{"id":646262,"date":"2026-10-06T08:14:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-06T08:14:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/646262\/"},"modified":"2026-10-06T08:14:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T08:14:10","slug":"reader-couldnt-believe-it-when-she-was-charged-e13-for-free-vanity-fair-tote-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/646262\/","title":{"rendered":"Reader couldn\u2019t believe it when she was charged \u20ac13 for \u2018free\u2019 Vanity Fair tote \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

We have been writing a lot about new charges imposed on shoppers who have the temerity to buy on websites based outside the EU<\/a> and one of our more recent stories has prompted a reader called Aideen to get in touch. <\/p>\n

Revenue confirmed last week that online shoppers who buy from outside the EU will have to pay a fresh charge of \u20ac2 per item from November 1st<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The new Union Handling Fee is on top of a \u20ac3 charge per item<\/a> that was imposed in the summer.<\/p>\n

The charges and fees are being imposed by the EU, but delivery companies will have a legal responsibility to collect them if the levies have not been paid during checkout on the online store.<\/p>\n

The charge is intended to cover the increased costs incurred by customs authorities as a result of the huge growth of ecommerce over the last number of years. It will apply to all goods, regardless of their value, once a seller ships them to Ireland from outside the EU.<\/p>\n

And of course, the delivery companies will also charge fees of their own to collect the money. An Post<\/a>, for example, has an administrative charge of \u20ac6.95. <\/p>\n

The net effect of this can be pretty savage. A person who buys three distinct items on a website based outside the EU for a total cost of a tenner will end up having to pay \u20ac31.95 when all the charges are added to the mix. <\/p>\n

It is in this context Aideen contacted us. She was less than pleased when faced with charges for a product she didn\u2019t even buy. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sure you can imagine my chagrin upon receiving a customs duty notification from An Post just last week, in an envelope marked with bold, red and capital letters alerting to me the urgency of opening it,\u201d she writes. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhat did I buy that originated outside of the EU? Might I have ordered Korean skincare direct from Korea? Hardly. I make a point of not shopping with Temu or Shein so it couldn\u2019t be anything of that nature. Was I getting a present from an American relative for absolutely no reason?\u201d<\/p>\n

No, no she was not. <\/p>\n

When Aideen logged into her An Post account \u201cto try and shed some light on the situation (I would never scan a QR code as I always heed your warning about scammers), it was a thank you present from Vanity Fair in the US\u201d. She adds: \u201cVia Amsterdam, they were sending me a free tote for taking out a digital subscription.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aideen then remembered she had wanted to read one particular article in the US magazine. \u201dI had already cancelled my 30-day free trial by the time the customs notification was put through my door,\u201d she confirms.<\/p>\n

She looked closely at the notification and \u201cwas left bemused at the breakdown of charges\u201d.<\/p>\n

On top of the \u20ac3 charge imposed earlier this year, there was, she says: \u201cNo excise duty but a value added tax of \u20ac2.83 (again this was an unsolicited FREE tote bag), and a mysterious \u20ac6.95 handling charge from An Post.\u201d<\/p>\n

It brought the total to \u20ac12.78. Aideen acknowledges this would have been \u20ac14.78 if the parcel arrived after November 1st. <\/p>\n

She marvels at the fact that she would have been faced with charges of close to \u20ac15 for a free tote, \u201cand at a price the publishing company surely wouldn\u2019t have paid its own wholesalers for\u201d. <\/p>\n

Aideen says: \u201cOut of curiosity, I wondered where such a canvas receptacle might have been manufactured. Likely China or India \u2018depending on the specific promotional batch or production run\u2019, the internet tells me.\u201d <\/p>\n

She declined the charges and says the tote bag is on its way back to the sender. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We have been writing a lot about new charges imposed on shoppers who have the temerity to buy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":646263,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,943,631,61,60,9825],"class_list":["post-646262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-cost-of-living","tag-for-you","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-pricewatch"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=646262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646262\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/646263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=646262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=646262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=646262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}