The Energon Pub

Pretty much a quickly answered thread, this one. I recall someone mentioning a week or so ago an issue with buying from a person in China. They had mentioned that, while the ebay listing has been 'free' shipping, there ended up being some customs fee...or something to that general effect. I, foolishly, didn't bother to follow up and ask the person at the time.

I've never bought from China, and I'd be curious to know what that shipping method was, and how much the fee was, as an auction or two with "Free ePacket delivery" method caught my eye. I just don't want to get surprised by some fee if I can avoid it!

Thanks,
RAcast

I've ordered tons of stuff from China over the years to the USA and have never had to pay a customs fee. I know Europe ain't so lucky, though.

I think it's more dependent on the customs agent then any given shipping method. At least that's what my brother told me when I asked him about it some time ago (he does most of the shipping where he works).

Customs fees have nothing to do with the shipping charge. If applicable, a customs fee will be charged over the total value of the item (including shipping, BTW). A seller cannot be blamed for the possible addition of a customs fees, unless he's marking up the value of an item, to more than the actual price paid + shipping (and in those cases, you can always dispute the fee if you can prove what you actually paid).
Furthermore, in a lot of countries [i](including the US) it is illegal to mark down the value of an item to avoid customs fees and taxes.

People in the US have few issues when it comes to customs fees and import taxes due to the fact that sale taxes are low and you are allowed to import quite a bit of value. In Europe, our sales taxes are WAY higher (currently 21% in the Netherlands), and we can import goods worth max. $60 without worrying about taxes. Over that amount, we can get charged customs charges + sales tax.

Thanks for the answers everybody!

Custom fees can be somewhat random, anyway. I mean, I've paid customs twice in my life. Once on a large package and once on a tiny package containing a ten dollar item. In both cases I paid thirty dollars. I don't think that the Swedish customs offices are particularly capricious so this sort of thing can happen to anyone.

It's something to always be aware of and that will vary a lot between which specific country you are in but for me it has been very rare.