Swedish postal service

[accidental]

.

[FreakAnimalFinland]

I think this was generally response for flooding mail imports from china. In some ways, I understand people being annoyed of import fees, but in other hand whatever it takes to stop importing unnecessary shit from china is fine with me...

I think within few years all non-EU mail to europe will be taxed. Now you still used to have possibility to get small shipments for free. In future it will be that everything is under import tax. For me, it is not as much about having to pay tax, but sheer paperwork it requires to get simple box of LP's mailed from USA, is what makes one less interested. At least it happens now online, not face-to-face with customs agents like still couple years ago.

[Zeno Marx]

It's either things like this or tariffs, which is what the USA will probably implement.  Either way, it will hit the lower incomes the most.

[PTM Jim]

Is there a fee for making it OVER 1500 SEK? If not, then why not just lie and say it is.

[totalblack]

Is there a fee for making it OVER 1500 SEK? If not, then why not just lie and say it is.

then you would have to pay tax on a package 'worth' more than 188USD - not sure what VAT is in Sweden but its 19-20% most places

[bogskaggmannen]

Just send as "gift" and max 45 EUR declared worth and it should be ok (according to Swedish Post website just now).

[bitewerksMTB]

Paying taxes is patriotic!

A tape or cd, I always mark as a gift & $4-6 value and usually as 'used'. An LP is $8 & used.

If it's declared as no value, will Customs question that especially if it's opened & doesn't look used?

[Theodore]

In Greece, it's not the VAT they apply but an extra 15 euro fee that drives me mad. VAT, i can understand and accept. That fee is ridiculous, especially given its title. You pretty much pay it cause customs did the work they are paid for -by our taxes- and checked your package ! Even Greek Postal Service is complaining and saying that fee is illegal. It's not the postal service we shall blame but customs / state. I suspect in many countries that custom work has be given to private sector and employees get a bonus according to their "production" . Till last summer, everything in a small parcel was passing for free here, now they are going by the book. And cause they don't have enough personnel, big delays happen also. I had read an article about, the parcels / boxes were left outside for weeks, just covered with plastics.

What bogskaggmannen wrote is the only way to avoid the extra charge. I will add, parcel's sender must be a person's name. If company's , it will not pass as gift ofcource, and the limit falls to 22 euro max.

Edit : Note that those maximum values are shipping cost included ! At least here. But since this is an EU law, it probably is the same everywhere in EU.
Also, there appears to be an additional fee more ! 3 euro, cause the postal service picked up your parcel from the customs / airport ! LOL ! Luckily, our postal service doesn't claim it.

[Johann]

Wouldn't this apply only to registered parcels? I personally do not like to pay for registration of packages anyways. Some may view this as risky but really the bulk of European postal systems and especially the Nordic ones are very good and do not usually lose packages. I worked for United States Post Office and they are also very reliable in my opinion and I do not personally recommend registering. Better to write the addresses very clearly.

Clearly some European countries post offices are worse than others. On a funny, but somewhat aside note, I remember a story I heard a guy that started a tech start up in Thailand. He sent over all his computers and backups from the US and insured everything. Thai customs told him he was an idiot for doing so. He said it cost him almost as much as the equipment was worth in fees.

[bitewerksMTB]

I worked for United States Post Office and they are also very reliable in my opinion and I do not personally recommend registering. Better to write the addresses very clearly.

The last time I registered a package, it didn't track at all & I was later told that the PO stopped tracking along with additional security for reg. mail/packages so registering now doesn't do anything other than cost more.

Yeah, the USPS is pretty good but when things go astray, it's annoying as hell. I have a package now taking much longer than it should to travel 200 miles & another going two states away and postage rates for something like a tape/cd should not cost $14 to mail to Sweden!

[Johann]

That's really bizarre, so all it did was work as insurance of some kind? It's amazing because our supervisors were up our ass about those scans. Maybe I'm just thinking paying for tracking? I worked as a carrier, so the clerk stuff I understand less than well.

It's definitely super annoying how packages can end up triangling around 3 wrong destinations before they get where there supposed to go, that happened to me quite recently as well. I've seen it happen legitimately to, for example. A package ships from Cleveland and for some reason it has to first go to Pittsburgh before it can get shipped to Detroit. Or Montana goes to Washington State, then comes back east. Weird shit.

Shipping to Europe is a joke, as well as from. I always wait until I have like 200 dollars worth of shit I want, that way it's like 2 to 3 bucks extra an item. The biggest joke about the cost hikes is that the carriers were issued a 7 dollar paycut in 2013 if they were still working as temps (which a good percentage do) meaning they went from 22 to 15 an hour. I heard that Belgium and then did some serious layoffs too, not sure about Sweden. But a lot of those countries don't receive all that junk mail we do in the US which is credited within the post office as keeping our prices fairly low in country.

[Andrew McIntosh]

The biggest joke about the cost hikes is that the carriers were issued a 7 dollar paycut in 2013 if they were still working as temps (which a good percentage do) meaning they went from 22 to 15 an hour.

That is FUCKED. 

[bitewerksMTB]

The biggest joke about the cost hikes is that the carriers were issued a 7 dollar paycut in 2013 if they were still working as temps (which a good percentage do) meaning they went from 22 to 15 an hour.

That is FUCKED. 

Considering some of their employees, $15 is way too much!

I think the thing with registered mail was it traveled under lock & key but once it landed in another country, depending on the country, it could be tracked but it wasn't always reliable. Some countries, it didn't do shit (South-Central America, Russia). Now, it doesn't do shit anywhere if the postal clerk is correct in what they told me.

[Zeno Marx]

The reason packages don't go directly from Chicago to Indianapolis, as a random example, is because there are only a few primary sort facilities now.  Years ago, sort facilities were all over the place, so they went directly to wherever they were shipped.  Now, it goes Chicago to New Jersey to Indianapolis.  It was more of a straight line rather than a triangle.  Fuel and contracted drivers, or other services like using UPS and their infrastructure, are a hell of a lot cheaper than paying bona fide USPS employees, health benefits, pensions, utilities, rent/licensing/building, equipment/maintenance.

Wait until there are driverless trucks and fully automated service counters.  The only way to talk to a USPS employee will be on the phone, which will be a person outsourced in a starving economy somewhere, or to another computer like Siri.  You think it's bullshit now?

Paying taxes is patriotic!

I know you were being facetious, but it pretty much is.

[magnus]

You bet! The plan with marking as "gift" doesn´t work... or at least as long as it is sent from what looks like a company. I have had a parcel sneak through but that looked a lot more private.
The Swedish postal is at the moment a complete disaster - but they do seem to deliver the mail eventually at least, so that´s the one good thing.