This is very interesting, I got stung by HobbyKing who have Very small print in light grey!!!!
who duty is it to see the import fees are correct, are they taken at the time of purchase, who takes them and what happens if the goods don't turn up or have to be returned? Also, does it include Customs & Excise fee for paying fees?!?!
I believe responsibility for sorting out the fees is with the 'importer', which for most of our sorts of transactions will be the Royal Mail, Parcelfarce, UPS, Fedex, etc.
Accuracy of charges depends a lot on what the sender puts on the customs declaration - both the class of item and the value. If they are wrong the charges will be wrong and all the problems I've had so far have been down to that. A lot of Hong Kong suppliers mark stuff as 'gift' which is risky. Last time I used Hobby King (international) there was an option to let you specify the customs declaration, so they are maybe passing that choice/risk to the purchaser. (I didn't choose gift, but it was only about $8 all in.)
I'm not aware of a "Customs & Excise fee". RM, etc charge a fee of usually £10-£20 for doing all the work of collecting the taxes and passing them to C&E, but that is nothing to do with C&E.
As far as the ebay system is concerned my understanding is that Pitney Bowes will pay all the taxes, etc, and presumably have their fee built in there. The system says I will have no more to pay on delivery. I'll let you know how that goes in a couple of weeks.
Non-delivery and returns will presumably be just as much of a nightmare as ever. High value stuff should be insured of course, but if it's a $20 bit from Hong Kong I'd probably write it off. With ebay/Paypal you do of course have other possibilities for a refund.