Total cost including shipping and anything else

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Akula

Akula

Member
Joined
May 27, 2007
Messages
1,036
Location
seabrook, texas, USA.
I'm trying to find out what is going to be the total cost of everything involved if I order pen supplies/hardware from Timberbits. I want to do some of the Roman Harvest. So I have looked online, looked at CBP and even asked Timberbits LOL No one can give me an idea.

So can anyone who has got items shipped into the USA give me an idea. If you don't want to post up, please send me a PM.

I have no problem waiting for the items to arrive, so that's not a factor.

This will help me decide if I can get a few to try out and see how I like them in my hands. If the "other" costs involved are high, then I may need to order more to offset, I just don't like to make a large order on a unknown.

TIA
 
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Don't have the invoice with me, but I bought 4 kits from Timberbits on a special he had recently, and the shipping was cheap-around $5-and it arrived super fast, like 4 days.

Haven't made them yet, but they look nice, and others on here have said they are easy to make and produce a handsome pen.
 
I knew the flat rate shipping, what I need is an idea on the Duty, Taxes, customs broking and TNT fees.

The cost on the pens and flat rate shipping is great, it's the unknown extras that make me stop.
 
Akula said:
I knew the flat rate shipping, what I need is an idea on the Duty, Taxes, customs broking and TNT fees.

The cost on the pens and flat rate shipping is great, it's the unknown extras that make me stop.
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There are no fees, you only pay for the product and the shipping.
 
The brokerage fees come on a separate bill, sometimes weeks later. I KNOW this happens with UPS, I do not know about the carrier in question, but someone posted a couple days ago that they HAVE gotten such a bill.

As someone said, you can ignore them (particularly if you don't recognize the name and throw away the bill as "junk mail"). Then they may get a collection agency to go after you (this will "ding" your credit rating about 100 points--you'll know it the next time you go for a loan---yes, this is personal experience).

Customs is another somewhat unknown. Depends on the category number that is assigned to your package and the value of the package. Generally, if Customs is charged, it is around 10% of the value stated.

I have NOT gotten goods from Australia--all of the above is based on items from Europe. YMMV--but at least it gives you some idea of what to watch out for!!
 
Whaler said:
Akula said:
I knew the flat rate shipping, what I need is an idea on the Duty, Taxes, customs broking and TNT fees.

The cost on the pens and flat rate shipping is great, it's the unknown extras that make me stop.
Click to expand...

There are no fees, you only pay for the product and the shipping.
Click to expand...

There are fees involved, even Timberbits has told me this but it is not in their control and can not give me a cost that will be involved.

I see the pens posted in here, just wish someone who has bought from them give some input.


So the only other question is; are there any other vendors that carry the Roman Harvest Pens?
 
Akula said:
Whaler said:
Akula said:
I knew the flat rate shipping, what I need is an idea on the Duty, Taxes, customs broking and TNT fees.

The cost on the pens and flat rate shipping is great, it's the unknown extras that make me stop.
Click to expand...

There are no fees, you only pay for the product and the shipping.
Click to expand...

There are fees involved, even Timberbits has told me this but it is not in their control and can not give me a cost that will be involved.

I see the pens posted in here, just wish someone who has bought from them give some input.


So the only other question is; are there any other vendors that carry the Roman Harvest Pens?
Click to expand...


I have received 2 Roman Harvest orders from Timberbits and I have not been charged any fees. The only thing I have paid for is the product and the shipping.
Timberbits is the only source for the Roman Harvest.
 
Duty

Akula said:
I knew the flat rate shipping, what I need is an idea on the Duty, Taxes, customs broking and TNT fees.

The cost on the pens and flat rate shipping is great, it's the unknown extras that make me stop.
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You can import up to a certain amount ($400 declared value) duty free if my memory serves correctly. If you live in a sales tax state you are probably required by law to pay the tax.

If the value of what you import exceeds the threshold and if your package is checked, you might get a bill for the duty.

If it is for your own use, you don't have to worry about it being marked as to where it's from -- if you are going to pass it on to an end user it must be tagged 'Made in XYZ"

If they are sending it with an official post office carrier and it doesn't pass muster vis-a-vis being duty free - it will probably be held at the post office. If it's with a common carrier they will as Ed said pay the fees and send you a bill.
 
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I've ordered over $200 worth from Timberbits and never gotten charged beyond the shipping (which was free) and the items which were at a great price and cheaper with the exchange rate.
 
