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Buying and Selling models to/from Europe


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22 minutes ago, SimonBoulton said:

Does rather sound like the Anpost is a right shambles, are they the equivalent of Royal Mail in Ireland? 

Yes An Post is the Irish equivalent of Royal Mail. 

As I mentioned in earlier post, I have no problem with out local postie and the staff in the local post offices, but the customer service staff in Dublin do not have a clue and just fob you off with feeble excuses!

Still waiting for a satisfactory response as to why they have supposedly sent two parcels back despite paying the custom's VAT on one of them.

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I have had a similar experience with the Irish postal service I had a parcel returned last week sent to a customer on 22nd August, it was returned to me with a sticker "failed electronic customs clearance" no explanation, when I delved into the tracking it revealed it had sat at the customs centre for 2 weeks, then said refused by customer so returning to sender, which is total rubbish my customer didn't even get the chance to pay any fees on his parcel. I had a small parcel sent to Netherlands which took six weeks to reach my customer and the German Authorities tried to accuse me of committing VAT fraud, I am a small  UK business who doesn't earn enough to be VAT registered, but the authorities in Europe seem to be unaware of that and a VAT number is part of the requirement now, for the time being I have suspended posting to Europe as it just isn't worth the time and the chasing I am doing searching for parcels in customs centres. Guidance is non existence, my local Post Office are brilliant, but they are frustrated with almost daily different information,  I am also now investigating the HS tariff code which apparently should be used too, my regulars are having items posting to family in the UK in the hope of a Christmas visit and delivery, any guidance on this from the forum greatly received, regards Elaine

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Assuming this is model railway items - including accessories - the code is 9503003000

 

Electric trains, including tracks, signals and other accessories therefor; reduced-size (scale) model assembly kits

Edited by Andy Hayter
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15 hours ago, Georgeconna said:

I have not had any issues with them. must be a clearance problem, Was thier a invoice or such with it? This is of course thanks to brexitland.

 

Mind you I order off the New Mainland now. Amazon Germany is now a good friend.

Hi George,

No invoice involved, it is/was a gift from my brother in law from England.  Tried yesterday to explain to Anpost customer service on live chat (eventually)  but they just fobbed you off with excuses an seem to be treating it as a business transaction and not personal gift. I will be taking this further.  

 

This is the transcript from my online chat yesterday before  the An post agent ended the chat.   Spoke to brother in law and he said he put value £20.00 and model railway items on the packet.   Obviously the staff in the Dublin 12 sorting office can not be bothered to read!   My comments in blue italics on in the chat.

 

Seán 17:06
Hi, john how can we help ?
john 17:07
I want to know why my letter was not delivered and may be sent back.
Seán 17:11
checking the tracking it seems that the item has been processed to be returned to sender I’m afraid. The customs
declaration which was provided electronically was insufficient. I would advise to refer to the sender to arrange for the item
to be re-issued with the correct information (as per the changes introduced on 1st July) once it arrives back in the country
of origin. If you check our website here: https://www.anpost.com/Media-Centre/News/Customs-declaration-Postal-items
you will be able to see what information is required for an item to be cleared. I am sorry I cannot offer you a more
favourable update on the item today but I hope this information helps you!
john 17:13
it is a gift from a family member. why was i not informed about this and why is it being sent back
what did it say on the declaration form?

Seán 17:14
It looks to be missing something called a TARIC code. You'll need to ask the sender to ensure that complete electronic
data accompanies the item including a 10 digit TARIC code. They can visit our TARIC code finder to see exactly what
information is needed: https://www.anpost.com/Commerce/Parcel-Solutions/International-Parcels/Find-a-TARICCommodity-
code
john 17:16
so why can it not be delivered? It must cost more to send back to uk and postage already paid for delivery to Ireland
Seán 17:19
As advised it failed its clearance check due to the declaration issue and therefore had to be returned for the information to
be fixed. We cannot deliver the item if it fails this.
john 17:21
What happens now, Tracking says will 'try and return to sender which dont sound hopeful. and the package contained
model railway items which are except from customs charges and is a gift from family.

Seán 17:23
The item was scanned leaving last night, the tracking will update on the Royal Mail website showing it being delivered
back to the sender. They an then get this info fixed and have the item resent and then there should be no issues.
john 17:25
so what you are saying is that we can not longer send items to our family between UK & Ireland now. This was not a
business or sales transaction.

