I’ve been really lucky in that respect too, had 3 things from Europe (including the Hapax) and there were no delays at all with any of them, just as fast as before. But they were not physically large items, and I jumped on the delivery company import fees notification and paid it instantly.
I ordered a Dysmetria kit from Dreadbox, and although my Dysphonia was super speedy, for some reason this second one was stuck in Hamburg for a week.
Annoyingly in the meantime Thonk had them in stock, and I could have just got it from them and built it that weekend.
At what point in the shipping progress are deliveries to the US being flagged for any customs duties? Mine says " Clearance processing complete at LOS ANGELES GATEWAY - USA" (I’m in Northern California).
I don’t live in the US (any more) but when I get a shipment here in Israel, the carrier collects the customs. Carriers like FedEx and DHL add a number of small fees here when they collect the customs, so I’m not surprised when the 17% Israeli customs fee becomes a 20%-25% total cost.
May I suggest you call DHL with the tracking number? I suspect they’ll tell you how much you owe and will be happy to charge your credit card for it.
Thanks for the reply. The current delivery date is in a few days, so I’ll just wait and see what happens. I was mainly curious since it appeared to clear customs with no additional info. But I could be wrong.
I think it means the process of customs clearance is done, but it hasn’t yet left the building? I got two custom clearance updates of my Hapax in March via DHL. One in Paris, one in London.
I also got my Hapax 2 days before the estimated delivery date, so fingers crossed for you.
Indeed, overnight it left LA and is now in San Francisco. Still no extra charges. It remains to be seen if they are assessed at some point before delivery.
EDIT: Well Loz your crossed fingers seem to have done the trick. Suddenly my Hapax is out for delivery today! No customs charges yet.
Glad to hear it!
Fingers crossed no one brings a card machine to your door
Really curious how this works out.
Here in Israel, if you don’t deal with the customs either by paying with a credit card or agreeing to pay cash to the courier, they just plain won’t deliver.
Yeah, guy just delivered it like any other package. No customs charges.
1 Like
I‘m in North Carolina, USA. I got that duty notice and paid DHL Tuesday, $40.81. Hapax was delivered Thursday.
AUD250 customs and duties here downunder.
1 Like
Check the exchange rate before ordering (Euro vs U.K. Pound)
€864.00 = 725.08 Pound sterling
Ordered…
PayPal took £756?
The exchange rate that you look up is the rate brokers would get. It’ll be slightly better than any rate you see in a Bureau de Change, your bank, credit card, or paypal.
There should be a ROE value on your paypal invoice, but it sounds about right.
also banks/paypal etc are able (to some degree at least) to set the fx rate, and as @Loz there is a spread on the base rate (*)
Im pretty sure when you use PayPal, it tells you the fx rate its going to use when you actually make the payment (if its in a foreign currency)
( * ) basically the spread from the quoted rate varies on quite a few things, other than just commission, it also based on how much currency you are ordering… ask your bank for 500k GBP and you’ll get a better rate … than a few hundred GBP.
also be aware, that fx rates are a bit volatile at the moment (due to all the things going on in the world).
if you order a lot of things from EU, can be worth having a euro account and trying to manage this a bit.
(I used to do this with GBP before Brexit, but these days I just dont order from the UK ;))
I’m just hoping my Osmose ships before the government destroys the Brexit agreement with the EU
1 Like
I just received an email from DHL telling me my import duty to MN, USA is $92.39. Why is it higher than everyone else’s??
1 Like
Mine’s also 92.39. I’m guessing that either DHL or the US increased duty fees.
1 Like
An increase of over 126% in only 2 months? That seems rather excessive…
With inflation, I wouldn’t be surprised if either DHL or the US did increase the customs duties indeed.
Also, IIRC duties are calculated not only based on the value of the product, but also the value of the shipping cost. And as a matter of fact, DHL freight to the US has doubled in price recently. Because DHL shipping is free on our store, that’s easy not to notice.
1 Like