I have bought many large items from the US over the years some were very large and many cost over a couple of hundred quid. I do not ask for the item to be declared as a gift though, just ask them to considerably reduce the price paid on the declaration and mark the goods as used. Some sellers will and some won't.
10-15 years or so ago the availability of quality woodworking equipment at a reasonable price was non existant in the UK whilst the US has a massive selection and many items unavailable to the UK market, so I bought a lot of portable and some not so portable from the US. This did mean on occasions having ro use a 110V transformer for the smaller stuff and changing the motors on some of the larger items but if you wanted these items that was the only way to get them. Sometimes I was charged the duty/fees and sometimes I did not.
And you have misunderstood my post also.
At no point in your post do you mention that this does not include smaller items which are as you say rarely checked but it's amaxing how many smaller packages can contain items of extremely high value.
The customs work on the declaration alone 90% of the time as this is the easy option and as I said manpower/time is an issue.
As you are clearly aware that they do not check every package I do not see how the delusional term applies to you as I quoted " if you think that UK customs have the manpower or time to look at every small package that comes into the UK to see if it requires VAT and/or duty you are delusional."
I would be interested in how you are such an authority on current UK Customs practise when you are based in Helsinki though!
wink, wink, "as i said a friend of a friend of a friend"
And if this point is not scaremongering I do not know what is!
6:Have a disproportionate and exorbitant 'fee' slapped on it as the Customs officer has incorrectly labelled your
second hand nikon flash gun as an Elinchrom Digital 2500 watt seconds flash head and refuses to accept that he/she has made a mistake.
The story can variate but never be better than that.
Now customs can charge you an excess fee if they feel you are trying to avoid duty, but to misrepresent the item completely? Sorry would not happen!