Read
Seán 17:28
As long as the item is sent with the correct customs information there would be no issues with the item coming in.
Unfortunately I have given you all the information I can. It was nice talking to you have a great day.
Seán has closed the chat.
How would you r

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9 hours ago, Elaine said:

I have had a similar experience with the Irish postal service I had a parcel returned last week sent to a customer on 22nd August, it was returned to me with a sticker "failed electronic customs clearance" no explanation, when I delved into the tracking it revealed it had sat at the customs centre for 2 weeks, then said refused by customer so returning to sender, which is total rubbish my customer didn't even get the chance to pay any fees on his parcel. I had a small parcel sent to Netherlands which took six weeks to reach my customer and the German Authorities tried to accuse me of committing VAT fraud, I am a small  UK business who doesn't earn enough to be VAT registered, but the authorities in Europe seem to be unaware of that and a VAT number is part of the requirement now, for the time being I have suspended posting to Europe as it just isn't worth the time and the chasing I am doing searching for parcels in customs centres. Guidance is non existence, my local Post Office are brilliant, but they are frustrated with almost daily different information,  I am also now investigating the HS tariff code which apparently should be used too, my regulars are having items posting to family in the UK in the hope of a Christmas visit and delivery, any guidance on this from the forum greatly received, regards Elaine

It does seem that Ireland is worse than the rest of the EU for receiving post at the moment.   It looks like An post (the Irish Postal service) seem to be having problems with the new import rules.  

 

This message appears on the Royal Mail International incidents update site,  this was Highlighted by a fellow modeller on another forum that I am a member of. 

 

https://personal.help.royalmail.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/5317

Start date: 16th September 2021
Latest Update: 16th September 2021
End date: Ongoing
Incident: Customs delays

Latest Update
We’re sorry for the disruption some customers are experiencing with some services to Ireland at the moment. This disruption is being caused by the implementation of new import controls which are resulting in the return of some items by the Irish Customs authorities. Royal Mail remains in discussions with our postal partner, AnPost with a view to help identify new processes that could improve the flow of mail items into Ireland and reduce the return of items. In parallel, we have a number of potential alternative services business customers may want to use to post to Ireland including Click and Drop .. We’ll provide further updates to customers as we have them.

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Irishmail (an unfortunate monika in these circumstances)  I wonder if the root problem is AN or whether it is Irish Customs.  Certainly from what has been written AN are not fault free when they return items that they have promised to deliver.  One thing the representative has said is however completely correct.  If Customs won't accept the documentation they cannot deliver it.

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Interesting, when I mentioned these TARIC/HS codes to my Post Office they knew nothing about them, I think the frustrating thing for me is the lack of guidance on this, Christmas gift parcels are going to be interesting. as irishmail has already discovered, I know the hassle my Post Office have with people who only post parcels once a year and get a host of questions about the contents, and then you can't send that/why not conversations,  think the gift voucher/ card market will do well, regards Elaine

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The HS codes are indeed a real nightmare for the (wo)man in the street- or your friendly post office counter staff.

 

Designed for the commercial import/export of volume goods from perhaps a case load up to a container load, they are now being applied to individual items.

 

Imagine the problems of companies such as Eileen's Emporium.  He receives an export order for the following:

 

1 pack 0.4mm brass wire

1 tin solder paste

1 sheet .5mm nickel silver 

1 length fine link copper wire

1 PECO wagon kit

1 sheet transfers

 

Every single item has a different HS code!  Nightmare!

 

No wonder he could not process export orders for months.

 

 

Edit to add:

The codes are easily found with a search engine.  Finding the right code for the item being sent is another matter.  You will not find model railways on the .gov.uk listing but you will find electric trains - not necessarily what you will look for when sending a coach to a customer.

 

 

Edited by Andy Hayter
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On 05/09/2021 at 11:24, MikeB said:

I  have had various items since Brexit and most have arrived smoothly, sometimes with charges, often not.  One parcel in June was held at the local Parcelforce depot for a week, and having received no letter asking for a payment, I phoned Parcelforce and was given the reference number and the amount due. This seemed high, but with no details and no options, I paid and then received the parcel.  Like Robert N Nm, I found duty had been charged despite the correct tariff code, so I posted off the BOR 286 form and associated paperwork to claim a refund. I heard nothing, so I phoned HMRC only last Thursday and after a 20 minute wait I was told that there is currently a delay of around three months in processing refund claims.  So clearly, the systems are creaking and what may or may not be charged seems hit and miss at present.

 

As an update, I have now received a refund from HMRC of £14.94 for the duty that they incorrectly charged and the VAT on the duty.  Given the effort needed and the cost of posting the paperwork to them, hardly worthwhile in monetary terms, but a moral victory.  So ,if you are overcharged and prepared to go through the BOR 286 form process, and wait, the system does apparently work.   

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It is indeed a nightmare, although I have been sending model trains all over the world for years if the codes were only for bulk that explains why I hadn't heard about them, most of mine will be the 9503003000, but in the case of Eileen I would like to see them fit all of these different codes on the CN22 customs sticker, all I need is to be told is "Elaine for sending to the EU now this is what you now have to do" but I get the feeling every country has different systems and requirements, regards Elaine

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They seem to have made this all much more complicated than it needed to be. 

