Any United Kingdom collectors receive their MotUC figs yet?

[Eamon]

Pssssshh wssssshhh!!!

No joy!

[Spacedust]

Still no second Battle Cat for me (though in fairness I've at least received one, which is more than many UK collectors).

I think in a week or so a lot of us are gonna get customs cards through our letterboxes. As I said previously, I'm pretty decided to go the e-bay route with future large items (Tytus, etc.).

[Orko's Magic Hat]

Got the magnificent Battle Cat today - he is so cool! I can't put him down - a work of art.

[MastersOfTheUK]

Nothing for me again. Come on BC, hurry up!

[Teela-Na]

Has any non-subscriber received Trapjaw and Battlecat yet (placed as one order) without getting a custom card?

[Spacedust]

Parcel man just been, no second Battle Cat for me again.

Convinced (and in a way, hope) the delay is due to customs.

[Minion]

Got home before 12pm (post cut off on Thursdays) in the hope of finding a Battlecat card (and my Dragon Age Origins Awakening game). Nothing!
Worrying that he shipped the same day as my stands, and that the stands turned up the same day as Trap Jaw who shipped three days earlier.

[Eamon]

I got my stands and Trap Jaws a week ago. So it seems they got shipped first.

I'm sure we will get our kitty very very soon!

[SirBushnell]

Just got a customs notice through the door. They want 16.90. I'll say that again... almost SEVENTEEN QUID... for a single Battle Cat!!!

It's clearly a mistake. I don't have any other packages in transit, and by my calculations only an item worth about $80 or so could reach that amount. So either Digital River wrote the wrong value on the package, or customs can't read their handwriting and thought a 3 was an 8.

Be prepared for some scary times, folks.

[Eamon]

Just got a customs notice through the door. They want 16.90. I'll say that again... almost SEVENTEEN QUID... for a single Battle Cat!!!

It's clearly a mistake. I don't have any other packages in transit, and by my calculations only an item worth about $80 or so could reach that amount. So either Digital River wrote the wrong value on the package, or customs can't read their handwriting and thought a 3 was an 8.

Be prepared for some scary times, folks.

***!!! Somebody somewhere put the wrong cash value on there. I take you are gonna try and get that back?

[SirBushnell]

I'll have to this time because it's ridiculous.

Once before they put a $40 value on a single figure - placed in a double-sized box, so I bet they just assumed what was in there when labelling it - and I kept the receipt and called Customs to find out what to do. But I couldn't be bothered to actually claim my refund.

Now I guess I'll just submit both claims at the same time. They will owe me a fortune now due to DR's screw-ups. It's amazing such a company is still in business.

[Eamon]

I
Now I guess I'll just submit both claims at the same time. They will owe me a fortune now due to DR's screw-ups. It's amazing such a company is still in business.

It is indeed baffling why DR still have Mattel gig.
I can't see many companys not being quickley replaced when you fudge things up for a whole year straight.

Maybe it's a locked down contract or something.
Unless somebody is sleeping with somebody.

[blackiecats]

Just got a customs notice through the door. They want 16.90. I'll say that again... almost SEVENTEEN QUID... for a single Battle Cat!!!

Bloody hell! As much as it will pain me to do, if I have to pay that much in fees for my Battlecat, it will go straight on Ebay so I can get my money back. £17 on top of £25 (£42 in total) for one 'new' toy is ridiculous!

Ebay US would probably have been around same price and less hassle!

I guess we are all just waiting for our customs notices now

[SirBushnell]

So to answer all your burning questions:

1) Yes, it was Battle Cat.
2) Yes, it was a single Battle Cat.
3) Yes, some idiot at Digital River mis-labelled it as an $80 item on the green customs label. This is borderline criminal when it's costing us all money - and not insignificant amounts!
4) My Trap Jaw figures were sent around the same time as this, but arrived over a week earlier - so anybody with the same time frame (i.e., got Trap Jaw a week or so ago) is most likely dealing with customs issues.

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V

5) Yes, the Battle Cat figure is awesome even at double the price.

But I'm going to file a claim for a refund with HRMC. I know how to do it and now have enough motivation to get on with it. I'll be happy to let you all know how that goes...

[Woodland Warrior]

That sucks Sir Bushnell. But there is still hope for others.
My Battle Cat, Trap Jaw and 5 boxes of stands arrived yesterday without a single penny being charged for customs!!!!!
Which is great as I can now buy my wife a birthday present

[Teela-Na]

So to answer all your burning questions:

1) Yes, it was Battle Cat.
2) Yes, it was a single Battle Cat.
3) Yes, some idiot at Digital River mis-labelled it as an $80 item on the green customs label. This is borderline criminal when it's costing us all money - and not insignificant amounts!
4) My Trap Jaw figures were sent around the same time as this, but arrived over a week earlier - so anybody with the same time frame (i.e., got Trap Jaw a week or so ago) is most likely dealing with customs issues.

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V

5) Yes, the Battle Cat figure is awesome even at double the price.

But I'm going to file a claim for a refund with HRMC. I know how to do it and now have enough motivation to get on with it. I'll be happy to let you all know how that goes...

