I think Spanish custom officials have lost the plot

[expat]

I won a common coin of Postumus from Astarte auction in the middle of Feb. It was only 24 CHF, was shipped on 22nd, and two days later was impounded by Customs. There it sat for a week. I got an e-mail from Customs Friday asking me to provide proof of payment, the invoice and why such an item was shipped by registered post. Now Switzerland is not in the EU so I knew I would have to pay an import charge, normally it would be around 7 Euros. I sent all these documents along with the reason for buying it was for personal use. This morning I received an e-mail stating that I would have to pay a customs fee of 35 Euros within 5 working days otherwise the coin would be sent for destruction. So, the end result after speaking to the "official" involved about how they came up with a fee of 35 Euros plus tax, for a 24 Euro coin, was that I had to do a bank transfer to them.

Ultimately the coin has cost me

Hammer total     24.00 CHF
      Buyer's commission (+18.50%)     4.44 CHF
      Subtotal     28.44 CHF
      Payment fees (PayPal [+5.00%])     1.42 CHF
      Shipping costs (Registered mail [+1.00%, +15.50 CHF])     15.78 CHF
      Total     45.64 CHF

Converted to Euros this is 47.52, And now on top of this a fee of 43 Euros, giving a total of 90.52 Euros. To say I am disgusted is an understatement. I will never order anything or participate in an auction from outside EU again.

Rant over

 

 

[AETHER]

What a nightmare, sorry dude. 

[Salomons Cat]

Incredible. Such a soulless bureaucracy is pure evil.
If it weren't orchestrated by the state, it would be considered a criminal act.

13 minutes ago, expat said:

otherwise the coin would be sent for destruction

So, if it is not cultural property, then it can be destroyed. This shows how much respect the legislative organs truly have for ancient artifacts and coins.

[DLTcoins]

It sounds like registered mail for an inexpensive item was a red flag. They must have suspected the value was under-reported.

Edited March 5 by DLTcoins

[expat]

3 minutes ago, DLTcoins said:

It sounds like registered mail for an inexpensive item was a red flag. 

The other shipping options quoted were much more expensive and not worth it for an inexpensive coin.

[Salomons Cat]

11 minutes ago, DLTcoins said:

It sounds like registered mail for an inexpensive item was a red flag. They must have suspected the value was under-reported.

I don't think so. Shipping all kinds of goods via registered mail is quite normal. There are countless reasons for a registered mail. For example, because the seller wants a proof that the customer has received the item. Or emotional value.

Usually, import customs should give you a reasonable amount of time to answer and to pay any kind of fees. Doesn't matter how I look at it: 35 Euros within 5 working days and threatening to destroy the coin just seems completely inappropriate to me.

[expat]

To assume the item was under-reported would be to also assume the auction house was deliberately underpricing its invoices. I spoke to the auction house today and they assure me that an invoice was included in the package, so the customs agent saw that.

[DonnaML]

Extortion, pure and simple. Did you get an explanation as to how the fee was calculated?

[expat]

14 minutes ago, DonnaML said:

Extortion, pure and simple. Did you get an explanation as to how the fee was calculated?

The fee was import tax plus Custom fee for processing. Just a way to get more money than the 7 Euros I would have paid to the post office for a delivery from outside the EU, in my opinion.

[DonnaML]

4 minutes ago, expat said:

The fee was import tax plus Custom fee for processing. Just a way to get more money than the 7 Euros I would have paid to the post office for a delivery from outside the EU, in my opinion.

So the import tax is a percentage of value but the so-called processsing fee is an exorbitant charge unrelated to value? Is the amount of the latter set by law, or calculated at the whim of Customs?  

[expat]

10 minutes ago, DonnaML said:

So the import tax is a percentage of value but the so-called processsing fee is an exorbitant charge unrelated to value? Is the amount of the latter set by law, or calculated at the whim of Customs?  

It appears to be set according to where you reside. The problem is that Spain is divided into 17 autonomous regions, each with their own laws, rules and regulations. I have friend in a different region who had a customs problem and was charged a lot less. He lives in a small region and I live in the largest of Spanish autonomous regions. Why it should make a difference is beyond me.

[John Conduitt]

7 hours ago, expat said:

I will never order anything or participate in an auction from outside EU again.

This is, of course, the Great Plan 😉

[DLTcoins]

7 hours ago, expat said:

To assume the item was under-reported would be to also assume the auction house was deliberately underpricing its invoices. I spoke to the auction house today and they assure me that an invoice was included in the package, so the customs agent saw that.

I guess I drew the wrong conclusion from your original post: "I got an e-mail from Customs Friday asking me to provide proof of payment, the invoice and why such an item was shipped by registered post."

 

[Nerosmyfavorite68]

That's preferable to coming home to a notice from the city saying I'm now a customer of a small electric company which is the equivalent of Mutual of Steve, and then going through a burdensome opt-out.

Whether it be customs or wonderful 'electical aggregation' programs, it's all about the moolah.

I'm sorry you had to go through that. Any customs fee on inexpensive items is pretty odious.