I just bought 10 Roman Harvest pens in Rhodium, TN GOLD and the Black Ti sets, 2 sets of bushings and 6 sets of tubes.They were at the IAP special.
The total cost from Timberbits was $205.13.
There was a $6.15 foreign mail charge for a Grand Total of $211.28

AND FWIW:
I made the Timberbits order 2 days AFTER a PSI order and the Timberbits order arrived before the PSI order.
 
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You probably won't either

Buzzzz4 said:
I've ordered over $200 worth from Timberbits and never gotten charged beyond the shipping (which was free) and the items which were at a great price and cheaper with the exchange rate.
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I believe that the $400 mentioned above has some time frame associated with it.
 
I've been out of the business for a few years, so things may have changed some, and I did more exports than imports, but I think Smitty is pretty correct in his assessment. If the package arrives via USMail, it will likely clear automatically and if there are any duties due on arrival, the post office should collect them. If they arrive via UPS, Fedex or other forwarding agencies, you can get some substantial fees.... and often they don't release the goods until those fees are paid... there may be some changes in policies since I worked in the industry though.

A shipper doesn't have any controls over the import fees, unless he also has a relation ship with an import company at destination, then he might have some idea of what fees will be charged or included... as an individual, your vendor likely won't have such an organization, so he's correct in saying he doesn't know or have any control. When I was doing exports, I would often make arrangements with our "agent" in the destination country to set certain fees and maybe pass them back to my shipper as a "turnkey" shipment. We never made arrangements to have the duties paid and billed back to the shipper though.... duties can vary considerably from country to country as well as the VAT and other taxes... the U.S. has some fairly liberal import fees and duty rates tend to be lower here than other countries and we don't have a VAT (yet).
 
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The package from Timberbits doesn't come by U.S. Mail. It is couriered by TNT Worldwide shipping.

Both tracking and shipping were darned efficient. I ordered from Austrailia last Wednesday evening and had the package in my hand before 11:00 am, Monday (a U.S.P.S. Holiday).
 
timber bits

Last time I ordered from them I ordered Friday morning Detroit time and the package arrived noon on the following Monday. Free shipping if your order is over $200.00 Can't beat that.


Dennis
Pinelumber:bananen_smilies104::RockOn:
 
up or down

PenMan1 said:
The package from Timberbits doesn't come by U.S. Mail. It is couriered by TNT Worldwide shipping.

Both tracking and shipping were darned efficient. I ordered from Austrailia last Wednesday evening and had the package in my hand before 11:00 am, Monday (a U.S.P.S. Holiday).
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Yep and the last shipment I got via TNT they lost for a week and it took almost two weeks for delivery....and I got a bill from them for duties about a week later. Like every other carrier, sometimes they're great and sometimes they're awful.
 
There have been a lot of changes in the courier fields in the past few year... DHL and I think UPS are both owned by Deusche Post, out of Germany. TNT Worldwide is a courier company much like DHL and Fedex and was once the largest or second largest courier company in the world... I think they either bought or merged with MSAS a few years back to reach that status.... TNT was a great company.... assume still is. I used them for a while, but mostly used DHL for my international courier and Fedex for my domestics....
 
Not UPS

TellicoTurning said:
There have been a lot of changes in the courier fields in the past few year... DHL and I think UPS are both owned by Deusche Post, out of Germany. TNT Worldwide is a courier company much like DHL and Fedex and was once the largest or second largest courier company in the world... I think they either bought or merged with MSAS a few years back to reach that status.... TNT was a great company.... assume still is. I used them for a while, but mostly used DHL for my international courier and Fedex for my domestics....
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UPS is a publicly traded (NYS) US company. DHL, also once a US company, is owned (since 2001) by Deusche Post which continues to use the name.
 
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Not surprising

U-Turn said:
Ordered several things from Timberbits and have never paid for anything but product and shipping.
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If you order often enough and your orders are large enough, someday you'll get a bill. There is nothing that Timberbits can do about that, the bill is entirely the doing of US Customs. There can be two possibilities - customs sends the carrier a bill. 1) The carrier send you the bill and your shipment is held until you pay it or 2) the carrier pays it for you and ships your items on to you then send you the bill usually with a fee tacked on for paying it for you. In both cases it would be money that you owe. The importer (you) is responsible for all duties and imposts charged by their government.
 
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