My name is Carlos, and I’ve been waiting for a freaking answer from your customer service for TEN days about my first order that, by the way, never received.
I received not one but two tickets from your Zendesk service and NO answers ( request 44739 and request 47401), not only I never got help, but now, your bots are asking me "how I rate your service (are you kidding me!)
As I said, my order ( #690323) never arrived, and I’m still waiting for a refund or the product.
Hey Carlos, I’m sorry for the delay to responding to your enquiry and the untimely service email. We’ve a huge amount of tickets to get through and yours is no less important than the rest. We’re getting to it. If there’s anything I can help with in the meantime then please let me know.
Maybe with all these customer service issues lately it’s time to take it higher up by emailing Julian and see what’s being done about it. Something needs to be done as it’s sad to see it gone like this it used to be so good customer service. And obviously there overloaded now.
I did read somewhere Julian saying to email him with any issues.
I’m wondering what has caused such an escalation in emails for the CS team to deal with? Website problems perhaps? Or simply more and more customers/orders to deal with.
Probably a combination of the two. Both will generate more questions. In these times of need to know now/need to receive now, people who don’t get an answer right away try again…and again…and again. Hence more needless emails to address.
I appreciate your kind answer. Unfortunately, DHL “abandoned” my order here in Mexico because nobody took care of the customs issue on time.
At this point, it looks that you haven’t solved the customs factor for your international service (at least in Mexico) so a refund would be the only option at this time.
I will appreciate any help and thanks again for the answer.
Ah I see. I’ve just checked in with the team on your order and it seems that the reason you haven’t received your order is because you haven’t paid the tax required by customs.
I’m afraid we can’t pay customs taxes for you. Generally when ordering from other countries you would need to pay the tax. It’s the same in the UK if, for example, we ordered something from the USA. I’m sorry about that, it’s not ideal obviously but we can’t control the tax.
If anyone has any suggestions about how to handle country import tax better then let us know. We would love to forewarn you but these costs vary massively. Do you guys know any sites that do this nicely at checkout? Perhaps even allow you to pay in advance?
I can’t say I’ve ever came across that. Most just warn under the shipping section that there may be import or customs charges and that you are responsible. Sometimes things slip through but I’ve never had that happen personally.
DPD (the courier I believe you use) offer a service with which duties are paid by the shipper (check the Delivery Duty Paid section in the screenshot below):
No, the problem is NOT a refusal to pay the customs taxes. The problem is that DHL asked me to fill it up a bunch of forms that supposedly the seller needed to fill.
I know customs taxes, I buy a lot of stuff through Amazon in the USA, and I always pay the taxes but never being in this kind of situation where I need to fill it up all those forms (Health Department forms, etc.)
In a manner to do all of that, I would need to go to a Government office, fill those papers, show a lot of documents to prove that I’m the importer of your product and then wait for a couple of weeks while DHL charges me for “storage.”
Below here you can read part of the DHL mail explaining to me all the process and a screenshot where they are confirming the “destruction” of my order.
So again, this is NOT a taxes issue.
I will appreciate if you can refund the money to me cause is clear you still didn’t solve your situation as an exporter at least here in Mexico.
Pretty much every courier service (DHL included) offer customs services.
It is generally accepted practice for the company that ships a parcel from another country to state clearly prior to completion of check-out, all customs charges that are likely to be incurred by the customer. It is also necessary for the company selling the goods to ensure that the product they are selling and shipping is not on the list of prohibited items or restricted items, for the country they are shipping to (and also that their product is not prohibited by the courier they choose to use).
It is also the seller’s responsibility to ensure all paperwork is correctly and fully completed.
It is also good practice for a company to offer pre-paid customs services to ensure problem-free and speedy delivery of their goods.
See the screen-shot below for some general information offered by one parcel service for shipment of goods from the UK to Mexico
Continuing from my above post, I have personally bought many products from US and China recently (to be shipped to me in the UK) and in every incidence, the seller has stated clearly on both the product page and at check-out that customs fees and taxes will be applied upon importation to the UK. They also offered a customs service (sometimes offered for free by the seller, sometimes paid for by me at check-out) to avoid any issues and to pre-pay all fees and taxes due.
In the one incidence that I was not informed of taxes and customs fees, and it was held at the border, the seller resolved this immediately and refunded to me all expense incurred.
FedEx have ‘foodstuffs’ on a list of prohibited items for import into Mexico, so the issue with Huel could be that it is food.
It sounds like from what @Carlos is saying, that Huel did not complete the paperwork correctly (or at all?).
It is very poor customer service indeed to simply ship a parcel to another country, without first checking the import export restrictions for that country, without informing the customer of all fees and taxes that will be incurred, without completing the neccessary paperwork, and then tell the customer that they are responsible for non-receipt of goods: “you haven’t received your order because you haven’t paid the tax required by customs”.
Customs services are available from almost every courier - this hasn’t been offered, and the paperwork was not completed. @Carlos is not at fault here and definitely should receive a refund.
You are totally right Christina, the problem here is that apparently the Mexican Health Department didn’t recognize this product and that’s why they were asking for a bunch of papers to prove that I was a kind of “importer”, they even asked me to get a “sanitary authorization” for a couple of pounds of Huel.
So it seems to me as well, that Huel doesn’t have a customs expert in their team and they are just putting the strain and responsibility on their international buyers.
Finally, do not forget that I only came to this forum looking for help after TEN days trying to do it through their mail service (zendesk) from I never got any answers.
At this point, all that I need is a refund and I’ll order Huel again, once they solve these customs issues.
(for me its since the 3rd)
