Don’t want to again pay import duty for gift from friend?

[sah89]

One of my oldest friends is from abroad (and lives there now), but was in the UK as a kid/teen when we met.
When I got married she sent us a present for which I paid over £100 tax/duty because she made a mistake with converting currencies and filled out the form like it was a goods purchase. Initially the post office card arrived here when dh and I were on our honeymoon and missed the payment date, so it got sent back to my friend. I apologised for missing the package, said there was a fee to pay (didn’t say how much) and asked her gently to check if she needs to correct the form because the gift she mentioned didn’t warrant such a tax. She sent it again without correcting, I gave in and paid the fee (didn’t say anything). Just to add, it seems usual for her to convert stuff the other way or add several more zeros just through our conversations when she mentions rent/salaries/prices.

Fast forward a few years, dh and I recently had a baby, and my friend wanted to send us a baby gift. In these couple years she also got married, had a baby and got a divorce. As a friend group we supported her as much as we can, including ordering her baby stuff off local to her places. She’s a single income household now with no child support from ex and a massive gender gap in salaries.
When she offered to send something I felt bad for her spending money (since she’s been highlighting how expensive everything is), I said maybe when we go out to visit her on holiday we could do something together with the kiddies instead. And at the back of my mind I didn’t want to do this potential back and forth with the post office again, quite honestly..
also we just moved house as I fell pregnant so for dh and I there have been a lot of expenses with the mortgage/deposit/furniture/baby etc (yes, our choice but still it just feels exhausting)

anyway, today I got a card from the post office referencing my friend’s country. I asked her if she sent something and she said a couple of toys and baby blanket. Again, the fee is like £70…… I don’t know if it’s the straw that broke the camel’s back but I feel so divided on this… I appreciate her gesture and sympathise with her general situation… I’m also fed up literally paying for her maths errors… I’m not going to ask her to foot the bill.. what would you do?

Don't collect it and explain why. If you do collect she will just keep doing this.

Reading some of these horror stories, the UK has gone mad.

On what planet is it reasonable to expect anyone to pay £45 for a child's picture in a plastic frame in taxes???

Or £70 for a gifted blanket?

FFS

I collected a gift for my MIL at the sorting office. Her daughter who lives in the US had sent it and had ticked the merchandise box instead of the gift box. The guy at the sorting office said that we could claim back the tax as it was an error. I’m not sure if my MIL did or not though.

Agree.
And, when she receives it back, let her know (in a neutral tone) just how much it would have cost you in import duty.

She doesn't seem to have got the message about her erroneous maths; she might get the message not to send you stuff in future, though.

Did you know what it was before you collected it?More fool you if you did.

Girl better turn out to be the next Banksy.

Just let it go back to her and ask her to send it again with the correct form. It's not difficult!

A gift should never ever inconvenience the recipient or cost them money. Even experience type gifts can be inconvenient, and you feel obliged to use them and bad if you don't. Same for vouchers unless you know the recipient shops there regularly.

You do not have to pay if the items are with less than around 130 pounds. Does she know this? What is the value of the package? Explain to her. 70 would've been an enormous amount, the value would have to be hundreds.

ive ordered things from the US and sent gifts abroad, I’ve never had such an experience as with this friend.
id say this is more about human error than uk ripping people off

Lol!

Rookie error. The way to send a baby gift is to take the labels off everything and label it "second hand baby clothes, no commercial value" or £5, even if it's brand new and cost a fortune from JoJo Maman Bébé.

I'd let it get sent back and say you got notice of underpaid postage but you're not sure what happened. Pretend you didn't understand you had the option to pay it. She clearly doesn't understand the system so can't blame you for not understanding it either (especially when you're distracted by a new baby).

Even experience type gifts can be inconvenient

I’m with you on that. I loathe experience gifts, every one I’ve been given has required me to sort and pay for a variation of travel, a hotel stopover, babysitting, pet sitting, unpaid time off work or annual leave, meals - any or all of the above.

It’s a really lazy gift, bought purely for the convenience of the giver.

No I didn’t have a clue, it was a ‘surprise’! If she’d just sent it as a letter with no frame it would have been free.

I do actually still have it and she is very good at art so you never know, one day. I’ll stash it away with my DCs old beanie babies and first edition Buzz Lightyear doll!

Yeah exactly, with tue wedding present it seems she left amount in her own currency but put pound sign. It makes sense, the multiplier was close to 100 at the time. Now it’s more.
maybe she multiplied instead of dividing… in conversation, her rent is millions of pounds a month which turns out to be few hundred in reality. I don’t know what to expect lmao
last time I asked her to check… I’ve never had a problem like this before and sent stuff myself as well… I’ll just let it return to her and say 70 is too much this time… over explaining feels a bit crass to me

I also wouldn’t collect it. It’s so easy to buy gifts in the Uk from abroad - I live abroad and send gifts bought off various UK websites / retailers to my friends in the UK instead of mailing from here.

You didn't have to though.

Just reply saying It was really kind of you to send a gift but I have to pay £70 if I collect which I haven't budgeted for.

I wouldn't pay it. £70 is a lot of money and she will keep doing it. It's nice of her to send something but it shouldn't cost you.

exactly. Imagine what you could do with £70.. a nice day out, put into savings, a cosy winter jumper...

You need to read the rules about gifts and spell it out to her. I believe if you send a gift worth more than £39 you will be charged. That includes postage costs (that's caught me out before).

If there's more than one item and more than one person in the recipient household, you can wrap and label each item separately to a different person to a value of £39. I assume in this case the value of the postage is split equally between each "gift" although I didn't like to try it out.

Indeed. But how do you know what it is until you pay? You can’t really look a gift horse in the mouth and say “Can you tell me exactly what your gift is so I can weigh up whether it’s worth paying the ransom import tax or not?

why dont you just say that your really sorry but you do not have £70 free to collect the gift as your trying to save for babies future etc and your penny pinching at the moment and £70 is a lot, i mean come on thats nearly a whole weeks worth of food shopping for most people!

Mine was a handmade baby quilt.

Uk Import wanted £75 in taxes for a small fairly ugly quilt blanket.

Its a joke and a stealth tax

I suspect a lot of them think the amount put in the customs declaration is incase the item goes missing in the post so they will get that amount back. I've had the same problem when my parents are in the States (they have a holiday house there) and she posts a present to me or my family. She's finally got the message after having to repay me the customs charges a couple of times! She's also forgotten to put stamps on envelopes and posted them, resulting in me once having to pay around £2 for a receipt for a gift card that I didn't even need!

Just refuse to collect it, it should not be your problem so itwil go back to sender.

If she comments, just tell her the truth, you can't afford to keep paying taxes on the gifts she ends as it's leaving you massively out of pocket.

Unless you put your foot, this will keep happening.