Aramex = Rip Off
So I am majorly upset today and I have a right to be, because I’ve got a shipment that got stuck in the Customs during the whole “Customs New Rules Thing” and therefore all chaos was ensued. Let’s get a breakdown of what happened and how it was laid out. I’ll tell you the whole story from point A to point Z.
On the 12th of October, I wished to purchase 3 iPod Touches(8GB Models) from Amazon as gifts for my little cousins all 3 were gifts and I was so happy because I was getting each at 189$ which is roughly translated to 55KD each. I was going to be paying some extra shipping & handling as well as tax but it brought the whole bill to be around around 634$ which is roughly 182KD give or take. I wanted it to be shipped out quite fast for me which is why I paid for the Prime 1 day shipping and it arrived in my mailbox on the 13th of October.
Now what happened afterwards is where everything went wrong and I’ll be detailing that, in the pictures below as well as the price sheet I got today when I was told to pay 44.500KD as charges for that package.
My shipment arrives in Kuwait on the 19th of October and immediately gets held up in customs, but why is that. Where is the problem, I did not order something from the Unwanted list of things, I did not order something more than $1000 and so I do not see the problem. A few months back UShopWeShip had that policy where if you ordered an iPod it got stuck in Customs therefore I switched back to Aramex to avoid such charges and was happy for a long time, but now that I had ordered these they get held up? Okay, let’s see October 19th it was held, I emailed them the invoice and got an explanation that there will be 5% charges which will be taken on this shipment I did my calculations 5% off of 182KD is around 9KD ok so let’s say that they’ll take 10KD + 10KD (KuwaitAirways) + 2.500 (Banking & Stamp Fees) + 1 KD (Handling Charges) + 5KD (Aramex Clearance Charges) + 5.300KD (Actual Shipping Charges) should equal to 35.8KD.
But that was not the case, I should probably mention that another shipment got held up, a jar of supplements that my mother decided she wanted to order, the whole bill for that was around 50$ and it was held up, my mom did not wish to pay up all those charges just for a 50$ jar therefore I informed them that I did not wish to clear it and just destroy it, they told me that I’ll have to pay the shipping charges which were 2.500KD. I was shocked to find that they charged me the 1KD Handling fees on that shipment as well (Bear in mind I called them up and inquired whether I will get the new Customs treatment or Old, and they said the Old so why was I charged that 1KD?????)
So now I am supposed to have paid around 35.8KD + 2.5KD = 38.300KD but instead was billed for 44.500KD, I want to know where that 6.200KD went? And why was the billing this way the whole time. It is kind of insane I wanted to save up on ordering stuff as we always do when we do some online shopping but instead I paid even more! So I’ll give you a breakdown of the actual invoices that were sent to me.
- 1. Terminal Charges KAC = 10.000KD
- 2. Clearance & Delivery = 5.000 KD
- 3. Customs Duties = 20.700 KD
- 4. PWC Charges = 3.500 KD
- Total = 39.200KD
The actual Commercial Bank Invoice as charged by the Ministry of Finance was 8.350KD (which is equal to what I first mentioned as what I would be taxed by the Customs) but someone wrote on that paper a charge of 3KD by hand in a different pen and made the total to be 11.350KD.
And the invoice to the shipment that I did not wish to clear was 2.500KD to Issue Delivery + 1KD because it’s weight was less than 1kg.
The box arrived to me opened and resealed and I am clearly upset. Instead of having the whole package cost me 182KD (Online Charges) + 5.300KD (Shipping Charges) = 187.3KD which means each iPod would’ve cost me 62.433KD it now costs me 182KD (Online Shopping) + 41KD (Customs+Shipping for the actual iPods minus 3.500KD) = 223KD which resulted in each iPod 74.333KD and here in Kuwait the actual price for that same iPod is 79KD in the market.
So where did I save? Where did I go wrong?
I think this makes my decision to never use online shopping again and never have it shipped via Aramex and the likes of those companies because everytime this happens I say this is the last time but seriously now this is the last time.
