Unexpected £57 customs charge on a £200…
Unexpected £57 customs charge on a £200 order – extremely disappointing I’ve added this review to reflect how the UK version has joined the Worldwide version. Having ordered from Photobook UK previously without issue, we recently spent approximately £200 ordering several personalised photobooks. Considerable time went into designing them, and delivery was advertised as free. Only after ordering did we receive demands from courier Aramex for an additional £57: £42 import VAT and a £15 administration fee. That’s an unexpected increase of nearly 30% just to receive goods we’ve already paid for. It appears the books are being shipped internationally, despite being ordered through a UK-facing website. Photobook’s terms say import charges may apply, but this does little to prepare customers for such a substantial additional bill. More concerningly, HMRC guidance VBOOKS3130 explicitly states that qualifying printed, bound photobooks are zero-rated for VAT. Our books have hard covers and flexible, permanently bound, printed pages, which appear to meet those criteria. We are therefore questioning why 20% import VAT has been charged at all. It is particularly frustrating to face a £15 administration fee for processing customs paperwork when we are now having to investigate whether that paperwork was correct in the first place. Looking through other Trustpilot reviews, it is apparent that customers have been raising similar concerns about unexpected customs charges for years. We have contacted Photobook Worldwide and Aramex to challenge the charges and are awaiting a resolution. We don’t want a refund for the books or to cancel the order. We simply want the personalised books we spent hours creating, delivered for the price agreed at checkout, with the correct UK VAT treatment. A deeply disappointing experience from a company we previously trusted. Buyers in the UK should be aware that the advertised price may not be the final amount they are asked to pay.