- Original Poster
- #1
Our Ltd business sells products online on Amazon UK and across Amazon's EU marketplaces. To inbound our goods into Amazon's warehouse we use a program they have in partnership with UPS. Amazon provides us with UPS shipping labels at a heavy discount to deliver them into their Distribution Centres. We don't have any relationship with UPS. Amazon charges us directly for the shipping and it is shipped on Amazon's UPS account, not our own.
Right after Brexit the system was a complete mess. It's changed many times since then, but in short, in the months right after Brexit they extended this program to ship directly into France from the UK. Again the UPS shipping labels were generated on Amazon's platform, under their UPS account, not ours. We always see charges upfront on the platform at the time of making the shipment.
About a year later I started receiving emails from UPS France's accounts department, saying I owed them around €9k for shipping charges for one of those post-brexit shipments. The only proof they had was that the commercial invoice for the shipment stated that recipient pays and our Ltd company was the recipient (c/o Amazon's warehouse). I repeatedly told them to contact Amazon as this was shipped on their account, has nothing to do with us, are not charges we knew about or agreed to and we have no contractual relationship with UPS. They hassled me for a few months before I stopped hearing from them. FYI the original shipment probably cost around £500 through Amazon, so a 9k bill was completely absurd and one we would never have knowingly agreed to. This was clearly a result of post-brexit confusion and Amazon or UPS messing things up somehow.
Today, two years later, I get an email from a 3rd party debt collector saying we owe the 9k plus an extra 3k on top for interest and fees. They have provided no proof. Just an email sent to our general email address. My instinct is to ignore it as, again, we have no contractual relationship with this scammy company but I want to ensure this won't come back to bite me. Should I contact a solicitor? Should I ask them for proof? Or should I ignore?
Right after Brexit the system was a complete mess. It's changed many times since then, but in short, in the months right after Brexit they extended this program to ship directly into France from the UK. Again the UPS shipping labels were generated on Amazon's platform, under their UPS account, not ours. We always see charges upfront on the platform at the time of making the shipment.
About a year later I started receiving emails from UPS France's accounts department, saying I owed them around €9k for shipping charges for one of those post-brexit shipments. The only proof they had was that the commercial invoice for the shipment stated that recipient pays and our Ltd company was the recipient (c/o Amazon's warehouse). I repeatedly told them to contact Amazon as this was shipped on their account, has nothing to do with us, are not charges we knew about or agreed to and we have no contractual relationship with UPS. They hassled me for a few months before I stopped hearing from them. FYI the original shipment probably cost around £500 through Amazon, so a 9k bill was completely absurd and one we would never have knowingly agreed to. This was clearly a result of post-brexit confusion and Amazon or UPS messing things up somehow.
Today, two years later, I get an email from a 3rd party debt collector saying we owe the 9k plus an extra 3k on top for interest and fees. They have provided no proof. Just an email sent to our general email address. My instinct is to ignore it as, again, we have no contractual relationship with this scammy company but I want to ensure this won't come back to bite me. Should I contact a solicitor? Should I ask them for proof? Or should I ignore?
