Had to pay an £8.80 customs surcharge to Royal Mail for an item from Jersey. Is this right?

[oldmongo]

I had a card left by my postman saying I had a parcel waiting to be delivered but I had to pay a "Customs Charge". This amounted to £8.80. I wasn't sure what item I had ordered that this charge was related to...so I payed by PayPal, and was surprised when it was delivered to realise it was something I had ordered from the Channel Islands (an item that only cost £3.95)  Is this right? And why has this only happened to me for an item from the Channel Islands when previously I have ordered stuff from Hong Kong/Australia/USA.etc with no Customs Surcharges?  I'm baffled!

[rusticrye]

20% VAT is currently due on all purchases made from outside the EU and valued at £15+ (item and shipping cost), plus any import tax that may be due (on values of £135+) , plus the carrier's admin fee for collecting the taxes on the government's behalf. 

The CIs are not in the EU, so taxes will be due.  That you may not have paid such taxes before means that either they weren't due (item and shipping costs were below the £15 threshold), or you were lucky and the packaged slipped through Customs unchecked, or the seller was in Ebay's Global Shipping Programme and all monies due were paid by you to the global shipper in advance of shipping.

The way VAT is collected by the government on imported goods will change on January 1st.  Do a search for VAT in Ebay's Help & Contact pages for full information.

@oldmongo 

[oldmongo]

Thanks rusticrye. The item was bought on Ebay with free postage. I sent a message to the seller in Jersey and they replied right away. The seller is as baffled as I am.(I presume that most of the stuff they sell on Ebay would be to the UK mainland)... The seller suggested that maybe Royal Mail have made a mistake here and I'm inclined to agree. (Let me tell you, it's the devil to get hold of anyone at Royal Mail to answer a phone at the moment.) The breakdown of the bill is 0.80p for the customs charge and £8.00 for Royal Mail handling fee....I'll post here the eventual outcome.

[rusticrye]

Royal Mail have not made a mistake. You have been correctly charged - 20% VAT on the total cost of item and shipping, plus Royal Mail's fixed £8 fee for collecting that tax on the government's behalf. Read again the information I provided. When you do, you'll see that there is no need for you to continue to be baffled, or to waste your and Royal Mail's valuable time. I repeat: The CIs are not in the EU. The UK currently still is (till the end of this year). You can easily check for confirmation on the UK government's website, on Royal Mail's website, or do a simple web search. No point in asking the seller, as sellers have no clue, and nor are they expected to - it is the buyer's responsible to know about their government's taxation laws, not the seller's.

I'm not sure why this has come as a surprise to you, though. The listing will have included an Ebay advisory note, warning all prospective buyers from outside the CIs that  taxes etc may be due on import, so that they could do their homework and work out whether purchasing would be viable or not.  You can access the original listing from your order, so take a peek for yourself.

@oldmongo

[rappinhuedrichard]

As oldmongo said - his purchase was just £3.95, well below custom threshold, so yes, Royal Mail shouldn't charge him.

[pixiesen2012]

there isn't a threshold on items from the Channel Isles, so there hasn't been a mistake