Well, this is something I wasn't expecting:
ImportTerminal Fee 10%=8.00 80.00
CArrier Disbursement 10%=4.50 45.00
Import Document Fee 10%=4.80 48.00
Cargo Automation Fee 10%=2.50 25.00
Cartage 10%=7.80 78.00
Clearance 10%=12.00 120.00
Duty Exempt Rated 57.79
Import GST Exempt Rated 162.16
Customs Entry Charge Exempt Rated 55.20
CMR Fee 10%=1.50 15.00
That's not even counting the actual cost of getting the thing to Townsville - or GST.
You know, I buy weird and wacky things from overseas all the time and they just send it to me in the mail. Occasionally someone at customs slices it up and leaves me a note saying they were "just checking", but I don't suddenly have over $700 added to the price just because my thing turns up in the country. Why are people suddenly charging me Duty, GST and customs charges just because I want a box taken off a plane?
Where do they tell you this sort of thing will happen? How could I possibly have known about this back when I was thinking about ordering a bike from the US?
The price on the website is US$900. The custom paint job (yes, an unnecessary expense, but if I'm going to by a fancy-pants bike I may as well fork out for a red one) was less than US$200. I was quoted a price to have the thing shipped to Australia, which was fine. Factoring in the exchange rate, I thought I'd come in at under $2000AUD - which I could live with. Now, it's going to end up costing me over $2500 - probably even closer to $3000.
That's a lot of money to pay for a $899.00 bike. I don't know whether I would have gone ahead with it or not, had I known what the full price would be. Maybe. I'm just ticked off that I didn't know. I like making informed decisions, and I have no idea where I should have checked to get this information.
Caveat emptor indeed.
I agree with you that if a company ships to a country that they make the buyer fully aware of ALL the costs involved. That is only fair in my humble opinion. I can't believe you were able to get a bike from the US to Australia. Most of the time I can't even get UK Amazon marketplace sellers to ship to Ireland!
ReplyDeleteJust some sort of heads up that this is too big and expensive to count as mail and would be regarded as importing goods - therefore incurring fees, taxes and charges - would have been nice. If I'd known there was more information to be found, I would have found it...
ReplyDeleteI've rarely had troubles getting things sent to Australia. Then again, I don't bother looking at stores that don't ship internationally. A little bit of ferreting around usually finds a similar product in a store that will mail it to me with little fuss.
ReplyDeleteNow, however, I'll pay a bit more attention to the size of the thing I'm ordering. Memo to self: large expensive items should be bought in person, in the country in which one is currently standing. Then, maybe, it will be a matter of shipping my own possessions to myself rather than importing.