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I live in Poland and never had any problems with books from Paizo, they just get a big green "accepted" stamp, loiter on Warsaw Airport post office for 3 weeks and then reach me.
However, I'm pretty sure that anything other than books (eg. minis) would be hit hard by customs fees. EU has a bilateral agreement with the US on zero customs on books and printed matter - toys (such as minis) aren't as lucky.
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Also: the 10 EUR you are charged is likely a fee that covers customs officers taking their precious time to look at your package.
The 75 EUR is likely the actual custom import fee. There's no way around this, any merchandise that enters EU from outisde is subject to taxation. Also, Paizo's terms of business clearly state that any taxes are a sole responsibility of the customer, so I don't see much room for refunds here.
Lesson here: if you're in EU you're more-or-less fine as long as you order books or other printed matter (mats, cards, etc.) - unless your country charges fees for inspecting packages. If you order anything else than printed matter (minis, games, toys, videos) you're likely to be hit by customs if your package is over 40 EUR value.
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Is there any way to either reclaim any part of these costs or to avoid thes costs in the future??
Because customs fees/taxes vary based on destination and order contents, Paizo does not calculate or compensate for any customs fees, duties, or taxes charged to the recipient. Questions regarding a specific country's customs fees should be directed to that country's customs office.
Because fees/taxes can vary so much between countries (we ship all over, South America, Asia, Middle East, Australia, etc) and because the specifications can change without our knowledge we just don't have the ability to calculate or estimate these fees and taxes.
And to head this question off before anyone asks it: We also do not adjust what the customs form says. Our customs labels are generated automatically, and we cannot and will not alter them based recipient's preference in attempts to avoid customs fees. If something is listed in the wrong category, we can fix it, but we don't adjust unless something is wrong.
Chief Technical Officer
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...but that I could reclaim taxes paid in the US via the vendor.
That particular bit of advice isn't actually relevant to this purchase, as the duties you're talking about are not paid to anyone in the US. That is to say, we're not collecting any part of the duty you're paying... and by "we," I mean "anybody in the United States."
That advice would only be relevant if you purchased something from a US retailer that collected *local sales tax* on the purchase, which generally only happens when you yourself are actually in the US and are buying something in person at a retailer, or when you're shipping to a US address in the same state as the company you're buying from. But even then, you wouldn't go to the *retailer* to have that tax refunded; you'd go to that retailer's state government, which may or may not offer the ability to reclaim that tax (it varies by state).
I also live in Europe (Norway), and it's a similar experience every time I order something other than books from overseas (books are exempt from taxation here, thankfully). I ordered some t-shirts from the US once, and ended up paying about 2/3rds the cost of the t-shirts in taxation and customs fees.
There's really nothing you can do about it other than attempt to stay below the taxation limit (about 30 dollars or so here).
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Chief Technical Officer
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2) I try to buy them at one of the very few gaming stores in Belgium, probably paying a much higher price and hoping they have them in stock
If you go that route, I'd strongly recommend letting your retailer know that you want a case (or whatever) so that they specifically preorder one to set aside for you.
This is not relevant to the OP, but since it is connected to 'PF Miniatures shipping to Europe', I am posting it here in the hopes that the Powers That Be (tm) notice.
Paizo, pretty please, change your shipping labels for international shipments so that they consist of a plastic envelope containing the shipping note and an invoice proving that the shipment was paid for.
Long story/explanation to follow.
The reason for this is that European customs regulations (I don't know if it is true for every single country, but at least mine) require international shipments to include (a) a shipping note and (b) an invoice detailing the amount paid.
Most of the time, especially insofar as smaller shipments are concerned, customs officers tend to turn a blind eye to this requirement and just accept the current Paizo standard shipping label (= shipping note) as being accurate. Customs and taxes, if any, are then calculated using the amount printed on the shipping label.
However, with increasing frequency, they have stopped accepting 'just' the plain shipping label. Which leads to the following happening:
(a) Package is delayed at customs for about 5-10 days.
(b) Customs office sends me a note telling me I need to provide proof of purchase, i.e. both an actual invoice (which I do not have, since Paizo does not provide one) and proof that I paid the amount billed, i.e. my credit card account statement.
(c) I then need to travel to the customs office (which, even living in one of my country's largest cities, is pretty far out of the way) that is only open on weekdays from 7am to 2 pm in order to deliver the documents and pick up the package (which is a pretty much impossible thing to accomplish if you have regular working hours). Also, this regularly requires an argument or two with the customs officer in charge concerning a printout of 'My account' as a valid invoice.
Long story short, getting my hands on my first PF Battles subscription shipment took about two weeks, several phone calls and some lost sleep. I am sure this is not an isolated case, and something that could easily be remedied.
If you could look into this matter, it would be greatly appreciated. Because, honestly, I want to keep supporting Paizo directly any way I can. But sometimes you are making it hard ...
(Sorry if any of this is not making sense - I am not a native speaker.)
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Chief Technical Officer
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Dance of Ruin,
That sure sounds unpleasant.
I'm really not sure what we can do about it, though. We used to have to do customs forms as multiple printed sheets, either adhered to the package (for the short form) or in plastic envelopes (for the long form), and it was very time-consuming, and it made preparing international packages for shipment take *much* longer than domestic packages. A few years ago, though, US Customs gave us the ability to transmit customs forms electronically, with just a single very short form printed on the label, and that dramatically increased the efficiency of our warehouse—not to mention saving reams of paper, toner, and plastic envelopes—so that's now done automatically where applicable.
It sounds like the problem may be that your customs office just isn't retrieving the electronic customs data that I suspect they probably already have access to. Rather than solving the problem by dragging our process back into the 20th century, adding time to our process and wasting paper, perhaps you can encourage your customs office to join us all in the information age!
Vic,
thanks for the reply. While it does not really help me solve my problem, I understand that Paizo of course wants to use the most (cost-)effective method of applying customs labels and will not change this for a few (fringe) cases. From my experience, a lot of work at the Customs office indeed still seems to be done with pencil & paper ... but the core issue here seems to be one of incompatible customs regulations.
I guess I will just have to see how it goes with future shipments, but I'm not keeping my hopes up.