[dob66]

Mine came in nice LP mailer-one of the 'box' ones rather than the envelope type. Posted on 14/11, arrived last week in UK.

[AndreasEldritch]

Jealous! Did you have to sign for it upon delivery? Curious to know why we paid so much in postage if it just came in an LP mailer box

[hudpitch]

Same for me, received last Thursday, it was posted out on the 14th November (though order completion email was 4th November) in the boxed LP mailer. Received without any damage.

I didn't have to sign for it, but it was a dithering old dear who worked for Royal Mail delivering and I was covered head to toe in paint due to decorating.

[Purplemule74]

I'm just putting this out into the Universe, but I'd love to see a company life Death Waltz put out the OST to Kwaidan:

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAcVfr4sIcM[/video]

As best I can tell this wasn't released as an LP back in 1964 at least to English speaking countries.

I see it as Death Waltz appropriate since it is a collection of 4 beautifully shot ghost stories - and seems obscure enough these days to appeal to horror soundtrack folks.

*putting out good karma to see dreams come true*

Also, can't wait for the 'Beyond the Black Rainbow' soundtrack. That is going to be epic.

[albatard]

On twitter:
"Happiness is getting @Slayer artist Wes Benscoter to render the art for The New Barbarians with a score by Claudio Simonetti"
Don't know how it sounds, but really happy that Benscoter will do a Death Waltz cover art!!!

[dob66]

No signature. $12.75 to post. Got here fairly sharpish.

money-wise i'm more worried about being screwed over by customs for my deluxe Lee Hazelwood box that's now shipping...gotta love a lugubrious cowboy. LitA usually do the right thing when shipping though

[AndreasEldritch]

Bloody UK postal system. Just received a card informing me that my Carpenter print is sitting in the Royal Mail delivery office - I've got to pay £12 import charge to collect it!! So that's £24 postage cost for a £25 item! Better be good!

[nick1972]

SNAP !

Not impressed about having to shell out another £12 on it when clearly others have had no issues

[siforster]

Getting stuff through customs was always a bit hit & miss as far as Royal Mail were concerned, but the ratio was always well in my favour so rolled with the times I got hit. Sadly, I suspect that this ratio will shrink dramatically (and the handling cost to rise at the same speed) now it's been privatised and I'm pooing myself to no small extent as to what I'll get charged for 2 x 3LP Lanegan Anthologies from LITA in the New Year. I suspect "Gift, $15" won't cut it with the gits at Mount Pleasant...

[carloscadaver]

Folks,

Anyone that hasn't received their prints, they're starting to trickle across as we speak.

However, anyone that got stuck paying extra, I am very surprised as to why? I sent them from the post office, and everything seemed in order. I can't understand why they would charge one person, and no one else has messaged us.

Please let us know if you get stuck with any weird extra fees.

info@deathwaltzrecordingcompany.co.uk

[AndreasEldritch]

The reason why there's an extra charge is simple: Anyone in the UK importing goods from overseas (excluding Eurozone) must pay an import charge to the tax man if the goods are worth more than about £15 I think.
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/customs/post/buying.htm#3

For the Carpenter print, the tax man charged just under £4 - but the Royal Mail also charge you £8 administration fee to collect the item, hence the extra cost. http://www.royalmail.com/personal/help- ... -a-payment (Second to last para)

I've ordered loads from the US before over the years and never been charged a import tax - until the last month when they seem to have clamped down on it.

Monthofmacabre - I can email you to say I've been charged extra, but is it worth it? I don't expect DW to pay the extra cost, as it's something that applies to all imported goods to the UK, so not really DW's liability. Do you still want me to email you?

[carloscadaver]

I was curious to see if ANYONE else got slapped with that.

Just to see what happened and if I PERSONALLY made the error! I hope that wasn't the case. I feel pretty rotten that you had to pay extra on that man.

[AndreasEldritch]

There is someone else a few posts back who got the extra charge.

Not to worry! At least it turned up. That's the main thing.

[nick1972]

Email sent :0)

[chandler75]

Just mark everything as valued $2 on the package and it should slip through customs pretty much anywhere in the world

[chandler75]

I guess it's OK to post this here...

"Just a heads up that Cassettes for Halloween II, Halloween III & Assault On Precinct will go on sale today at 6PM Greenwich Mean Time.
We wont tweet this until later this evening so you guys have a chance to purchase.
We only have 150 of each cassette so numbers are very ltd and one copy per person."

