Anyone from the UK having problems with iherb?

Hey guys
I just recieved most my iherb order (5 different items) and have had to pay a £25 customs charge!! Plus its taken over 3 weeks to recieve them--has anyone else had this problem?

I am not from the uk but I had a similar problem. Apparently in turkey, if your order costs more than 100 euros, you have to pay an additional custom tax which is around 100$ + some other fees aswell. I had an order of 140$ and it was stuck @ the customs office, they called me and told me about the procedure. In the end, it turns out that I have to pay about 140$(even more) to get my order back. I said "thanks, keep it." lol. So I started ordering small amounts, around 60$ orders, and there hasn't been a problem ever since.

I realise this is a really old thread but..I received my first iherb order a couple of weeks ago and now today I have received a bill from DHL demanding an extra £31. That is by far the biggest charge I've ever had for importing something. Does anyone from the UK know any way around the charge, or good alternative suppliers? (for the future - I guess I have no choice but to pay this one).

aw sucks no I've had nothing....... yet. I placed a huge order with them (about £40's worth) I guess not huge but quite big.. let's see how it turns out!!

DHL is the default shipping method on Iherb but can be changed to the 4$ flatrate USPS and they dont send out bills.

I got a £15 something or other extra that I had to pay. :/ Is it to do with the shipping method than actually ordering from them?

I live in Europe and i'm waiting for my order for almost a month now. Normally i get it within a week. Hope it did not get lost/stolen.

North Europe, so is the extra bills to do with the shipping rather than just from ordering from iherb?

tooyoung, the extra bills are only for DHL shipping since they charge more for shipping and ontop of
that a bill for import tax. By selecting USPS instead of DHL, the charge is $4 flatrate int. airmail. This way you get cheaper shipping and they do no collect import tax collection, which is left to the customs control who are often too bussy to bother with small packages.

North-Europe wrote:tooyoung, the extra bills are only for DHL shipping since they charge more for shipping and ontop of
that a bill for import tax. By selecting USPS instead of DHL, the charge is $4 flatrate int. airmail. This way you get cheaper shipping and they do no collect import tax collection, which is left to the customs control who are often too bussy to bother with small packages.

When I ordered my SSKI from the US recently, it was shipped via USPS. A week later, the Royal Mail put a leaflet through my letterbox saying my parcel is at their depot and I had to pay almost £12 in customs. When I collected the parcel, £8 of that was a Royal Mail International Handling Fee, while the rest was VAT...

The vast majority of my charge was VAT. It basically seemed to be tax added to an import (not sure why just this import..special rule for supplements?). Anyway thanks all, I'll try the other delivery options next time.

An option is to refuse to pay the vat and demand the package is returned to sender ..

Then after awhile they get tired of having to return small value packets so they may start focus on larger-value packets that are not likely to be returned.

North Europe - Don't you just lose everything you've ordered by asking it to be returned to sender, or do iherb ship it back?

tooyoung wrote:North Europe - Don't you just lose everything you've ordered by asking it to be returned to sender, or do iherb ship it back?

He is suggesting you send it back which defeats the whole purpose of placing an order. You place an order to get an item, not to have it shipped to the UK only to send it back.

I have no problems with VAT charges, what I have a problem with is the ridiculous handling fees FedEX and Royal Mail charge on their International orders.

So is there no way to avoid the royal mail charges?

tooyoung wrote:So is there no way to avoid the royal mail charges?

Well when I ordered from Swanson, they shipped via FedEX and they charged me VAT and (I think) a £12 handling charge. With USPS, it somehow was delivered to Royal Mail who also charged VAT and a handling charge. I am interested in buying the top 6/7 but it's expensive already and when customs got hold of my items, it's going to drive the cost up ALOT. If I could avoid customs, I would buy a lot more supplements from the US.