Thread by @NiceConvos

Happy birthday in Brexit land! 😡

I spent around 5 hours on this website yesterday trying to help an elderly relative who wanted to send a parcel with birthday presents.

And I wanted to share the joy with you all, because or highlights the #BrexitDisaster!

https://twitter.com/NiceConvos/status/1366019581450485761

We have all heard about issues companies have been facing, importing & exporting has become a nightmare and many businesses had to close down.
But even private people who want to send parcels to relatives have to fill out customs declarations with custom codes for each item now.

Imagine what happens if say an old wee granny wants to send a birthday present to their grandchild.

Let's pack a parcel!

1. Find the perfect presents.
2. Wrap it all up.
3. Take it to the post office.
4. Be sent home with your parcel as you forgot the customs declaration.

5. Look at the customs form you were given.
6. Think surely this can't be right, this sounds like it's for companies, I'm only a wee old granny wanting to send a birthday parcel to my grandchild.
7. See that there's a note to go online.
8. You aren't online or can only do basics.

9. You read the instructions again and again and get more and more confused.
10. You call a relative and ask for help.
11. They go online and search Google what needs to be done now.
12. They tell you that you now need to list exact detail of every single item in the parcel.

13. You can't remember every single item in your parcel.
14. You open your parcel.
15. You tell your relative each item.
16. They download a customs form for you and try to fill it out.
17. They go to tariffnumber.com
18. You go through the list of items in your parcel.

19. Granny: there's a t-shirt, a...
20. Stop! What kind of t-shirt?
21. What do you mean?
22. For the customs declaration, it needs to list the detailed description including material, brand, size etc.
23. I don't know the material or brand, or size.

24. Unwrap the present and check the label of the t-shirt.
25. Ok, so it's size S, no brand, and material cotton.
26. Great, next we need a tariff number from this site: tariffnumber.com
27. Oh brilliant, they have a search function!
28. Type in t-shirt
29. Get a long list

30. The list looks like this: tariffnumber.com/2021/T-shirt
31. There are 31! Search results for t-shirt.
32. You read all 31 results and get confused.
33. Maybe no 61051000:
"Men's or boys' shirts of cotton, knitted or crocheted (excl. nightshirts, T-shirts, singlets and other vests)"

34. It's a shirt for a boy & it's cotton, great, it's definitely that code!
35. Hold on. That's excluding t-shirts.
36. Maybe it's 61091000:
"T-shirts, singlets and other vests of cotton, knitted or crocheted"
37. Ok, must be that one.
38. Granny wrapped up the present again.

39. Next field: what's the country of origin?
40. No idea.
41. Unwrap t-shirt again.
42. It says Bangladesh.
43. Write on form.
44. What's the value?
45. I can't remember.
46. Try to find receipt.
47. Can't find receipt.
48. What shop did you buy it from?
49. The charity shop.

50. I remember it was really cheap, I was so happy when I saw it.
51. Ok, in the instructions it says you need to put a reasonable value down that fits the estimate, so let's put €10.
52. Oh it also says you need to add to the description if it's new or used.
53. I don't know.

54. Ok let's say used, because it came from a charity shop.
55. What else did you put in the parcel?
56. Some sweets.
57. What sweets?
58. I think some chocolates and gummy bears.
59. Open parcel and check for the exact types, amounts, brands.
60. Go back to the tariff numbers

61. Search for Gummy Bears.
62. Nothing found "Gummy bears"
63. Search for Haribo.
64. Nothing found "Haribo"
65. Search for sweets.
66. 4 results for sweets! tariffnumber.com/2021/Sweets
67. The description they use is strange.
68. Confused.

69. After staring at the list for a while, reading it again and again you think maybe it's the third one: "confectionery and jelly confectionery incl. fruit pastes in the form of sugar confectionery, boiled sweets ..."
70. You wonder what the dots stand for so click into it.

70. Hold on, now this one is called "compressed, tablets, sugar". That surely can't be right for Haribo gummy bears? 🤷‍♀️
tariffnumber.com/2021/17049081
71. You read again and it says over 1kg. So that's definitely wrong.
72. Confused.

73. You wonder how else you could search for it. You tried Gummy bears, Haribo & sweets.
74. It mentioned confectionery. Let's try that.
75. There's 10 results. tariffnumber.com/2021/Confectio…
76. The more descriptions you read, the more confused you get.
77. No idea which one is right.

78. You try googling "which tariff number to use for Haribo Gummy bears".
79. It suggests several different codes.
80. The more you read, the less you understand.
81. You know there's a whole parcel full of stuff waiting for you to find the right description & codes for each one.

82. Repeat all steps above for every single item in this parcel, trying your best to find the right codes.
83. The total amount or automatically calculated is completely wrong.
84. Try & figure out what happened.
85. Realise that the form only accepts €1 or multiples, no cents.

86. Where you put down 3 bags of Haribo at €0.55 each, the form put a total of €165. That's not right!
87. You realise it changed the single price from €0.55 to €55 for each bag of Haribo. 😮
88. The only way to correct it is putting €1 per bag.
89. Correct all items.

90. The total is now much higher than the actual total value of the parcel.
91. It says the total value on the customs declaration has to be the same as the value for the parcel.
92. Confused.
93. Google.
94. Change the value of the parcel to match that of the customs declaration

95. You notice that to send private parcels you need to add the passport information for both the sender and receiver.
96. Your grandchild doesn't have a passport.
97. You ask their parents for theirs.
98. Pack everything up again, add 3! copies of the customs declaration.

99. Go to the post office and be told the parcel now costs double as much as it used to.
100. Told that if any of the customs codes are wrong, it may not arrive or be delayed for weeks.
And if it does arrive, the recipient has to pay import charges because the value is so high.

Welcome to the 100 step process of a wee old granny trying to send a parcel with birthday presents to her grandchild from the EU to the UK.
This is the #BrexitReality.
This is what "less red tape" looks like now.
This is #BrexitShambles!
This is what so many of you voted for. 😡

Happy birthday Brexit style! 😡