November 2nd, 2009 at 11:22 pm
Ah ! i placed an order for my baby that was few weeks ago costs me around $7 and till today i did not get it ! however few days ago i opened an account with borderlinx DHL for around KD10.5 and ordered from amazon and my shipments took only 3 business days !! now this might be a little bit costly than Aramex but they don’t have that custom thingy and they don’t rip you (if they want to)
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:12 am
Frankom : Yeah we’ll see exactly what happens in my situation even after I paid but seriously in 2 weeks I’d be waiting for an entire month after my shipment got into Kuwait to receive it so I had to pay and get it today!
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:43 am
Postal services started to suck in q8 :(
ya3ny el tejaar la ra7men wala em5alen ra7mat allah tanzel!!!!! .. la ra’6en eyebon el latest products wala em5alena na6lobha mn bara !!!!!
November 3rd, 2009 at 7:29 am
Well this is what i am doing now, sending all my shipments into the Kuwait postal office. Well they are becoming better than the other companies.
November 3rd, 2009 at 7:59 am
did you use the pink blankers to promote breast cancer awareness month .. i miss you love you wish you would buy me 3 ipod touches too :P
November 3rd, 2009 at 8:28 am
ahhh y3ni il wath3 sar maskhara rasmi!
I lost faith in armaex when my bro ordered three blackberries off amazon, recieved an open box with only 2, complained to amazon o told them where is the 3rd, they said return the box with the two o we will resend it… only for amazon to recieve a box with one blackberry…
DHL ya jma3a all the way…. or ba7rain!
November 3rd, 2009 at 8:56 am
a definite rip off @@ i order an apple tv and a book on the 19th and i got it from aramex on october 30th a slight delay……. i only had to pay KD 1.200 extra why did yu have to pay the whole thing they said that they will clear it out in a bundle why didnt they give you the option to clear it out yourself it isnt fair….
November 3rd, 2009 at 9:39 am
That is just sooo wrong
November 3rd, 2009 at 10:04 am
you think thats bad ???? leave the jacket i got last week that i had to pay 35kd just for tax ….. and another 20kd for shipping and handling ok …….. read this .. this happened to me last year ….. http://se7en-qat.blogspot.com/2008/12/ti7al6oom-saree3.html
the problem is .. customs charge when ever they want and let go of things when ever they want ….. makoo qanoon wala fee a7ad tigdar tashkeela cause if you doo trust me you won’t get your stuff they will say it got lost or mamnoo3 idish il deera ay shay
November 3rd, 2009 at 7:08 pm
let me tell u something that will make u feel alittle less cheated than me..
few days ago i paid around 150 kd for aramex for 6 packages from gap same day same recipt same order but came packaged in 6 packages and they counted each as a diffrent shippment and with its own custom fee….how is that for qahar?…so i got to be punished for buyin online and trying to save by paying almost double my shippment.lovely.
oh and they kept it for around 10 days in here before i got it.
November 6th, 2009 at 12:00 am
Liars as usual. They do not care about your shipment, they looking in your pocket.
Check my blog if you need a list of free tax goods that no aramex or any one can ask you for Customs Charges.
November 6th, 2009 at 11:04 pm
i hate aramex!!
November 7th, 2009 at 10:36 pm
The Spanian : Exactly and that’s why anyone orders online, because stuff are so expensive here that we can’t afford it, but now even shipping is more expensive!
G : I hope they do in fact become better :/
your battlefield : No not really and I already bought you a nano that you soaked in the rain :P
Danderma : Exactly, but now how do we live hehehe since we’re used to ordering online a lot :(
stuck at work : Because I was unlucky and my shipment came before the dilemma happened but I got stuck with what was about to become the rule and before they worked out things :/ Sucks doesn’t it?
Laialy_q8 : I agree :/
S E 7 E N : Exactly! My dad was telling me why did they charge you customs I was like becomes some bastard over there had a fight with his wife/gf/mother/sister/brother/lover/whatever and decided that today I want to pick on………. *chooses a package* I’d like to make Mr/s. X’s life hell today by charging them an insane amount for Clearance charges! Yup that’s what I’ll do today maybe that will take me out of my bad mood… Don’t you think that’s what goes on there?
:/ : Talk to them and see if they can reverse it because it’s not fair and they should be understand that sometimes shipments get spaced out and stuff… See if you can get some of your money back you :/ But yeah it totally sucks!!!
KR : I tried but it says your site is under construction or something :s
Summer : I agree.