 

With regards to the HS codes, I recently sold a couple of bits of track to someone in Canada. Just completed the CN22 form like before Brexit with no HS codes or anything and was delivered with no problems. Have also sent some items of rolling stock to the Czech republic and there were no problems getting it delivered without the codes 

Edited by SimonBoulton
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3 hours ago, SimonBoulton said:

 Just completed the CN22 form like before Brexit with no HS codes or anything and was delivered with no problems. 

A CN22 form is used for shipments below € 50. The insurance in case the parcel is lost can never be more than € 50. When items are shipped above the € 50 you use the CN23 form. On these forms it is mandatory that the correct HS codes are used.

 

In case of eileen example...solder tin can't be classified as modeltrains of toys. This awakens the customs at inspection as soldering tin should not be in toys! According to CE you now have a problem and you have only 4 weeks to come with the correct paperwork + CE before the shipment is scrapped.

 

Usally the mayority of shipment will pass the customs without investigation but that goes well until one shipment is checked and than your shipments are on the radar of the customs.

 

Ed

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33 minutes ago, etendam said:

 

 

In case of eileen example...solder tin can't be classified as modeltrains of toys.

 

Ed

 

In my list of items only one (Peco wagon) can be classed as electric trains and accessories.  That was the point of the post.

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The other minor confusion can arise because some industries and company’s call Taric codes by different names such as:

 

  • HS
  • Commodity
  • (Combined) nomenclature
  • Customs Tariff Code


This comes about because the combined nomenclature is the international  harmonised system for describing commodities….(how the EU ended up with taric I don’t know….!) but is basically a big index of items and an identifier number.

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On 04/01/2021 at 14:13, AlyP said:

As someone who dealt with this...stuff for nearly 40 years (and is thankfully retired - the last time I spoke to my old boss mention of Brexit produced inarticulate screaming, and he’s a VP of in-house tax):

 

1 EU suppliers should no longer charge their local VAT. This shouldn’t be a shock to them as they would already be doing that for shipments to Switzerland, etc.

 

2 If goods, including shipping cost, are less than £135 the non-UK business supplier should register for, and charge, UK VAT and show its VAT number on the Customs declaration. Unknown is whether Royal Mail will still sting you for a handling fee for such goods under £135. If they don’t register then existing process and Royal Mail fee applies.

 

3 Goods valued over £135 including shipping cost will continue to be processed via Royal Mail and the fee charged.

 

4 HMRC rates of exchange for imports are set monthly.

 

5 The £15 non-EU Low Value Consignment Relief is abolished  - this is to counter the Chinese supplier habit of falsely declaring shipments as valued at $1. The EU had been making noises for years about doing away with this relief in any case.

 

6 If you buy online from a non-UK business seller using a MOP (Online Marketplace) such as eBay, then eBay will charge and account for the UK VAT, not the supplier. If it is a private seller, then existing procedure applies (so VAT and the Royal Mail handling fee). Nasty.

 

7 Tariffs - goods are only tariff-free (no Customs Duty) if they meet the Rules of Origin for goods produced in the EU or UK. These are set out in 114 pages of the Trade Agreement. If the goods don’t meet the Rules of Origin, Customs Duty will be payable same as for any import from, for example, the US. At the moment there is no Customs Duty on model railways.

 

Alistair

 

Well, I recently received a parcel from a German dealer with a value including shipping of £110. The dealer deducted German MwSt and shipped by DHL. The PO delivered it and there was no UK Vat applied so it worked out cheaper than when the UK was in the single market and VAT was charged at the source of supply!

 

If the item had been over £135 no doubt the PO would have charged Vat on the whole invoice value and a clearance fee.

Edited by maico
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As an indication of how things have changed since brexit (not model railway related)

 

I have in the past, several times, ordered an item for Christmas from a manufacturers online shop in Germany.

This year I enquired as what the arrangements were re MwSt etc. as I would like it shipped tax free and pay the required dues this end.

The reply (in German!) was that they have stopped shipping to the UK completely and do not know whether they will resume doing so.:(

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On 11/11/2021 at 15:15, LimboBrit said:

Sounds like that's only because the dealer made a mistake. Some people have all the luck ;)

 

Just a switched on dealer I think. I've found other websites in the Netherlands selling commercial tools set up the same.

 

I paid 110 euros inc. 9.90 shipping for the items. Gaugemaster wanted £157.

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Part of that is as a shipper you have to pay for an export clearance procedure per shipment, as well as the receiver paying an import clearance charge…and it needs to be recovered somewhere.

 

With the carriers we work with from the uk to EU, it is a fixed fee, but still works about between 20-35% of the original cost of shipping depending on destination.

 

 

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