Robbed by Customs and Excise
Posted by: Rockingdoc on 23 January 2004
Had to return my Etymotic earphones for repair ( I yanked the cable and broke it) to the US.
I had paid duty on the original import. Now Customs have charged me the duty for the cost of the headphones again and on the cost of the repair.
The reason given was to "discourage repair work being sent out of the UK!"
Outraged
Posted on: 23 January 2004 by Martin D
What the hell is going on in this country, what with the CDWow stuff, Tescos cant sell Levi's, Asda cant sell Pharmaceuticals at the price they want blah blah aghhhhhh.
Martin
http://shamedagain.blogspot.com/Posted on: 23 January 2004 by Martin D
Mmmmmmmmmmm just had another thought - can Naim tell a dealer at what price to sell their products!
Martin
Posted on: 23 January 2004 by count.d
Doc,
Surely import duty is only paid on the first purchase. The second time it came into the country it's not being sold, so no duty due.
If you write to the customs showing the repair document will you not receive a refund?
Posted on: 23 January 2004 by paul99
count.d,
Inport duty (and VAT) is payable whenever anything comes into the country.
One firm I worked for supplied the control systems for a Power Station in Hong Kong or nearby, I can't remember exactly where.
Anyway, the hardware was not working and the engineers there were missing a plug-in module for one of the logic analysers.
We sent over an old plug-in card for the rather aged analyser they had.
They did the job and sent it back.
HM customs and Excise wanted import duty etc etc for it before they would let us have it back. They wanted so much that in the end we said keep the old thing then!
They just wouldn't listen to reason.
A bit later, I found myself in the same situation (I wasn't responsible for the first instance.) and dealt with all the paperwork to ensure that this did not happen again. It was another plug-in module for some other piece of test equipment.
You need to be able to prove that the equipment was yours in the first place to avoid paying again.
Regards,
Paul.
Posted on: 27 January 2004 by NB
quote:-
Mmmmmmmmmmm just had another thought - can Naim tell a dealer at what price to sell their products!
Martin
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Yes its called competition!
Regards
NB
