Ripped off by my postal service...

[DutchBlades]

So, today my secondary Endura came in.
I didn't have any urgency to receive it, it's as a back-up for when my EDC one might give up one day.
Nevertheless, I was like a little boy at Christmas again... :D

I opened the door and received the package together with an invoice...
The customs declared it as a "knife with fixed blade" :mad:
I had to pay the guy €28,88 at the door in order to own the package I already paid for.
After paying the guy, I opened it and showed him it was a folding knife.
He didn't really care all that much and told me to take it up to the company's complaints department.

So, I just finished writing the letter, including copies of the invoice, the packaging, pictures of the knife, pictures from Spyderco's website declaring it a "Folding Knife" together with a formal letter.

Did something similar ever happen to any of you?

[Doc Dan]

Tell whoever you purchased the knife from to label it differently next time. I have to do that, here, or some similar mistake may happen and it would be stolen by parties never caught. You do not want to lie on the form, but creative thinking is in order.

[SpyderNut]

Sorry to hear that. It stinks when that kind of thing happens. Doc Dan has some good advice. Hopefully better luck next time! :)

[Evil D]

Never happened to me because thank God I live in the country where they come from. Sounds to me like the post office does this all the time and most people probably never bother to fight it. Such a shame.

[The Deacon]

I've read posts here and elsewhere by folks from Canada and the UK who have had ordinary folding knives confiscated by their country's Customs as "flick knives". In the UK, that's even happened at least once with a Spyderco FRN UKPK. I've also read posts where folks from overseas were charged excessive amounts of duty on shipments from the USA by their country's Customs. Most of those seem to happen when the item was shipped by UPS or FEDEX, rather than the USPS. In the USA, Customs and the Post Office are two separate agencies. Customs officers randomly inspect packages and determine if any or all of the contents are dutiable and, if so, how much duty to charge. I've never been charged duty on anything, but I know that, for commercial shipments, the amount US Customs will charge is based on the items classification and invoiced value. I have no idea how they arrive at a value for private shipments. Do you know how Customs work in The Netherlands?

[DutchBlades]

I've read posts here and elsewhere by folks from Canada and the UK who have had ordinary folding knives confiscated by their country's Customs as "flick knives". In the UK, that's even happened at least once with a Spyderco FRN UKPK. I've also read posts where folks from overseas were charged excessive amounts of duty on shipments from the USA by their country's Customs. Most of those seem to happen when the item was shipped by UPS or FEDEX, rather than the USPS. In the USA, Customs and the Post Office are two separate agencies. Customs officers randomly inspect packages and determine if any or all of the contents are dutiable and, if so, how much duty to charge. I've never been charged duty on anything, but I know that, for commercial shipments, the amount US Customs will charge is based on the items classification and invoiced value. I have no idea how they arrive at a value for private shipments. Do you know how Customs work in The Netherlands?

Everything besides automatics and OTF's are allowed, so spring assisted ones and folding knives are allowed and won't be charged extra. But you have to declare it when it's a fixed blade. This was obviously a folding knife, but was declared as "Messen met een vast lemmet" wich means "knives with a fixed blade". I don't know who was the genius that didn't know the difference and besides this event, nothing ever went wrong. I even got two OTF's and several full auto's delivered to my doorstep without any problems... I don't know why this went wrong, but I'm awaiting response against my complaint as of now.

I'm pretty sure they'll refund the fee, it's a good postal service that wants to keep it's reputation, it's just weird and unpleasant for this to happen for no reason :confused:

[Evil D]

I know nobody wants to pay MSRP but I wonder if these customs issues would happen if knives were shipping directly from Spyderco.

[The Deacon]

Everything besides automatics and OTF's are allowed, so spring assisted ones and folding knives are allowed and won't be charged extra. But you have to declare it when it's a fixed blade. This was obviously a folding knife, but was declared as "Messen met een vast lemmet" wich means "knives with a fixed blade". I don't know who was the genius that didn't know the difference and besides this event, nothing ever went wrong. I even got two OTF's and several full auto's delivered to my doorstep without any problems... I don't know why this went wrong, but I'm awaiting response against my complaint as of now.

I'm pretty sure they'll refund the fee, it's a good postal service that wants to keep it's reputation, it's just weird and unpleasant for this to happen for no reason :confused:

Ok, if I ship something overseas, I am the one who fills out the box on the Customs form describing what I'm sending. If I were to describe it incorrectly, and Customs at your end were to charge you accordingly without actually opening the package and inspecting the item, or the difference was one that the average Customs officer might not notice when they inspected it, then I'd be the one who ripped you off, not your Customs Office.

[Donut]

That's a pretty crappy description if you ask me.

[senorsquare]

That's a pretty crappy description if you ask me.

Yeah, sounds like the person who shipped it is the one who got you ripped off. I've shipped knives overseas and I usually ask the recipient to dictate to me exactly how they want the customs form filled out so they don't have to pay extra duties and fees. Maybe this is a request you could make on future purchases.

[DutchBlades]

Ok, if I ship something overseas, I am the one who fills out the box on the Customs form describing what I'm sending. If I were to describe it incorrectly, and Customs at your end were to charge you accordingly without actually opening the package and inspecting the item, or the difference was one that the average Customs officer might not notice when they inspected it, then I'd be the one who ripped you off, not your Customs Office.

