Right?? My first thought was, damn. That’s some good customer service 🤯
Comment on [deleted]
Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca 3 months ago
Honestly; I’m impressed they both messaged you and gave you options.
Usually you wouldn’t find out until the mailman is demanding payment for the package he’s holding in front of you.
b3an@lemmy.world 3 months ago
ayyy@sh.itjust.works 3 months ago
Is the USPS even equipped to collect customs fees? As USian I’ve never paid an import fee as an end consumer ever in my entire life. All of this is so stupid.
IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 months ago
The CBP collect import taxes. You never had to pay it because there was a longstanding rule called “De Minimis” which excepted all items under $800 from import taxes. the 2nd trump administration overturned the De Minimis rule (does not require congress AFIAK).
dan@upvote.au 3 months ago
I can understand why they’d want to get rid of this… It was very generous and often meant that buying goods from an overseas supplier was cheaper than buying the exact same items from a US-based supplier. For example, I’ve bought MikroTik hardware from a Latvian supplier (Getic) because it ended up noticeably cheaper than buying from a US store.
Most countries have duty-free thresholds that are much lower, around the equivalent of $50-100 before taxes and duties are applied.
random@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 months ago
protectionism doesn’t work tho
barsoap@lemm.ee 3 months ago
In Germany the threshold is around 200 Euro, more precisely up to an import VAT of 10 Euros, where the state can’t even be bothered with the paperwork. 150 for import duties, though that doesn’t apply to alcohol, tobacco and perfume, unless everything is under 45 Euros and both sender and recipient are natural persons and no money has been exchanged.
You don’t want to completely abolish thresholds as you don’t want to spend more money on collecting taxes and duties than you collect. The general strategy of the financial police seems to be to make paying duties as inconvenient for private citizens as possible, they’ll hold back the parcel and you have to go to them, probably a couple of towns over, and fetch it in person. The smart thing to do when buying from alibaba or such is to choose shipping from a EU warehouse as then all the import stuff has been dealt with by the seller.
We still do have duties within the single market, btw, because different taxes on alcohol, tobacco, etc. Relevant mostly for ølvikingar.