Royal Mail hacked?

[Broithe]

3 minutes ago, jhb171achill said:

Good point - I had forgotten that….

I have a great dislike of the fact that they retain the name, in the pretence of being a public service, as so many of the other privatised fiascos do.

[jhb171achill]

9 minutes ago, Broithe said:

I have a great dislike of the fact that they retain the name, in the pretence of being a public service, as so many of the other privatised fiascos do.

I agree

[Galteemore]

Thankfully at least some of their local operatives still retain a concept of being public servants. Our local round was blessed with one such during the pandemic. 

[Broithe]

25 minutes ago, Galteemore said:

Thankfully at least some of their local operatives still retain a concept of being public servants. Our local round was blessed with one such during the pandemic. 

Absolutely!

The staff on the ground are excellent, in general.

Those in the ivory towers are less than ideal, I suspect.

This is often the case with the ex-public services.

[Mayner]

 

An Post would have received an Electronic Customs Declaration from the Royal Mail before the item left the UK and could physically reject the package if there was a problem with the declaration.

The last few years have been very profitable for the parcel delivery side of Postal Services such as an Post and Royal Mail with record parcel volumes, An Post was handling between 2.5-3million parcels weekly during 2020-1.

During the past 3 years I had 3 parcels rejected out of approx. 100 shipped to Ireland and the UK through the postal service. Two were rejected as a result of errors in the declaration one as a result of a clerical error by An Post.

Multi-National Logistics Companies.

Courier services such as DHL Expesss, Fed Ex. TNT tend to be quicker, are considerably more expensive than Postal Services, some courier services are less reliable than the Postal Services.

I had good results shipping internationally using DHL but they charge and arm and a leg, their duty and tax paid service works out a lot more expensive that simply paying the Vat and the An Post/Royal Mail Service fee upon arrival.

Import Vat on gifts.

Gifts greater than €45 in total value (including shipping) imported from outside of the EU are subject to Import Vat.

Back in the Day;

For those that do not remember the good old days before Ireland joined the EU Customs Union in 1993 the Irish Customs service were very diligent in carrying out their duties and had a fearsome reputation.

Henry Forbes of the Donegal got into a major dispute with Customs when custom classed the 2 Derwent Valley Railcars imported in the 1920s as road rather than rail vehicles and would not release until the railway paid the customs duty.

Customs Officers at railway stations were thorough charging duty on clothes and food imported from Northern Ireland, an Irish Customs Officer tried to charge my mother duty on a coat bought in a well known Dublin shop.

Customs road blocks on the Swords Road in Santry and the North Road were common on Sunday evenings as Customs Officers checked cars returning to Dublin from Northern Ireland to establish whether the drivers or owners or NI registered cars were resident in Northern Ireland or the Republic.

I was charged VAT on my first order of books from the IRRS London area during the early 80s and on locos from the States during the 90s

[Ironroad]

19 hours ago, Mayner said:

 

I was charged VAT on my first order of books from the IRRS London area during the early 80s 

To my knowledge bound books of more than four leaves ( 8 pages exclusive of the cover) have always been zero rated for VAT in Ireland, whereas magazines are subject to VAT. So I think someone in Customs may have overstepped on the definition.

[Sean]

point motors; also hattons , and they still havent replied to my last email about the first one being returned.

 

time to email again

 

 

[Mayner]

One piece of good news received through the RM this morning a letter from HM Revenue and Customs dated 15th Oct clearing my tax affairs, better late than never .

 

[mmie353]

Finally I have everything from the UK from all this, I would not agree with paying the ransom, but one has to wonder, where was the plan to prevent something like this from happening? Where was the backups? Anyone figure out the cause of the breach? Have they a better plan in place if this was to happen again?

Apparently it was set at 65M https://www.itpro.co.uk/security/ransomware/370067/lockbit-releases-negotiation-history-royal-mail-ransom-65-million