Customs and Excise duty

UPS are scheduled to delivery Monday. Each time I looked at the tracking information on their site I could not find out how to pay if necessary. I decided to open an account with them. Now the tracking delivery notice shows a link to pay customs charges. I've paid via paypal and printed the receipt to show the driver Monday. 

Thanks for your help wally 

Postal cost scams , car tax scam,tax refund scams etc it’s hard to know what’s real as some of them look very real

But they are very real when you have been scammed 

I've been a member of paypal since about 2006. In all that time I've had one problem with them. A couple of years back I bought some pressure transducers off ebay. At that time I thought I was getting a better deal than buying the Pico pressure transducer kit, however, I was incorrect. The ebay seller seemed to be slow in posting the transducers and my paypal account is setup to pay after delivery. I contacted the seller who told me that he had not posted the transducers because his wife was taken ill into hospital. About a week had past and I was still in the same position not receiving my transducers, however by this time I'd realized I'd made a mistake and they were actually coming from the United States. I contacted the seller again and got the feeling by this time that he was waiting for the monies to clear and then probably not supply the transducers?

So I contacted paypal and advised them I'd not received the transducers and could they stop the payment! Yes they said and told me they would contact the seller to advise him accordingly. Interestingly he then immediately posted the transducers and kept his own record of the recorded delivery so he could track the postage and once I had received them, paypal paid him. 

Being my fault I did not realize the transducers were coming from the states. The engineering threads used in the states is not the same as ours over here, were we use metric and they are still imperial, hence the valves are in my tool cabinet and I've never used them. Totally my fault.

I did however get an invite to a weekend training course in pressure diagnostics on behalf of Pico and if I booked on that course the Pico pressure maxi transducer kit, about £1500 back then I could buy it for about £1250, so I bit the bullet and bought it and went on the weekend training course. I won't say too much about the training course, except to say that had the course been run by pico staff themselves I feel I'd of got more out the course. The private company running that course at the time after conversations with me did agree to wave their training course fee. I think without saying too much that there is a lot to be said for garages setting themselves up as trainers when they are not trained themselves to provide it. I'll leave it at that. 

Now the conversation with the paypal operator at the time was not or did not seem ordinary. The guy was I thought giving too much praise about my paypal account and how I'd been a good payer and never had problems, and then later I discovered a sum of monies disappeared out my bank through paypal. I was then advised to contact my bank to resolve the problem. To cut a long story short, the paypal operator helped himself to a few hundred quid of my money, which took several weeks for me to get it returned. 

As I pointed out on another thread, getting paid good money is difficult and working harder to get it does not work either, and when you've got it, keeping hold of it is just as difficult. As I said previously, your freedom to do what you want is limited by the time and effort you have to put into worrying about keeping hold of what you've got.

You have not got the freedom and piece of mind you choose to do what you think you have to do. We are all being controlled whether we choose to believe that or not. Every time you are chasing people for money, begging for pay rise you can't get etc, your life is being controlled by taking your time and freedom off you, where you could be doing other things with your life. It's complicated to explain I know... 

Well peter I must admit that I was worried. The seller was sending me emails advising of postage delays! What I could not get my head round was how he could be in control of the postal service? When I clicked on his link in my email it took me to a UPS page that showed a tracking number and estimated time of delivery. I could not find anything out about paying the customs, so I left his link and page and went directly onto UPS website. I registered with them and then entered the tracking number. The goods showed up as estimated delivery Monday 16th August 2021. So this being before the weekend I thought well at least I've got light at the end of the tunnel now. After registering with UPS I saw a link to pay the customs fee, so I used that and paid through paypal.

I then checked again Saturday and the information had been updated to "Waiting for a scheduled delivery date"! So now I'm checking my emails and I can see a message from the seller advising about delivery updates! In my mind I'm keeping carm but I feel something might be wrong! I knew I had to wait for today before I could make any phone calls to confirm or dismiss any doubt I have! 

While fitting four new tyres today to a Transporter my purchase was delivered   I was so re leaved. I take our trade seriously and believe that a person must be trained, have the appropriate experience, and be correctly tooled up to work on customers cars. I firmly believe in this practice. 

Now back in about 2014/15 the government went about licencing our A/C trade, which I know backfired as usual, however by that time I'd trained and invested in A/C equipment, so there was no turning back. I'm also registered with the international A/C MACS association who keep us up to date on current practices and changes, good or bad.

I've also recently learned that since the refrigerant 1234yf became available that some people in the trade has chosen to believe that you can mix R134a and 1234yf? 

Yes and No. Once mixed in the correct proportions the refrigerant becomes R1513A. Research has shown that although similar in operation in pressures and temperatures, the small 5 psi difference and temperature change that creates will cause icing and problems on customers vehicles. 

So, if this gossip goes round and the trade (as people do) live in each others pockets and believe in one another then find that customers start to complain about A/C operating problems, how are you going to know that...

1/ The refrigerant in the customers vehicle is not mixed and contaminated?

2/ How do you know that you are not recovering contaminated refrigerant into your A/C recovery equipment?

3/ How do you know that you have not contaminated your customers A/C systems when you do a regas? 

For people who take the job seriously, like me they will have tooled up for the job. I have a refrigerant analyser for R134a, which I've had since about 2015 when I entered the A/C trade as a professional, however now I'm seeing vehicles with 1234yf every week and thought well I'd better start looking at tooling up for checking this new refrigerant and protecting my equipment and investments.

Back in 2015 my research found the Neutronics Ultima ID 1234yf software driven refrigerant analyser. These analyser can check multiple refrigerants including blends. No matter how much effort I put in to finding a analyser less than 2K, I was struggling. I started to do some research again and found that they do hold their prices very well, but then very luckily found a seller selling this Ultima ID 1234yf. I've spent some time negotiating with him to reduce the price as it is a new unit. He must have realised at the time the market was not biting, which was good for me because I wanted this Ultima ID. Now I've got it when I use my refrigerant RRR machines I will feel much more confident that my RRR machines are not going to become contaminated, and as importantly, I'm not going to cause harm to any customers A/C systems.

I think what Dynamo is saying is some people are purposefully filling a 1234 systems with 134 because of the cost. Then when you recover a 1234 system using your correct machine and connectors you will be recovering 134 and contaminating your machine.

Ah but, how will you know it has gone tits up?
You have surprised me with that attitude.

Next few vehicles you do, you will be contaminating their systems. But i suppose you aren't worried about that either as you won't be paying for that either. Some of us have to stand the sometimes considerable costs of somebody else's balls up.
Wait until a Bev air con system gets contaminated with the wrong oil and cost involved with rectifying that.

I’m still not worried !! at this moment in time I’ve got more serious matters keeping me busy like days full of tests as enjoy your new gizmo dynomo