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Parcel carrier in London (archive)
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The man from Manchester was happy when he finally found the winter boots he wanted on the Internet, at a price of 200 pounds, which is currently around 225 euros, from an Internet seller in Germany.
This is what the customer told the BBC.
The rude awakening came a little later: the parcel delivery company UPS contacted him, but not with the boots he had ordered.
If he wanted this, he would first have to pay the additional fees due, 20 percent VAT and import duties, a sum of 147 pounds (166 euros).
Boris Johnson had promised duty-free trade
The customer from Manchester is apparently not an isolated case.
Other media also report on customers in Great Britain who ordered goods online as usual - and fell out of the clouds because the parcel delivery service initially wanted to collect large amounts from them.
The Guardian reports about a customer from Norfolk who was supposed to pay UPS 121 pounds in duties, taxes and fees for a clothing order from Norway (total value 236 pounds).
When she ordered the items, the seller on the website was still offering free shipping, she says.
A woman from Uttoxeter had a similar experience, in her case (£ 292 value of goods) the deliverer demanded £ 93: she had ordered from an online shop with a British Internet address and had no idea that the company was actually based in Berlin be.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson had promised his compatriots duty-free movement of goods despite Brexit.
According to the BBC, the reality is currently very different.
For goods valued at over £ 135, import duties of up to 25 percent would be due if these had not already been paid by the seller.
The parcel services, in turn, would have to collect the money for the government.
Some European companies had therefore already announced in the past few weeks that they would completely stop their sales to Great Britain.
For their part, many buyers evidently make do with simply having ordered goods go back to the sender.
The boot buyer from Manchester, however, paid the customs duties.
So far, however, he has not received the goods from Germany.
They may be stuck on the border that the Brexit triggered.
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