Tayda and insane DHL customs costs?

Around two weeks ago I placed an order at Tayda for various parts and custom UV printed enclosures, like I have done many times before. I always select DHL as the courier, as they are fast and reliable normally.

The order I placed was for a total amount of 215 dollar (198 euro) including shipping. Today I received the DHL clearance costs: a total amount of 772 euro (yes, you read that correctly). On top of the expected duties, VAT (21%) and DHL fee for clearance (1.53, 40.15 and 17.55 euro respectively) they are charging me 712 euro for multiline entry costs. Does anyone know what that means I why this is such a ridiculously high amount?

I contacted DHL several times today, they would try to clarify it and get back to me, but so far they haven’t.

I’m based in The Netherlands

Update: I refused the package that was supposed to be delivered two days ago. I was not going to pay an upcharge of that much.

I’ve been in contact with DHL several times over the last couple of days. Most times it didn’t help, but I finally got some more information today. The initial amount of 772 euro was lowered to “only” 284 euro. They claimed customs made a mistake, but after some more questions is became clear that it’s DHL that charges the additional cost, not customs. They initially charged extra for every line on the shipping document (100 lines), then they reduced that to charging per HS category (35 categories). They indicated they recently changed their system to make the custom clearance easier, but clearly they don’t care what this means for their customers. I asked them why in the many times I ordered from Tayda via DHL this was never an issue and they couldn’t answer that. For now, I’m not going to pay the 284 euros (of which 225 euro is the the additional charge for the multiline entry).

I’ve also been in contact with Tayda several times. Hugo from Tayda told me they have received a lot of complaints from Dutch customers with similar problems. As of this week, they stopped using DHL for shipping to The Netherlands and instead they will use FedEx (and UPS, which was already an option). However, I checked the FedEx website and they have a similar multiline entry system, so I’m not sure if this is going to make any difference, I’m checking this with Tayda. Clearly, Tayda is also not happy with these upcharges and they are looking for a solution.