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Injured and bored, put an offer of £200 for some new reba team maxles 120s. offer accepted from a kosher store on ebay. getting them shipped to a good friend in california for free, hes going to send to me. so who to ship with? heard fedex are better than usps? any pointers on shipping and which service is good. also im prepared to pay tax but any advise on less/avoidance appreciated. cheers
Tang,
Not sure on the postage front, all i know is that when i have had things from America they have always used Fedex.. So they must be good.
But with the Tax, i had some carbon wheels shipped earlier this year, the bike shop that sent them was 100% honest on the Invoice and marked them as the retail price, so i paid import duty. But there was a problem with them so they had to send me another pair out, this time they marked them as having value of $30, and put them as a gift so i paid no duty. This was good for me and they arrived safely.
The only problem you may have, is if they go missing, then the can only claim back what was printed on the invoice. In theory though this shouldn't happen..
Hope i helped
Josh....
thanks josh. fedex, marked gift, lower value.
used both usps and fedex, fedex were quicker and no handling fee, usps took longer and royal mail charged £8 handling fee to be paid before they would deliver, had to pay import tax with both though, if its sent by a friend as a gift there might be no tax or handling fee anyway, tell your mate to send any invoice in a seperate letter in case customs open it up for a looksee, they did this with some bars i got marked as a gift, found the invoice and charged import tax anyway,
good tip khani, will do.
You don't pay duty on MTB forks only VAT. I purchased and received a new set of forks from America with USPS few weeks ago with no probs. You pay VAT on the price and postage of the goods. The shop that sent mine marked $100 goods, $50 postage and I paid around £18 in tax and UK delivery. Expect to wait a few weeks on delivery. If you go with USPS, Parcel force will probably deliver them. I say deliver, I had to go to their depot to pay and pick up. Parcel Force send you a letter when they are at your nearest depot. I didn't know this and put the USPS tracker on to their system by chance and realised who was delivering them in the UK! I will defo shop in America again.
I forgot to say even as a gift you WILL pay VAT! Anything over around £27 will be charged. Get the invoice sent to your email, I got the real invoice and the shipping one sent in case there was any probs. Put the phoney shipping invoice in the box as customs may check it. I really hope there are no customs officers on here!