Bangle 2 - Claiming the additional VAT in Germany

Thanks for the update...

the IOSS number was not included in the customs announcement(?) ( I guess that's where Royal Mail fucked it up)

Yes, it seems like it. If anyone else is interested, it seems what happened is this:

• I provided all the info that the 'Click & Drop' website requested, and it produced labels with the 'IOSS' logo on them and said everything was fine.
  
• At some point after the 'Click & Drop' website, Royal Mail lost the customs info
  
• After a long time on the phone, someone mentioned 'you should try filling in your company UK VAT number here' (in a config menu that never existed when I signed up to the site a few years ago).
  
• After that, IOSS details on packages go through fine
  
  

So... Obviously the UK VAT number shouldn't be required for sending to Europe, but it seems that somewhere deep in Royal Mail's internal systems, if that number doesn't exist they silently throw away all the IOSS info.

Royal Mail isn't accepting responsibility, and I can't seem to easily claim anything back from them. At the end of the day I have very little free time, and it's better that I spend it moving forward than trying to extract money from Royal Mail - the generosity of those from that first batch that were willing to pay all their fees had meant that given I can claim the VAT back (just not the duty) on average I haven't lost a great deal of money.