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Getting Started Travel

Government Assessing Fees for Perfume Shipment

I won a bottle of perfume from O’driu (Eva Kant is quite wonderful by the way) and it was shipped to me via Federal Express. Three weeks later, I noticed a $20 charge on my checking account from Federal Express. I called Fed Ex and was referred to their Duty and Tax department and was told that I was responsible for all taxes and fees. I asked who gave them permission to charge my checking account – they said they looked up the recipient address, found my account and charged the credit card on file (I do have a FedEx account but was unaware they were allowed to make charges that I didn’t authorize.) I then asked how the $20 was calculated and was told that since it was a low dollar amount that there was no duty (as I expected.) The $20 fee was for special handling by the federal government.

Just a heads up for everyone to be very wary when ordering and receiving items from overseas. You have absolutely no recourse nor way to dispute these kind of charges.