FedEx international
Laptop to Peru Hit With $300 in Duties and Taxes

I am extremely angry.

My sister received a laptop from me as a gift a year and a half ago, and it troubled her from the very beginning. I had taken it to Peru in my carry-on bag. On a business visit to the US she carried it back with her, never expecting to send it onward from TX to my home in NJ, because she was simply fed up with its trouble. I held on to it, hoping to repair it by myself. After she returned to Peru, the idea occurred to me to send it to her. At the post office I asked the clerk what the quickest and safest method would be, and she recommended Global Express Guaranteed, offered through FedEx.

Forms provided by her were filled in by me. During that, she inquired whether the computer was used and whether it was a gift, while typing on her computer. My completed paperwork got a glance from her, and then she finished handling the shipment. Apart from telling me it would be there in 3 days, she gave no information.

Peru is where I learned that $300 in duties and taxes was due on arrival. That shocked me, particularly because transport to Peru alone had cost $310. And remember that the computer is old and faulty.

FedEx got a call from me in which I said that the forms I filled in were the ones they supplied, with little instruction on completing them. The woman who processed my order had also heard the computer's history and seen the paperwork I finished, yet she did not tell me to correct anything.

As it turns out, I filled in an invoice that demanded a very detailed description of the item, and mine was not. My wording was 'laptop computer' while the required wording was a computer that is 'used, and defective'. For the value, I put in the insured amount rather than its worth when shipped. The insured amount of $800 was what I had originally paid, a year and a half before. She handled it like a pencil instead of electronics, though I had said I'd never sent anything abroad and required her advice.

I asked them, of course, to explain what went wrong. Their explanation: I had carried out an import, and anything valued over 100 dollars carries duties and taxes, gifts and used items included.

I wearied of repeating that nobody advised me properly about what I ought to have known when shipping. Knowing that 300 dollars in duties would be due, I would have sent nothing. I felt badly misled and misinformed. Worse still, a week before sending, the phone call I made about shipping a laptop abroad produced the same lack of information, and I had even stressed that I wished to avoid trouble with the parcel. Above all, nobody ever mentioned duties and taxes on it.

A whole week passed with me phoning FedEx twice daily, both in Peru and the US, listening to them dodge responsibility. One rep said I should have personally gone to a FedEx office, where my invoice would have been refused, so choosing the post office was my fault. Another said everything leaving this country is an import, so they carried no blame.

The indifference shown by FedEx was discouraging. A conversation with the Executive Secretary of FedEx's President followed, in which I tried to explain how their lack of information got me into this, and that the clerks apparently think I do this every day, which I do not. Time wasted entirely. No apology came from her for the carelessness and poor training of the clerks representing FedEx.

On my final call, paying the duties (no choice, since customs would otherwise have treated the computer as abandoned), the representative who dealt with me expressed deep regret at losing a customer.

FedEx will never get my business again.

Company: FedEx international
Country: USA
Site: fedex.com

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