I am in need of customs clearance advice. Back in April i bought goods worth a total of 88chf (including shipping) from China which got cleared with a customs fee of 67chf. DHL then sent me two separate bills for 153 CHF and 170 CHF for that same shipment. I paid for the 153 chf one then contested both payments asking why i was being charged for 323 chf for goods that were worth 88chf. I had supplied DHL with my receipts for each product purchased too. The agent told me that one invoice was for the customs and the other for the shipping. I told her that i never hired DHL for shipping and that i paid for shipping directly to the supplier so i can't be held accountable for some shipping charge that i never asked of DHL. After this point she never responded even when i asked for a refund on the 153chf i paid DHL since the customs invoice read only 67chf.
Months later i started receiving letters from the debt collection and have since been going back and forth between DHL and the debt office asking what it is i am supposed to be paying for. The answer remains customs and shipping then when i asked for proof of these charges, i was sent the customs invoice for 67chf. I really don't know how to get out of this or at least have someone explain to me WHY i have to pay 323chf on products that were valued (with proof of purchase) at 88chf.
So i am writing to ask advice from you all, can anyone tell me if there is any legitimacy in the charges that DHL and the debt collector are trying to collect from me? I would have paid it off already if i knew why i am being asked to pay for it. I am afraid of paying for it then having them ignore me like the DHL lady ignored me since April when this first occurred. Can someone advise me on how i can go about getting this cleared because it seems the more i ask for explanations, the more i keep getting referred to other people.
It sounds to me like something got very mixed up - are you dealing with DHL in switzerland? We just had a delivery of electronics and toys from the USA and the total value was around 100chf tax plus handling was 35.
Was it a 'fake copy' product? Maybe it attracted a 'penalty' fee... Or was sent 'COD' - what was the postage cost. An express post parcel "international courier' is about 150USD, so the additional postage cost which the sender passed on to you, for international courier, plus the tax and handling fee is levied on the total value of the item (including postage)....
How have you been managing the communication? Anything less than a registered post letter probably will not solve what has become an administrative issue - the accounts department will escalate but no one will have the authority to cancel the debt.
Customs fee of 67 on a freight total value of 88 sounds wrong to begin with.
supply the copy of your CC, paypal, or bank transfer statement along with the copy of the purchase receipt. Often, customs (or whoever acts as the importer and handles customs) does not trust the receipts from the company that shipped the goods.
Yes it is DHL Switzerland. The products were a pair of shoes and 2 clothing items (Chinese branded) in their original packaging so nothing was fake. It also wasn't sent COD because at the time of clearance, both my receipts and the seller's shipping paperwork showed payment of shipping in advance to the seller. I also thought that 67chf was a bit high but i didn't want to cause a fuss so i accepted it; up until 2 additional invoices turned up at my door.
The postage cost was 43.20 chf and the rest was the product cost. Combined the receipt was for 88 CHF. I've bought similar items from the US, Germany and China shipped via DHL without having any additional costs that the seller passed on to me and with customs coming up to about 30 - 40 chf.
I have been communicating via email this far. Do you mean i should send them a registered letter to ask for an accounting? I have repeatedly asked to speak to whoever has authority to fix this but so far been ignored or passed on to another person who goes through the motions starting from the beginning
I already supplied this both from the account through which i bought and the PayPal but still i've been stuck with this tab. Even when i asked the debt collector lady who is currently dealing with the situation and showed her my receipts she just said she would check with DHL, only to turn around and tell me that this was "customs 153 chf and shipping 170 chf". I asked her how it could be customs when the customs invoice clearly says 67chf and not 153 chf. Then i also asked about the shipping since i never shipped with DHL and the seller received my shipping cost. At present moment i haven't received any further communication however i truly don't understand how these "costs" that have no paperwork behind them are being levied.
I'll send one tomorrow and see if that will get some action on this account
Could it be they made a mistake stating tax at 67chf, but haven't figured out how to tell you?
One other point, we had a package delivered from Germany by DHL a few weeks ago and were surprised by the amount of the import fees. The guy from DHL said that if the kind chaps at Swiss customs think your products would cost more in Switzerland they will charge duty on the amount they so determine (looking online etc), rather than the actual lower amount you paid!
So i heard back from both DHL and the collections people. DHL was a simple statement to say talk to the collections people we have nothing to do with it. The collections people was a statement to say the actual fees are 67chf for the duty and the rest is their own for the cost of collection. So i argued that it is one thing to add collection fees and it is a whole other thing to send me a bill in excess of 300 chf and call that "legal". Then i sent them another letter telling them i'd need to check with a legal representative so i understand how a collection agency can be justified in earning such a premium on 2 bills that were each worth 67 chf.
Long story short, they started back tracking and cancelled the ridiculous premium so that i only pay what is owed.
Thank y'all esp. for the registered mail advice because that was the first instance of my making headway with this issue. Be warned about these shady premiums for anyone who ever encounters such a problem.
It is a common "scam" in Switzerland to do this... and as far as I know from reading forum threads, there is no legal basis for the debt collection agencies to levy this fine. This of course begs the question of why the hell they are allowed to even do it in the first place, but hey, welcome to Switzerland.
I was once burnt and paid around 900chf in extra charges for something... had I known what I know now I would have avoided it, bur sadly at the time I was green and and still in fear of the potential risks of not paying anything and everything I was charged in official looking letters.
90 chf Yowzer!!! Makes my crying over 300 chf pale. I realized that i was being scammed once they started backtracking over my seeking legal help. Now i know to question everything even when the paperwork looks all official. Funny thing is in the normal course of things i would have paid it quietly since i don't like looking for trouble being a foreigner and all. I only noticed the discrepancy because the bills came separately and it seemed to me i had just paid the same bill days before