Parcelmonkey Courier Service

[manthing]

i had bought a number of books and dvds in USA.
had a friend in USA hold them for me.

some of these were big boxsets and couldn't simply be posted in padded envelopes. so had to be sent in carboard boxes.

when it came to posting the packages to me, we initially tried USPS.
they quoted a high figure.

so i went hunting for cheaper couriers.
most were charging similar rates to USPS.

but after much searching i came across a UK courier service called ParcelMonkey: http://www.parcelmonkey.co.uk/index.php

they gave a quote at a much lower price that USPS and other courier services.

i then searched around for reviews about Parcelmonkey. they seemed to have good feedback.

i'm guessing here, but what Parcelmonkey and other couriers can do is bulk purchase the services of the more establised / well known courier companies like DHL and Fedex.

Parcelmonkey can get a good rate for their bulk purchase, and then pass on the lower costs to their customers.

so i proceeded to place the order with them.

so far, so good.

but, as usual, things did not go smoothly.

in my particular case, Parcelmonkey used DHL to do the actual couriering.

the real problem was miscommunication on the part of Parcelmonkey & DHL USA.
perhaps the lack of intelligent staff?!

i repeatedly asked Parcelmonkey which forms i had to fill-in as i was importing goods into UK. they replied they only had the 1 form and my friend in USA had to print this out in triplicate - give 2 to the pickup guy and keep 1 for our records.

however, DHL USA had never heard of Parcelmonkey.
besides, they only use their own forms.

when both my friend and i asked DHL USA which forms we had to fill-in, we got absolutely nowhere!

i am not exaggerating.

we tried emails, phone calls, the lot.
DHL's website is also of no use to us.
and the staff had less braincells than an amoeba!

by now we were getting so fed up with the whole process.
i was on the cusp of cancelling my order with Parcelmonkey.

in the end i let it go, just to see how things panned out.

it took about 2 weeks or so before DHL actually picked up the packages from my friend's place.

at that point, the pickup guy simply gave my friend a standard DHL form to fill-in. ie, my friends name & address, my name & address and a very small box for the description of the contents of the packages.

after this, things actually proceeded quite quickly.
i think 2 days later i received my packages.
WOW!

so despite the initial problems with Parcelmonkey and DHL, in the end i got my goods and paid far less for the courier service. so overall, i was happy.

ahh, there must be a "but" you say.
indeed there is.

weeks after i received my packages, i was hit by an "import duty and VAT" invoice by DHL. (VAT is the equivalent of GST in USA, but VAT is 17.5%!)

i was puzzled as to why i had to pay this.
i spoke to DHL UK about it.

they said, as my friend in USA had not given a complete and detailed account of what was in the packages, DHL UK had to use a table to judge the value of the goods. something about the "landed" costs table.

so DHL UK had to use this figure from the table, plus the value of the goods my friend declared on the form for insurance purposes, and then hit me for VAT on the sum of the two.

i explained the situation to DHL UK. i said there was nothing on Parcelmonkeys website about paying for import duty. nor did they email about such things.

similarly, DHL USA did not advise us about this and did not ask us for a detailed explanantion of the contents of the packages.

luckily for me, DHL UK understood my situation and told me to ignore this VAT invoice.

in the end, things worked out fine. phew!

i'm posting this on CPS so that the rest of you are aware of the good and bad points about using courier services across countries.

Parcelmonkey run a very slim organisation to save money.
they do not have a telephone number!
they probably only have a few staff members who only communicate via emails.

so the good point is that you'll probably get a pretty low quote from Parcelmonkey.

the bad points are:

- both Parcelmonkey and DHL / Fedex may give you a bit of a run-around as they don't have a smooth inter-company system.

- Parcelmonkey don't explicity explain the costs you may face in terms of import duty.

- Parcelmonkey / DHL / Fedex will happily take the packages from you without getting you to fill in the proper documents. and there is no easy way of getting to know which forms you have to fill-in from them.

- don't expect instant responses from Parcelmonkey. they will get round to answering your emails, but it can take a day or two. and even then, you may not be satisfied with their answer!

- from start to finish, it may take longer than the suggested turnaround time. i.e. it seemed that from the moment i placed my order with Parcelmonkey, it would take around 48 hours for the pickup. in fact it took over 2 weeks!

overall: i may still use Parcelmonkey in the future. they are not cowboys. but next time, i am more aware of what i need to do and that i need the patience of a saint when dealing with Parcelmonkey (and DHL / Fedex).

you guys & gals of CPS be aware of these issues if you ever use courier companies. you MUST give detailed account of contents of package(s) and also state value of goods so courier can judge what VAT to charge.

one last point: i was told by Parcelmonkey that my goods would automatically be covered up to £50 / $100 by them. and so we had to use that figure in the DHL USA form my friend filled-in.

however, you will be hit an import duty for that £50 / $100!
any goods above the value of £18 (or gifted items above £36) will be penalised with import duty in UK.

now it is up to you to decide whether you want to insure your goods or not.
example, if your goods were really worth say £1000, would you take the risk and lie and say it was only worth £18 and hence escape VAT? but what if the goods were damaged or lost? so think about it.

so is it "caveat emptor" or "caveat venditor"?

[manthing]

bumping this topic in case it got lost due to recent CPS upgrades.

[lordsmurf]

Originally Posted by manthing

bumping this topic in case it got lost due to recent CPS upgrades.

The "latest posts" box on the forum homepage got damaged. I'm in the process of re-writing a new one. That's why it disappeared from the homepage. Threads should still be intact in the subforums ok.