topic Help with polite response needed in Selling

Help with polite response needed

purplemon18 — Fri, 28 Jun 2019 11:23:18 GMT

I got this message tonight:

Customs Charges

Hi there,
hope you are well.

Quick check: I've been charged for customs, see attached photo, for 12.95£. How do we go about refunding this?
These charges would either have to be listed up front or be paid for by the sender. It's not for me to stomp up for upfront undeclared charges.
Please issue a refund for 12.95£.
Best wishes,

someone

I found this on ebay.co.uk:

Maybe I'm tired, but I can't come up with a polite way to explain that it's not my responsibility, it's theirs.

Can someone lend me a hand please?

Re: Help with polite response needed

djavusydney — Fri, 28 Jun 2019 11:35:00 GMT

Custom charges wasn't collected when the buyer pays for the item from you. It is buyer's responsibility to pay for the import charges to get item released to you for international purchases. I include the wording to all my listings, if not mistaken buyer should get warned somewhere in checkout. eBay should have this written somewhere too about import charges.

Re: Help with polite response needed

kopenhagen5 — Fri, 28 Jun 2019 11:54:51 GMT

Dear buyer,

It has always been the buyer's responsibility to know their own local laws as a seller cannot be expected to know the laws of 200 countries around the globe.

The eBay site stipulates that a buyer may incur import duties or custom clearance charges upon purchasing from outside of their own country and the buyer should check with their local customs office before the importation.

This has been the rules of trading on eBay since it's inception in 1995.

Along those lines, keeping it professional of course.

Re: Help with polite response needed

countessalmirena — Fri, 28 Jun 2019 12:37:52 GMT

Dear [buyer]

Thank you for getting in touch.

We know that it can be disconcerting when one is charged for custom or import costs. That's why eBay discusses these charges in their Help pages, to ensure that buyers are aware about whose responsibility such costs will be. On eBay's International purchases and postage for buyers page, it states:

❝When you buy from an international seller, you'll often have to pay import charges. These charges are generally based on the item's price, weight, dimensions, and country of origin, as well as any taxes, duties, and fees of the destination country. It’s your responsibility to check which import charges may apply, and to pay them.❞

This is also covered in

eBay's International trading policy page, (❝Import tax: If you are ordering goods from abroad you may need to pay UK Customs Duty, Excise Duty and/or import VAT. You can find more information on Gov.UK's Bringing goods into the UK page.❞),
eBay's Taxes and import charges page (❝Buyers are responsible for paying import fees, usually as part of clearing their parcel through customs, or when they receive their item❞), and
eBay's Paying tax on eBay purchases page (❝If the item's being sent from outside the EU, the recipient may need to pay VAT and customs duty. These may not apply in the UK if the order's under £15, but the threshold varies between EU countries❞).

There is helpful information available on the https://www.gov.uk/goods-sent-from-abroad page: it specifically addresses situations where you buy a new or used item online. Quoting: ❝You may have to pay VAT, Customs Duty or Excise Duty on goods sent from outside the European Union (EU) before you can collect them.❞ As Australia is not part of the EU, that will apply to purchases that you make from Australian sellers.

Friendly regards,

[seller]

Re: Help with polite response needed

chameleon54 — Fri, 28 Jun 2019 13:19:34 GMT

Hi Kopes SNAP....... there was nothing in the Kudos box when I clicked and then instantly two kudos. My first thought was I had made some kind of error and exposed one of my selling ID,s by mistake. ( My computer locks up and plays games sometimes when I am changing between id,s )

Re: Help with polite response needed

lm-entertainment — Fri, 28 Jun 2019 13:36:23 GMT

it's also common knowledge in the UK that people have to pay taxes on anything they receive from an international destination over (correct me if i'm wrong someone) £15. some individual websites may charge this from the buyer upon checkout, but it's widely-known that most people in the UK get hit with the import taxes and aren't able to receive their item until it's been paid.

Re: Help with polite response needed

springyzone — Sat, 29 Jun 2019 02:14:52 GMT

@purplemon18 wrote:
I got this message tonight:

Customs Charges

Hi there,
hope you are well.

Quick check: I've been charged for customs, see attached photo, for 12.95£. How do we go about refunding this?
These charges would either have to be listed up front or be paid for by the sender. It's not for me to stomp up for upfront undeclared charges.
Please issue a refund for 12.95£.
Best wishes,
someone

I found this on ebay.co.uk:

Maybe I'm tired, but I can't come up with a polite way to explain that it's not my responsibility, it's theirs.

Can someone lend me a hand please?

I think you have already answered your own question here.

You can phrase it however you want but the buyer will probably still be suspicious and inclined to think you are not telling the truth, trying to dodge your responsibility.

