 3 or 4 days after delivery , and the second one just a couple of days ago, after paying the first one.
 

castro

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Sep 27, 2003
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I got the first invoice 3 or 4 days after delivery , and the second another 4 or 5 days after paying the first one.
 

zorba

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Jul 11, 2003
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214
Location
Veria Greece
I have stuff shipped all the time to me from the US and if it is less than 100 USD I get nothing to pay and if it is more then I ask the sender to label it as gift or ''Damaged goods send for repair''
Maybe you can try this next time
 

Cones

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Feb 25, 2002
Messages
495
Location
Lincolnshire, UK
Hi, I have had / still having problems with FedEx.
They lost my first order from ARC. I did not know this at the time and payed the custom charges on it £29. Then ARC sent a replacement and FedEx charged me custom charges on this as well. I phoned them and they said that they would refund the first charge (They did not)I said I would pay the second charge as soon as they had done this.
Then they sent a letter from a debt collecting angency for the second custom charge. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif
I have now phoned them again to sort this out and they assure me that it has been sorted and they will write to me to confirm this. Still waiting for a letter.
This is not good service and I will NEVER use Fedex ever again by choice. Although if you want ARC stuff from ARC direct they only use FedEx. So we shall see how the next order goes.
Your charges listed above sound excessive. You should be charged VAT at 17.5% of total goods plus postage + an approx £5 handling charge.
I would phone them and check.

Mark
 

PeterW

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Joined
Jul 2, 2003
Messages
207
Location
London, UK
I agree with USPS Global Priority. Bit of a tense wait for things to arrive though. You can get the next stage of USPS up which gives you a tracking number, this then gets delivered by ParcelForce. They didn't inform me of my parcel, though I found out where they were hiding it via the online tracker. I then had to go walkies to their depot to collect and pay a handsome fee too. (about 40 quid on top of $160 purchase if I rememeber right). But hopefully a bit more fair and reliable that other couriers. Of course we wouldn't have to go through all this fuss if someone in the UK decided to act as an agent for all the lovely lights the americans are currently producing!!

PEterW

PS My fingers are crossed for my latest US purchases that are due around now..... wish me luck!
 

Size15's

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Kettering, England
The UK agent would have to pay duty and charge us VAT so we may end up paying the same. The trouble is that even when the UK agent gets a Dealer price, they still add their own overheads on top (like they have to put bread on the table too!?)
The other trouble is that the prices we see online are not really accurate because they are so close to the dealer price that if we were to compare UK shop with a USA shop I better the prices would be more reasonable (although both would be higher than buying online).

So the expectations we have have been forced to be for low prices and this means that when we [Brits] have to pay real prices the difference is a real shock!

DHL and FedEx suck in my experience. When SureFire used UPS it was great. USPS GP is what most of the stuff I buy comes through by and I've had reasonable service. Sometimes I pay, sometimes I don't. On balance, I've still saved a lot of money (a few hundred pounds over the last few years).

Al
 

Martyn1

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Mar 10, 2003
Messages
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England
[ QUOTE ]
castro said:
I have been browsing and found this UK site which offers to sell surefire L4`s for £90. Has any body here any dealings with this site. Its web address is
[url="http://hometown.aol.co.uk/outdoorsupplies3[/url"]]http://hometown.aol.co.uk/outdoorsupplies3
[/url]

[/ QUOTE ]

Certainly have, he's the guy I got my L4 from. That's Joe Echols from Outdoor Supplies. Excellent sevice and I doubt you'll find cheaper in the UK.
I think this is his main site, but i know he's only just started to construct it.

http://hometown.aol.co.uk/outdoorsupplies3/Main.html

If you want to talk to him, he hangs out at the forums at http://www.britishblades.com

/shameless plug, that's my website. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 

Martyn1

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Joined
Mar 10, 2003
Messages
25
Location
England
[ QUOTE ]
Size15s said:

DHL and FedEx suck in my experience. When SureFire used UPS it was great. USPS GP is what most of the stuff I buy comes through by and I've had reasonable service. Sometimes I pay, sometimes I don't. On balance, I've still saved a lot of money (a few hundred pounds over the last few years).

Al

[/ QUOTE ]

Absolutely, the way I uderstand it is this.

Pretty much all the courier type services - Fed-Ex etc, are contractually obliged to submit the parcel for VAT & Duty, you will always pay it with them. Also, when the parcel gets to the UK, a fed-ex courier (or sub-contractor) will pick it up, and handle the delivery to your house. It's an expensive service, but you do get complete web-based packet tracking and good backup if your parcel goes missing.

If you use the United States Postal Service (USPS), it's pretty much like taking a parcel to the post office in the UK and sending it airmail. It's cheap. When a parcel sent from America through USPS lands in this country, the British post office takes over the remainder of the delivery. It's up to them whether or not they put it through for VAT & Duty - sometimes they do, often they dont. If the postie cant deliver your parcel, you'll have to go get it yourself from the post office. All this means it's "cheap as chips". /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif The downside is poor tracking and good luck if a package goes missing.
 

Size15's

Flashaholic
Joined
Aug 29, 2000
Messages
18,415
Location
Kettering, England
If you have the package insured when posting it the sometimes that value will be used to calculate how much you'll have to pay, so writing a value of $10 and insuring it for $100 may not help you!

I'm moving this thread to the Cafe...
 

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