Interesting comment. Are you referring to the time taken to process, or the duty and fees levied? I ask because, in my experience, couriers such as Fed Ex always levy the duty (and fee), whereas PF sometimes do and sometimes don't.
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "Dave Plowman (News)" saying something like:
Unless you paid through the nose for an airline pilot's back pocket special, it was sheer luck of the draw. I've had normal USPS mail arrive within two days.
A lot depends on what's happening at Mount Pleasant where all the regular airmail from outside the EU comes in (still true AFAIK). Sometimes it's very slick, but if the sack containing your parcel is the first to be thrown in a corner because they're busy, it will also be the last to come out.
And then there's the airmail packages from the USA that turn up two months late, stamped "UK Customs - Port of Dover"...
On the positive side, the incoming postal service seems to be staffed by genuine UK Customs people with some individual powers of discretion, so even though they could charge, they sometimes don't. But the courier companies are only acting as agents to HMRC with no delegated powers of discretion, so they must always charge.
Like Bob, I treat the US Postal Service route as a gamble. It's cheap, but I don't necessarily expect things to turn up on time with no extra charges. When they do, that strictly a bonus.
My stuff was delivered by UPS. Does that still go through the PO? It surprised me by being in a box - the parts would easily have fitted in the smallest Jiffy bag.
Of course not. As I said in that same message, courier companies like UPS are authorised to charge duty and VAT as agents for HMRC. They handle it entirely themselves - though no doubt they are audited for every last penny, which is why nothing gets through "on the nod".
Packages from the USA arrive at the UPS depot at East Midlands Airport. If there's anything to pay, you receive a phone call or an e-mail, and can then pay whatever is due. On a good day you can get all this done while the package is still in the air, so on landing it has already cleared Customs and can go straight out on the lorry.
I've had a package leave Seattle one day, overnight to Baltimore(?), phone call from East Midlands the next evening, and by breakfast time it was already on the road to us from Carlisle.
It's much more expensive than US Postal Service and Royal Mail, but I can't fault the service.
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