Parcelfarces are an absolute disgrace, and to be honest should be looked into by some form of ombudsman.
^ +1
You get a £13.99 'handling fee' on pretty much anything from the US that passes through the Parcelfart system.
UPS ain't any better - I once sent an amp to the States via their Expedited service (3-5 days) and they mistakenly sent it priority (next day). They promptly sent me a bill for the extra cost of the priority service and I promptly told them to kiss my white ass. They tried to bully me with debt collectors and such, in the end a few strongly worded letters and forcefull phone calls back to them did the job - I think their collections dept got sick of me giving them grief and withdrew the charges - never did get to find out what happened, but they did stop sending me letters.
FedEx/Business Post - got some end bell covers sent to me as repair items for a transformer that had been damaged during transit. the end bell covers were worth maybe £5.00, £10.00 max - I got a £20.00 import duty bill from FedEx which, one again, I told them to whistle for a told them they were repair parts with very little value. They actually wrote to me, which gives them points over UPS for starters, and waived the charges.
The point of all this? - USPS is as good as anything, except their extortionate import duty charges.
