UK Customs?

Question

ebay

Placed an order for equipment (for £500) via ebay from Hong Kong (t-dimension store) to a private address in London. Delivery from London to Russia is a separate matter.
Today a letter arrives from Hong Kong:
For sending item from Hong Kong to UK, import duties, taxes and charges are not included in the item price or shipping charges.
These charges are the buyer's responsibility.
We can only mark the item as a gift and put a low value(around half of the amount) on parcel to help you minimize the customs fee. Even lower value is declared or ?Gift? is marked, customs fee may still be imposed on top. We have no idea how much Customs fee will be imposed on top exactly. You may have a check with your country's customs office to determine what these additional costs will be.
After you checked with your local Customs office, please reply and confirm your order again. Whether you want to proceed with the order? Or do you prefer to take a refund & cancel the order?
Look forward to your reply.
The question is how to do it right, what to answer them?

Answer 1

Find out the rules of duty formation in the UK for international shipments and, based on them, decide whether and how much to pay the duty and whether the risk of underestimating the declared value and marking “gift” is justified.
PS if you are already sending through an intermediary, he is usually aware of all these customs regulations and fees in his country. All the same, he will most likely have to pay this fee (in the sense that they demand from him, and he, for example, will compensate you).
If the language barrier does not allow (although then why bother with such fraudulent shipments) - in addition to the banal Google translator, you can also look at thematic forums on intermediaries and the delivery of goods from e-Bay. There, too, someone could write customs rules for the UK, but of course, the information will not be as accurate and up-to-date as from the original source