Yeah, I've contacted the guy who sold it to me and instead of sending the money, he decided to send a new knife under better description. This would prevent the paying of any fee and if all goes well, the postal office will refund the fee I got the first time

[akapennypincher]

So, today my secondary Endura came in.
I didn't have any urgency to receive it, it's as a back-up for when my EDC one might give up one day.
Nevertheless, I was like a little boy at Christmas again... :D

I opened the door and received the package together with an invoice...
The customs declared it as a "knife with fixed blade" :mad:
I had to pay the guy €28,88 at the door in order to own the package I already paid for.
After paying the guy, I opened it and showed him it was a folding knife.
He didn't really care all that much and told me to take it up to the company's complaints department.

So, I just finished writing the letter, including copies of the invoice, the packaging, pictures of the knife, pictures from Spyderco's website declaring it a "Folding Knife" together with a formal letter.

Did something similar ever happen to any of you?

I honesty don't understand your problem. Was it the money you had to pay, or the box was empty? No local Spyderco dealer in the Netherlands, to deal with?

[DutchBlades]

I honesty don't understand your problem. Was it the money you had to pay, or the box was empty? No local Spyderco dealer in the Netherlands, to deal with?

There are two dealers, one in Leiden and one in Amsterdam, but they're asking almost double MSRP.......
And the problem I had this time was the fact that I had to pay a fee because the customs declared it a fixed blade, wich it isn't

[Divo]

I can't follow you here.
It doesnt matter if it is a fixed blade or not, not familiar with different rules for that regarding your fee.

In the Netherlands for an item imported from a non-Euro country you need to pay several fees for.
For a value between €22 - €150 its:

- BTW 21 % (for some goods lower percentage)
- Inklaringskosten (most of the time around 13 euro)

(When the value exeeds €150 you also need to pay - Douanerechten)

When you import items you Always need to have in mind that the normal thing is to pay fees.
Thats the standard. The times you didn't pay this is just that you were lucky. We all hope for slipping through the system but you can't count on it.
Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.


Here is some more info>
http://www.invoercalculator.nl/
http://www.postnl.nl/ontvangen/pakket-o ... uitenland/
http://www.belastingdienst.nl/wps/wcm/c ... ken_ik_dat

[Monocrom]

Sad to say, but not surprised you got ripped off. I never ship anything important using them. When I buy something online, I insist the Seller use UPS or Fed-Ex. And, I even offer to pay extra if he does. Fricking thieves took over the post office a few years back.

[Divo]

Apparently you haven't read my post proper.
He is NOT ripped off. And its not to blame to the shipping company either.
However we try to avoid and are very pleased not to end with additional costs,
The costs (aka taxes) here involved are according the law related to IMPORT.

The shipping company that gives you the bill for these taxes need to hand over that money to the state.

Again, when you buy something oversea you know in advance that originally you need to pay taxes.
You can be pleased when you slip through, but really you have no ground to complain when you are forced to pay according the laws.

When you want to buy something oversea you Always need to have this info in the back of your mind and it needs to be part of your calculation. You have all this information in advance.


Btw
A seller in your country needs to give an honest description and real value on the EXPORT forms that they need to fill in to be able to ship items. All by laws in YOUR country. When they deliberately lie about that on the forms then that is fraud. Such a seller can be fined and prosecuted. This is why lots of respectable companies don't mess with forms. Also when the package is lost and an expensive item was marked as low value, what do you think the Insurance will pay out?

Pretty alright for me if you do it different and try to do your best to avoid taxes. But please know how it works in the real world.

Here in front of me I have a tax-bill i need to pay to Fed-ex (bikepart)
The other week it was USPS (knife)

So when you think these companies don't follow the system you are very wrong informed.

[Laethageal]

Divo is right. As much as I like when I slip away from duties, when I have to pay them well just to bad, that's the law. I do avoid UPS and Fedex like **** because they charge huge additional fees in Canada for getting the item through the custom (sometimes up to 25% of the value of the item, in addition to the duties fee). That's why I now only use USPS and slip away from duties 80% of the time and when I don't, they only charge a small minimal fee for processing the order in addition to the duties.
I seriously don't see any reason your seller should have compensated for the fee you paid.

[Monocrom]

Nope, it's still a rip-off. Want an item shipped to you?.... Pay this fee, then this one on top of that one, don't forget this other fee, oh yeah.... your item costs X amount of dollars? Well, that's another fee on top of that. Give me a break.

Still a rip-off. Doesn't matter that the thievery is government sanctioned.

[Divo]

:confused:

[Laethageal]

This isn't a rip off, that's people trying to steal government. Seriously, the law state you should pay the duties on every item you buy from outside your country (with a 20$+ value for Canadian) with no exceptions. You are expected to pay it on every delivery in addition to the base delivery fee charged by the delivery company. That's not ripoff, that's law.

Where there is ripoff is company like UPS and FEDEX charging a processing fee over this, like they didn't knew they would have to get the item through custom. "Yeah I've been delivering millions of items from one country and the other but I didn't knew I'd have to get them through custom so I gotta ask you to pay more then I charged! I didn't knew I'd lose time to process the item!"

Once again, the duty itself isn't ripoff but only the taxes you didn't pay on the item. Processing fee is a ripoff.
Learn to deal with good delivery company and you'll no longer feel bad about duties.