> However customs charges are not a part of law that I know anything about, (..)
I'm no lawyer, but afaik customs charges are owed by party that does the importing.
This may be eg. Amazon's customer, with Amazon just doing the warehouse/shipping part. It may also be that Amazon imports on customer's behalf, or does the importing itself.
Either way, woman in the article would not be liable for customs duties (or any other shipping charges / fees for that matter), because she's not Amazon's customer here.
She didn't ask Amazon to import anything on her behalf. Or arranged import herself using Amazon. Yeah, her name may be on the label. Yeah, she may have a (dormant) account with Amazon. But for all those packages mentioned in the article, there's no legal agreement between her & Amazon. Or between her & original seller. Or between her & shipper that brought the goods across international border. So how on earth would she be liable for custom charges for "importing" anything? She didn't.
Legally speaking, that would leave her as innocent bystander, that just happens to be where delivery person dumped a package.
In her shoes (no pun intended ;-), I'd just let this go to court & see judge move the charges to Amazon. Maybe Amazon would fix the problem if it turns into a recurring-costs issue.
But both Amazon and UPS or FedEx will still claim that she owes them money, which if she simply ignores it results in material damages to her credit, which can F up everything else in your life.
That damage itself might give her some weight in court but that is it's own whole 2nd career just pursuing that which is unreasonable to inflict on someone.
To get justice requires several thousand in lawyer fees in the best case, all for what looks like $100.
If she owed millions a lawyer would be worth it and would probably get lawyer fees. However this looks more like a case where courts will get mad about wasting their time.
I'm no lawyer, but afaik customs charges are owed by party that does the importing.
This may be eg. Amazon's customer, with Amazon just doing the warehouse/shipping part. It may also be that Amazon imports on customer's behalf, or does the importing itself.
Either way, woman in the article would not be liable for customs duties (or any other shipping charges / fees for that matter), because she's not Amazon's customer here.
She didn't ask Amazon to import anything on her behalf. Or arranged import herself using Amazon. Yeah, her name may be on the label. Yeah, she may have a (dormant) account with Amazon. But for all those packages mentioned in the article, there's no legal agreement between her & Amazon. Or between her & original seller. Or between her & shipper that brought the goods across international border. So how on earth would she be liable for custom charges for "importing" anything? She didn't.
Legally speaking, that would leave her as innocent bystander, that just happens to be where delivery person dumped a package.
In her shoes (no pun intended ;-), I'd just let this go to court & see judge move the charges to Amazon. Maybe Amazon would fix the problem if it turns into a recurring-costs issue.