TONY HETHERINGTON: UPS wrongly charged me import duties on an antique clock I bought in Vienna

Tony Hetherington is the Financial Mail on Sunday’s top researcher, taking on readers’ corners, uncovering the truth that lies behind closed doors and delivering victories for those left out of their own pockets. Below you can read how you can contact him.

RN writes: I bought an antique clock at an auction in Vienna and arranged the packaging and shipping with UPS.

I had included complete customs clearance instructions in triplicate with the package, but due to ignorance or arrogance, UPS made all three possible errors in calculating taxes and duties.

Tony Hetherington replies: Do notDo you just like it when the customer turns out to know more than the people who get paid for providing a service?

I know I do. I once fired a law firm that demanded all kinds of personal information from me, falsely claiming that this was their legal duty under money laundering rules, to the point where it became clear that I knew more about those rules. than they did.

With you, UPS could hardly have picked a worse customer to bombard with demands that were simply wrong. The clock you bought was between 100 and 250 years old, so only 5 percent value added tax (VAT) should be due. UPS tried to charge you 20 percent.

There are no import duties on these types of antiques, but UPS has added import duties to your invoice. And UPS based its VAT calculation on the full amount of the Vienna auction house’s invoice. Instead, VAT should only be due on the ‘hammer price’ (the €1,400 you offer) and not on the additional buyer’s premium and Austrian VAT.

The result of all this was that when the UPS driver came to your door he demanded £321. The correct amount should have been €82, including UPS’s own customs clearance costs of €12. You refused to pay.

And why do I say UPS picked the wrong customer to overcharge? Well, they could never have expected you to be a senior official at the European Commission, where your specialty was customs duties and VAT. You were involved in making all those rules that UPS got wrong and you got right. All UPS had to do was follow the instructions you helpfully included in the package.

When I reached out to UPS for comment, I was told, “The package was successfully delivered to the customer on the first attempt and the billing discrepancy was resolved at no additional cost to the customer.”

When you’re trying to overcharge a customer by more than $200, describing this as an “invoice discrepancy” is a bit of an exaggeration! And when I say that UPS resolved this “at no additional cost” it makes me wonder how they could possibly have demanded more when they demanded too much in the first place.

When I relayed this to you, you had received your antique clock, but told me that the delivery had actually been rescheduled five times. And you still had no correct invoice, and no proof of import or customs clearance.

So I went back to UPS, who said, ‘Of course there are cases where technical or administrative errors occur; we ensure that these are resolved for our customers.’ A few days later, UPS gave you a corrected invoice and paperwork. And as a gesture of goodwill, it has canceled the £82 charge. About time.

Help…BT is ruining things

NH writes: My son and I run a small business in St Helens, Merseyside, and we are at our wits’ end because BT won’t restore our phone line.

We have been without a telephone line for more than four weeks. This brings our business operations to a standstill.

Cut off: NH’s small business has been without a phone line for more than four weeks

Tony Hetherington replies: You told me that BT came to your company to repair the line, and then there was a discussion about extending your contract.

BT sent a new router, and then your phone went dead. You’ve called BT several times on different phones, spoken to someone in another country and gone through the same security questions each time, but no one has resolved the problem.

You are now close to the point where jobs are at stake. I have contacted BT on your behalf.

Three days later it apologized, saying: ‘Due to an error in our administration, the original order was routed to the wrong centre.’

An engineer came to your company the same day and installed a temporary telephone line. Your broadband is working and your original number has now also been reactivated.

We’re watching you

Investors who poured their life savings into shares of medical cannabis company Orange River Capital may now have to factor in the costs of their decision as the company is likely to disappear in a puff of smoke.

The company’s shares were marketed with the prospect of an annual dividend of 15 percent and a capital gain of 300 percent, but the company has failed to submit the bills that were legally due in May.

Bad taste: Cannabis company Orange River Capital seems to disappear in a cloud of smoke

Officials at Companies House have started proceedings to have the company compulsorily struck off and dissolved. Investors say dividends due last January and in July have not yet been paid.

I warned in September last year that the share issue was full of false claims. It was promoted in marketing emails by London financial newspaper CityA.M., but the formal offer document named an executive who had already resigned and claimed backing from a stockbroking firm that had gone bankrupt.

And it touted its “proven track record” while at the same time its own records showed it had not yet acted.

Worse still, the man behind the stock offering falsified his own track record. Lee Farbrace, 45, from Folkestone in Kent, listed five directorships on his CV but left out his role as boss of EMI Wealth Limited.

An investor who invested £130,000 in the company only got £30,000 back. The company was forcibly delisted and dissolved in October last year. Farbrace did not respond to repeated invitations to comment on complaints that his latest venture now owes money to investors.

If you believe you have been a victim of financial misconduct, please write to Tony Hetherington at Financial Mail, 9 Derry Street, London W8 5HY or email tony.hetherington@mailonsunday.co.uk. Due to the large number of questions, personal answers cannot be given. Only send copies of original documents. Unfortunately, these cannot be returned.