I have had numerous international deliveries made by DHL and they have all taken a very few days - usually 3-4-5 (excluding weekends), from point to point.
DHL act as agents for the UK taxman and will not release anything until whatever is due, is paid (outside of some cock-up, which I have never experienced with DHL).
The situation with anything sent via post/mail was changing - I haven't had anything via post for ages - they were slowly getting more thorough and fewer and fewer items were getting missed when imported. Go back 2-3 years and maybe 60% of what I recieved, was missed, even large boxes.
The MiniTeddy arrived yesterday. No additional Customs Duty or "Value Added" tax was imposed;
Was that because it was collected in Israel? If Israel are in the club, it should have been. Otherwise, you were very lucky as DHL are very thorough.
As for Euro150 "rule" mentioned by
@Richard Lines, that is a new one on me and perhaps isn't real, just a way to put people off? Certainly fishies running businesses have not mentioned it in the past and it has not appled to any of my imports under Euro150.
Although these same rules are very common across the world, including the US, I can only assume that some countries have not joined the club - I import a a few-£100's-worth of stuff from RSA 2-3-4 times each year and pay everything when it lands in the UK, usually via DHL.