Was your Battle Cat on the same order as Trapjaw and they separated delivery of the two, or did you place 2 separate orders on 16th Feb?

[robaczek]

My BC has an $80 value written on the green card - I guess I was lucky but I'm still waiting for the second one and if it's also mislabeled I might not be so lucky this time..

SirBushnell - could you give me a heads up and tell me how to follow the procedure to get the overcharge back?

[Eats-the-Trash]

My Battle Cat, Trap Jaw and 5 boxes of stands arrived yesterday without a single penny being charged for customs!!!!!

Did your package have an orange customs label (CN22)? Mine did and I find it odd that there's a note on the label about not exceeding £270 in value.

BTW My package had nothing entered in the value box.

[blackiecats]

If a third person gets a charge due to the $80 mislabelling I think we should start a seperate thread..... if my arrives valued at $80 (whether I'm charged or not, I'm done ordering directly from Matty) It's obvious DR has monkeys working for them

Though getting the charge back should be straight forward by sending them the receipt that comes with the toy, along with the customs label?

[Woodland Warrior]

Did your package have an orange customs label (CN22)? Mine did and I find it odd that there's a note on the label about not exceeding £270 in value.

BTW My package had nothing entered in the value box.

Nope just the normal standard green 2976 form.
There is some sort of scrawled symbol in the value box but I have no idea what it is meant to be. Possibly a zero. But God bless whoever filled it in!

[SirBushnell]

Was your Battle Cat on the same order as Trapjaw and they separated delivery of the two, or did you place 2 separate orders on 16th Feb?

They were all completely separate.

I had my subscription Trappy - nothing I could do about that. It was sent first but arrived second.

I bought a second Trap Jaw on its own - the one that arrived first - and then placed a final (third) order for Battle Cat and used the coupon we got to discount the shipping (which itself was a rip-off as if they'd discounted the item instead, there would never have been any chance of customs charges).

REFUND INFO:
By the way, for those asking... when I talked to customs last time this happened - which was a single figure labelled by the monkeys as having a $40 value - it was a real headache trying to get through to someone who knew what to do about it. I wouldn't advise anybody trying without having lots of time and money on their hands (lots of 0845 numbers, etc.).
They eventually told me that "all" I had to do was send the payment receipt - which is the white sticker attached to the package when you receive it, detailing the charges - along with a copy of the invoice for the item in question (showing that it was labelled incorrectly). We send those to the address listed at the top of that white label (detailing the charges), and enclose a letter explaining that the sender labelled the value incorrectly so we want a refund.

I'll obviously be doing it for two items at once now. They'd better not try and claim that the first is from too long ago - nobody mentioned any time limits, and it only means that they had my money for longer!

Oh, and I'm all for starting a thread about this, if more than just me has a problem. If you add it to these phantom taxes that DR keep charging us for our subscription, these incorrect charges are really starting to pile up. We'll be owed more money than we were supposed to shell out in the first place, at this rate!
We could have a thread about ALL of Digital River's costly mistakes - showing just how much money we're having to spend and/or be refunded overall (fake taxes, false customs charges, lost packages, international phone calls to customer service, etc.). If we had real resolve, we could even itemize our costs (as close as possible) and have a running total updated in the first post! Surely Mattel will have to take such a thread seriously?

Any good suggestions for the title of such a thread???

[blackiecats]

Thanks for the info SirBushnell. I guess we should wait until other folks ransom notes show up first. Then hopefully everyone who has got unnecessary custom charges would post in the new thread. I'd even suggest even folks who didn't get a charge, but it states $80 on their customs slip also post.

This is a very stupid error on DR's part and needs nipping in the bud straight away before it happens month in month out.

[Eamon]

It's really looks like DR are looking for ways to screw up!


Best MOTUC so far and we end up waiting the longest.
People in Italy have it already.

[little noise]

whoop.! whoop ..!

trap jaw has arrived...

[robaczek]

Hi guys, I just received the card from the post office with the customs charge to be paid - the good news is it's "only" £11.33 so it looks like they read the value amount from the box correctly.. Now I just have to pay the charge and my second BC will find it's home.. ;-)

Shame, looks like the $30 comes up to £19.77.. So close!

Here's how it's been calculated:

£19.77 * 17.5% = £3.46 + £8 (Post Office fee) = £11.46 (so the rate must have been slightly lower since I'm expeced to pay £11.33)

I'm just pis*ed about this £8 charge but according to this site it's just another way to scr*w us up by Post Office:

3.5 Why do I have to pay a handling fee to Royal Mail?
If customs charges are payable upon importation, Royal Mail charge a handling fee to cover the costs for carrying out customs procedures paying any customs duties or VAT due and collecting it from you. If customs examination is required, or if information is missing from the declaration, Royal Mail open, repack and reseal the package. Royal Mail fees are itemised separately on the charge label and are collected at the same time as customs charges. As they are completely separate from any customs charges, any queries about them should be raised with Royal Mail or Parcelforce Worldwide as appropriate.

Oh well.. At least it didn't get lost or overcharged..