[Nerosmyfavorite68]

I certainly didn't mean to take away from your topic. 

That really, really stinks about a customs charge which amounted to more than the coin was worth.  However, I thought that a place like Spain would be more coin-unfriendly than it actually is.  I've noted that most of the coins that you present are from Spanish dealers.  I just assumed that Spain made it really difficult to import coins.

I suppose it could have been worse. It could have been some enormous charge on a more expensive coin. 

[Limes]

19 hours ago, expat said:

I won a common coin of Postumus from Astarte auction in the middle of Feb. It was only 24 CHF, was shipped on 22nd, and two days later was impounded by Customs. There it sat for a week. I got an e-mail from Customs Friday asking me to provide proof of payment, the invoice and why such an item was shipped by registered post. Now Switzerland is not in the EU so I knew I would have to pay an import charge, normally it would be around 7 Euros. I sent all these documents along with the reason for buying it was for personal use. This morning I received an e-mail stating that I would have to pay a customs fee of 35 Euros within 5 working days otherwise the coin would be sent for destruction. So, the end result after speaking to the "official" involved about how they came up with a fee of 35 Euros plus tax, for a 24 Euro coin, was that I had to do a bank transfer to them.

Ultimately the coin has cost me

Hammer total     24.00 CHF
      Buyer's commission (+18.50%)     4.44 CHF
      Subtotal     28.44 CHF
      Payment fees (PayPal [+5.00%])     1.42 CHF
      Shipping costs (Registered mail [+1.00%, +15.50 CHF])     15.78 CHF
      Total     45.64 CHF

Converted to Euros this is 47.52, And now on top of this a fee of 43 Euros, giving a total of 90.52 Euros. To say I am disgusted is an understatement. I will never order anything or participate in an auction from outside EU again.

Rant over

 

 

Good rant 😁 Yes, unfortunately, taxes, import duties and shipping costs can get out of control. My advice: don't buy coin from outside EU, that you can also find in EU retail or EU auction. It's not worth it anymore. And if you do buy a coin from outside the EU, be prepared to pay a lot of addition costs. 

A personal example: as of June 2021 in the NL import duties are 21% (taxes) and 4% duties for coins. Those are levied over the total worth of the goods, including shipment. Additionally, a 12 eur administration/handling fee is to be paid too. I bought coins from Leu last July, for a total of 630 CHF. Addition fees of Leu: 116 CHF buyers fee (and 18,5% buyers fee is quite ok, compared to other sellers), 14 CHF postage/handling (handling lol, whats the buyers fee for then?), 12 CHF banking costs, and 7,45 CHF insurance. Import taxes/duties: 249 EUR. So, in total, the costs were 838 EUR (coins and shipment) and 249 EUR taxes/duties (total: 1049) for coins I bought for 630 CHF (about 655 EUR). Overall, I think in comparison to some other houses/sellers, the shipping and buyers fee of Leu are quite ok. Still, to get these coins in my collection, the additional costs are around 40% (I'm not that good in math, but you get the point) of what I paid for the coins themselves. 

Now, personally, this makes sense if it gets me the coin I really want and cant find anywhere else. For 'cheaper' or 'common' coins (i.e., coins you can find in EU retail of within a normal amount of time in EU auctions) I don't buy outside the EU. It's simply not worth it. I've also contacted EU sellers/dealers if Im looking for a specific coin that I cant find in their stock. Sometimes they have stock not listed, or are willing to look around. 

I also dislike the "pay within 5 days or we will destroy your property" attitude. I mean, seriously, 5 days, given the time these custom offices take to clarify goods. Ridiculous. You should file a complaint. 

[maridvnvm]

I have other similar stories. It is generally not worth my while buying anything under around Eur 50 from an auction house in the EU because the commission (18-38%), postage (Eur 15), duties (20%) and handling charge (£8) often exceeds the value of the item.

In the UK the Royal Mail charge a fixed rate of £8 handling fee on top of any duties requested by customs, with duty being paid on any excise goods valued over £39 at a rate of 20%. 

[DonnaML]

All I can say is that it's a big advantage to live in the USA and never have to worry about paying import duties on ancient coins, never mind VAT, regardless of where the seller is located. But one does still have to watch out for those extra "merchandise processing fees" of $40-$50 that Federal Express and DHL manage to charge for getting coins through Customs when the total value of the items in the shipment exceeds $2,500. The couriers like to use language implying that such charges are required and imposed by Customs itself, but they're actually the companies' own fees: U.S. law authorizes Customs to charge such processing fees only for "commercial goods" exceeding $2,500 in value, on which customs duties are due in the first place. Not for ancient coins, regardless of value. To have ancient coins shipped by Federal Express or DHL from a country like Switzerland, where dealers like Leu charge CHF 85 to ship a package by Federal Express to the USA to begin with (no matter the value of the shipment), and also having to pay a "processing fee" on top of that when the value is greater than $2,500, feels more than a bit excessive. So I've been avoiding spending that much at any single auction in Switzerland, or anywhere else in Europe for that matter.  A good policy for my budget.

Edited March 7 by DonnaML