Hitchcocks Forum

I have recently ordered some parts from India via e-bay, "Free delivery" I had the usual 'your items have been shipped conformation' but then I had an email from Aramex asking for for shipping payment it came to about £15 including VAT, handling. I've contacted the seller but haven't heard back yet, neither have I clicked on the PayNow button. So as of yet I don't know whether it's a scam or not. Free postage to me means exactly that.

£15 sounds like you may have been hit by an import duty fee? £15 is the minimum the post office hit you with automatically regardless of how much duty you actually need to pay.

Most Indian parts sneak through under the radar and the duty is very low so it's hardly worth collecting on a small personal parts order. Still technically payable though. (not certain but I think it's 3 or 4%)

There's no mention of Import Duty just shipping, it's not in the UK yet!

The sellers just got back to me, and he thinks it's probably a scam, and on Google there's a load of scam reports relating to Aramex.

I've had a few bits from India, via Aramex and not had anything like that.
On the email itself, what are the actual sender details? You would need to click on the name probably to get the exact email address.
However even if it looks genuine, the email address itself can be "spoofed" too.

If you have a tracking number, try entering that on their website to see if it mentions any fees to pay.

It might also be worth trying parcelsapp.com/en/ which is very clever and can track the same package though all the different couriers it ends up passing through.

Scam.