I recently sent a parcel – of three secondhand books – by Royal Mail to Ireland, a fortnight before a birthday, paying £14 postage.
Three weeks later it was returned to me having failed An Post’s requirement for the correct CN22 customs declaration, but without further explanation. I trusted Royal Mail to understand the rules.
I found various news articles online, that are more than a year old, about the international parcel codes An Post requires.
Staff at my local post office tell me this has been going on for months and I imagine it is linked to Brexit. They told me about an elderly lady paying to repost the same parcel to a convent that keeps being refused at the Irish border.
I complained to Royal Mail and got an apology via its complaints form and my postage refunded. An Post did not respond via its online complaints process.
The fact remains I cannot post books to a small child between neighbouring countries for his birthday.
Why can’t two national post offices get a grip?
RE, Hitchin
With Christmas upon us, it is worth revisiting the festive rules involved in sending parcels to friends and family who live in the EU if you want to avoid headaches like this.
The impact of Brexit on the flow of mail across the Irish Sea was not inconsequential. Previously, An Post dealt with about 10m parcels a year from non-EU countries, but the 16m received annually from Great Britain now flow in this stream through Irish Customs.
This mail is subject to electronic customs clearance and requires accurate data on the labels, yet several years on from Brexit experts say lots of parcels arrive with poor, incorrect, or no data.
You filled out a customs declaration, but the CN22 sticker showed the gift valued at £0.00 and I think this is why it was rejected.
Royal Mail’s guide to “sending items abroad” says the value cannot be declared as zero or £0.01. Some customs authorities will return items if the value is very low or does not accurately reflect the costs of the goods inside, it says. Gifts with a value of more than £37 (€45) will be subject to VAT and a clearance fee.
An Post says items that do not have the required data are “routinely delayed and returned to sender”. It suggests using the Royal Mail’s “click and drop” service in which you fill in the forms online before you go to the post office.
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