Anyone knows what these are limited to? I remeber Spencer talking about 1,000 copies at some point...

[siforster]

...as long as the sender doesn't include an invoice on the outside (or inside - they're allowed to look if they want). Even if it's declared on the CN22 as $20 for example, and the invoice (that usually doubles as the shipping label) says $45, Customs can charge duty/tax based on the higher amount.
As far as I know, Vinyl and Printed Matter such as Posters are currently duty free into the UK (CDs aren't), but it's the VAT that's a bastard at 20% (in the UK), which is calculated on the value of the goods plus the shipping cost. And then there's 8 quid to pay for the RM doing the simplified customs entry.

All of which is crap, but at least you have a fighting chance of someone not being particularly arsed when it gets scanned in, as it would have to be a fairly huge box and a particularly pedantic worker to want to go through all that although as I said above, they will be much keener in future as it's no longer a public service and now a revenue stream. And courier companies charge £20+ for the same service...

[chandler75]

VAT that’s a bastard at 20% (in the UK), which is calculated on the value of the goods plus the shipping cost. And then there’s 8 quid to pay for the RM doing the simplified customs entry.

I know it's tough, but here in Denmark it's 25% VAT + £18 (!) for "RM doing the simplified customs entry" - even if it's, say, only a £9 item. So a £9 item could end up costing 9 + 25% + 18 = almost £30

That's why I'm quite careful about what I order from the U.S. and usually only order if I'm sure I can get the sender to declare a lower value (meaning lower than £9) so it can slip through customs.

[ambertiger]

Me too, just arrived home to find a card from the P.O, there's a customs charge £13.93. Don't know what it might be so will have to pay.


I noticed on an earlier post that someone wrote that you don't have to pay charges on records or posters, does anyone know if this is correct.

[siforster]

Wow, that's a lot!

I used to deal with a great DVD vendor in Korea years ago whose online order forms used to basically allow you to declare your own customs certs and choose whether or not to include an invoice with the package. Those were the days

[chandler75]

ambertiger: I'm not in the UK, but Si wrote that records and posters are duty free, but you still have to pay the 20% VAT (VAT and duty are two different things).

[deathwaltz]

Cassettes are up.

[deathwaltz]

Andreas
shoot me an email .
Is it a warped sub copy or standard ?
s

[deathwaltz]

Email Carlos tomorrow and ask him to get Michael at LITA to resend you one FOC

[siforster]

The following is long-winded and boring. If you're going to read it, put some decent sounds on first.



Import Duty (if applicable) is charged as a percentage on the value of the goods plus the shipping cost. This percentage depends on what the goods are, and changes frequently and for as many reasons as you can shake a stick at. On the plus side, Import Duty in the UK is waived if this value is worked out at less than £9 - most small shipments of the sort of stuff that we'd all be buying should fall under this.

Import Tax is then charged as a percentage of the goods value plus the shipping cost plus any payable Duty amount.

And for the Royal Mail doing the entry, there's an £8 flat fee. Couriers charge a lot more.



Bored yet? There's more. I'm sorry. Gets a bit UK-specific from here as far as amounts are concerned, but the principle should be the same wherever you are.

There is also an exemption level for VAT, and this is where it can get a bit messy - normally, it's £18 maximum goods value per package but this doubles to £36 if the little "Gift" box is ticked by the shipper. Anything declared under those amounts is exempt from charges. The important bit for this is that on the CN22, and what usually gets missed in these cases the currency must be specified!!! Otherwise the country of destination tends to get picked.


What has probably happened in your case is this...

The goods have been declared on the CN22 (Customs sticker thingy) as "something", not a gift, and a value of 20 without putting a little $ in front of it - this will be read in the UK as a value of 20 quid and liable for Tax. If it's a pre-printed USPS shipping label the postage cost won't be shown but - and this is the kicker - whoever's doing the entry can guess at how much it might have cost.

So your charges breakdown (much like the one I'm having while typing all this) will be along the lines of:
Value: £20.00
Shipping $15.00 (they'll have their own exchange rate, I'm going with 1.6)
Duty: 0
VAT: £20.00 + £9.38 x 20% = £5.88
Entry Fee: £8.00
..which is a mere 5p out!