Royal Mail Will No Longer Ship Jewellery to Australia

[irene9787]

I have been informed by several sellers who normally ship to Australia that Royal Mail will not longer ship precious metals (ie jewellery or silver items) to Australia - are we now deemed a 3rd World country ?

[lyndal1838]

There is nothing on the Royal Mail website that confirms this.  Where did they get their information?

[irene9787]

I have looked on Royal Mail website and can see no restriction either ?  However, I have been told by 1 seller that her post office will not accept items of gold or silver for Australia. I basically told her she was talking a load of rubbish, as I receive jewellery regularly from dealers and auction houses in the UK.   However, Brittonsjewellery ebay site now states that they have been told that Royal Mail will not accept, or possibly insure, items of gold or silver to Australia, so they no longer post items of this type to Australia.  Both of these

sellers had items that I wanted to buy, so I feel very frustrated and also worried that I will no longer be able to source items from the

UK ebay site.  Maybe ebay needs to have some dialogue with Royal Mail for clarification.  

[digital*ghost]

There are a couple of threads on the UK boards about this, and if you look at the Royal Mail website, the following is listed as a restricted item (specifically to Australia):

• Natural or cultured pearls, precious or semi-precious stones, precious metals, metals clad with previous metal and articles thereof; imitation jewellery; coin

I presume "previous" is a typo, so it would also apply to gold/silver filled/plated.

Edit: Link to Royal Mail where infor was taken: http://www.royalmail.com/australia

[lyndal1838]

The way I read that section is that the items are restricted because of some rule on the AP website....you are referred to AP for more information.  Problem is, the link will not load and I can't find anything on the website here.

[digital*ghost]

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@lyndal1838 wrote:

The way I read that section is that the items are restricted because of some rule on the AP website....

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That's the way I read it, too. I've looked through AP's prohibited/restricted goods list and I can't see anything that would prohibit jewellery, precious metals and/or stones etc, but it seems (according to posts on the UK forum) if jewellery or precious metal is declared on the customs form, Royal Mail is refusing the package. 

Unfortunately, the threads I've turned up there have focussed more on how to cancel / deal with the transaction itself, so there's not a lot of info about why the change was brought about. 

[irene9787]

Australian Customs Tariff Schedule 3 - ref 7113 relating to Jewellery, goldsmiths and Silverware etc., (this includes anything set with precious or semi-previous stones) shows a stat code of 7113.19.00 12 with an import duty of 5% +GST - articles under the value of

$1000 do not incur these charges.  I regularly do my own Customs forms for parcels of jewellery (and pay duty + GST) so I cannot

see on what basis the UK Post Office can say that these are restricted goods to Australia.   So long as you are open and above board in your declarations there is no problem. 

[lyndal1838]

The Customs Tariff is not enough reason for refusing to send jewellery to Australia.....all goods over $1000 in value attract duty and GST.  You may as well say all goods are restricted if that is the reason.

[lyndal1838]

I believe I might be able to shed some light on it Digi.

Last December I had a packet of jewellery sent from a UK seller that I had been dealing with for several years.  It was predominantly costume jewellery with a couple of sterling silver pieces, but not expensive pieces in the greater scheme of things.  The whole package was worth a bit less than GBP200.00  and sent International Signed For with full insurance as all packages had been in the past.

It was sent 8 days before Christmas so I did not even expect it to arrive till the New Year when I discovered that it had supposedly been delivered on the Saturday before Christmas....just 5 days after it was sent...unlikely at the best of times, impossible at Christmas.

I notified the seller and we both started investigations with RM and AP.  There was no joy from either mail service and as we both believed we had paypal protection I opened an INR dispute at day 43 but did not escalate till the last minute in the hope that it would appear.

I ended up with a refund but at the seller's expense.  She appealed to paypal on the grounds that it was sent ISF and I was adamant that I did not sign for it even though the AP website said I did.  Again the paypal claim was knocked back on the grounds that ISF is not online trackable so it was not an acceptable form of postage.

Over the next few months both of us worked on our respective postal services as RM refused to pay the insurance as "I" had supposedly signed for the delivery.  Finally AP produced "my" signature and despite my stat dec that it was not mine there was no change in attitude from RM....no insurance payout.

In the meantime paypal has declared that ISF is not a "complying" service as it is not online trackable and Airsure is online trackable but no signature and very expensive.

Between them, paypal and Royal Mail have made the shipping of jewellery almost impossible to comply with paypal rules so maybe sellers are just putting it in the too hard basket.

Who knows, but I still cannot find anything in the AP rules to explain why RM says it is restricted.

[afantiques]

Between them, paypal and Royal Mail have made the shipping of jewellery almost impossible to comply with paypal rules so maybe sellers are just putting it in the too hard basket.

This may well have something to do with it, with RM used as an excuse. I have sent piles of jewellery items to Australia, though not recently.

Whatever the item It always went by basic airmail and described as costume jewellery out of simple prudence.

Many British sellers are more concerned with saving a fiver than making five hundred. No wonder the place is a mess.