Wow, 16 cents (22 Euros = $29.84 at today's exchange rates) over? That sucks. This is the kind of feedback that's valuable for the next time. Germany is the only country so far that has reported duty being assessed on these. When you pick it up, please post the duty. Thanks!Originally Posted by JWiley_12
No news about my copy as of yet.
Is this standard or Sony just do this because you guys are small? Like would Square Enix make their own stuff?
Very much non-standard. Most big companies just let Sony do everything.
Gosh, it's so beautiful :-)
ClouDrop 28.11.2013 09-05-58.jpg
Unfortunately, both UMDs were shrink wrapped way to hot, both cases have lots of small holes in the wrapping. But, oh, I don't mind. Did I mention how beautiful the game looks?
To answer the pending question: I paid 12,98€ in total in taxes (shipment to Germany). Now I wonder why on earth the parcel was declared as 2x30$ and not 2x36,99$ in the first place?
The Dutch customs website says <€22 is free, €22-€150 gets 21% BTW, >€150 gets 21% BTW + import tax. I'm not sure if German MwSt is the same % as Dutch BTW (VAT).
But, yah, it looks like you just got bad luck with the $→€ conversion rate. At this moment US$30 > €22, but a month ago for example it wasn't.
Did you go to actual customs to get your package? I think usually the designated national mail carrier handles customs duties. And at least over here, they gladly take the opportunity to add their own handling fee on top of existing customs fees. Which means the total is usually more than what customs says it should be.
MwSt is 7 or 19% depending on the content of the package. It is true that privat post companies in this sector are allowed to handle import fee on their own for "small goodyys". The national post office isn't allowed to do that in Germany. If they have special doubt about the parcel in question they have to forward it to the customs. Besides dangerous or forbidden goods also packages with argueable declaration of the content or its cost are sent to the customs for them to handle it. And the last seemed to be the case for my games.
I may be mistaken but I thought he had ordered two copies. So unless you sent them out separately, that would be $60.
In the other case it would suck hard indeed. :-)
Edit: two copies indeed, as demonstrated in the picture above. :-) So it makes perfect sense that customs held it back.
Last edited by JWiley_12; 11-28-2013 at 03:53 PM.
Is the German national post not privatized yet? It's been all the rage since the '90s to privatize parts of the state here, and the mail was one of them unfortunately. The only difference between them and any other mail company now is that they get all the mail from outside the country that isn't explicitly sent through a specific company like UPS, FedEx, DHL, etc.
It sucks that they get away with adding another handling fee on top of what you already pay for customs. It should (and used to, once upon a time) be included in the shipping/handling you pay upfront when ordering something. UPS and FedEx both add an extra handling fee as well. I'm not sure if DHL does; so far I've not been hit with extra fees by them. They don't seem to be as popular as UPS and FedEx outside Europe though.
What sucks even more is that they hold your package ransom until you pay the extra fees. And the mail carrier doesn't have a card reader to pay through. Nope, you need to go out and fetch cash money to pay. Hope you have some change as well, because the mail carrier doesn't have that either. Come on, it's 2013 now. We live in the cash-less future. At least FedEx is nice enough to ask for the fees after they give you your package, which allows online payment.
*ahem* I can get a little carried away sometimes complaining about this :þ
I completely agree.
About DHL: I've had it once that I could pay DHL a certain amount (an estimate of theirs) upfront, meant solely for customs duty. Their estimate exceeded the actual duty, and so they refunded me the rest a few weeks later.
Customs should inform you that they are holding onto a package on its way to you. You have the right to declare any goods you import by yourself. I guess you just have to fill out some forms and that's it. In reality however they don't seem to do that anymore in some European countries (like my own). Instead it's the national post that automatically does the declaration for you, then charge you for this "service" you never even asked for. I think it's borderline illegal what they're doing.
And they just recently did it to me again. Had a (rather expensive) package coming in from Japan, so I had sent it through EMS to get it fast and safe to here. When I saw on the mail tracker that the package was in customs I called the exchange office. They referred me to an email address of theirs, so I emailed them asking whatever information they needed. They never replied, so I emailed again after 5 or so days. Again no reply. So I went to their office to ask what the problem was. They were pretty shocked to see me there, it seemed. :-) They then responded that the package had just been sent to me from their office that very day. What a coincidence! Anyway, they stalled the delivery of my package for roughly 2 weeks, then charged me 30 euros for that "service". Usually they charge 12 euros, I guess they charged more because it was an expensive package? And yeah, you have to pay the customs duty to them in cash (and the delivery guy doesn't even have change indeed!), even if it's a few 100 euros. :-)
So I'm planning to get to the bottom of this now. At the exchange office they admitted that I should've been informed by customs and should've gotten an answer to my emails. If they wronged me, I will get that 30 euros back! :-)
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