So........what I would do is exactly what you did here. Start by Including the screen shot of the ACTUAL EBAY policy from ebay UK, that you posted above. They can't argue too much with that.

THEN, write a short note to say you are sorry but your price was for item & postage only and does not include customs charges, these vary from country to country and as they can see, it is a buyer's responsibility to pay for those.

Re: Help with polite response needed

purplemon18 — Sat, 29 Jun 2019 08:24:16 GMT

Thank you all for your responses. It has helped immesurably. Every time I tried to craft a reply it came accross as condecending. I just needed some help getting the wording right and I appreciate the help.

If I hear any more about it I will let you know.

Re: Help with polite response needed

purplemon18 — Tue, 30 Jul 2019 08:58:31 GMT

Wow, it's been a month already. I just heard back from my British Customer tonight

Hi,
sorry about delay. We were on holiday.
I followed up and it appears you are correct.
I'm quite shocked and surprised but that is very clearly the ebay approach to this & I withdraw my request for refund of the import tax.
Thank you for pointing me in the right direction!
Best wishes from London,
----

Re: Help with polite response needed

countessalmirena — Tue, 30 Jul 2019 09:40:44 GMT

That's a nice response from your buyer.

It stands as a reminder that any of us can make a mistake and act upon that mistaken conviction... but ultimately what matters is how one responds to correction (with links to the correct information). Your buyer has been gracious in acknowledgement.

You were clearly on the ball in the wording that you ended up using!

Re: Help with polite response needed

purplemon18 — Tue, 30 Jul 2019 10:47:58 GMT

Yes indeed. I want to thank everyone again for their help. I don't like upsetting customers.

Re: Help with polite response needed

onekiwi0 — Wed, 31 Jul 2019 07:51:52 GMT

interesting this should come up as I just got a returned parcel from the UK today from sales 2 months ago.

bit of a nightmare as the buyer has not been contactable and the parcel is from several listings- over $100 and they paid over $100 in post / insurance.

no explanation when it was returned but there is a customs sticker on the side about customs charge and then a sticker over it saying charge cancelled.

I am left puzzled the best way to sort it out - I've paid ebay fees, several paypal fees and of course australia post have profited approx $100.

Is the UK the only country that gets the tax people don't expect? I;'ve paid tax via ebay for overseas purchases but that is upfront when originally purchasing.

Re: Help with polite response needed

purplemon18 — Wed, 31 Jul 2019 08:13:59 GMT

No, many countries have customs charges, all of the EU for example, I think there is a minimum before they charge it, and I think it can vary between countries, but I had one customer mention 30 Euros. I recently had someone from Ecuador that had customs charges on a AU$15 purchase.

There is not much you can do if you can't get in contact with your customer. Wait for them to contact you and ask if they want to pay for more shipping or refund the original purchase minus the shipping.

Re: Help with polite response needed

purplemon18 — Wed, 31 Jul 2019 08:18:15 GMT

I had one customer from the Netherlands recently who bought some PS2 games for his collection that never got release in the EU. He told me that he did the maths and it was still cheaper for him to make a bulk purchase from me, pay customs, and shipping. Rather than buy the items locally.

Lucky him, when he got his package they neglected to charge him the customs.

Re: Help with polite response needed

digital*ghost — Wed, 31 Jul 2019 09:56:36 GMT

@onekiwi0 wrote:

Is the UK the only country that gets the tax people don't expect? I;'ve paid tax via ebay for overseas purchases but that is upfront when originally purchasing.

No, but the UK seems to be one of the places where the people there are more oblivious to the potential costs - their threshold is relatively low (GBP 15 for merchandise, less than $30 AUD, and GBP 20 for gifts) and it's applied rather sporadically; a buyer may purchase several qualifying items and only be asked to pay for one. That and the fact that there's a 9 GBP fee applied on top of the VAT, which is often more than the VAT itself.

Another huge problem is that the posties over there who card for it often tick the box for underpaid postage, resulting in the buyers accusing the seller of causing the problem. (If you look up a sample of the card that's delivered to buyers, there's a tick box for underpaid postage and directly underneath that is another tick box for VAT charges, which is supposed to tell the recipient why they are being charged money before they can collect the package - why they tick underpaid postage so often is a mystery, but an infuriating one, especially given eBay's MBG policies).

If you ever need to field an angry message from a buyer accusing you of underpaying postage on an international package, you can advise them it's not actually possible for an international parcel that has arrived at its destination to have underpaid postage, due to the UPU agreement. (The UPU agreement dictates that all postal services keep the money paid to them for international parcel services, and the receiving country deliver it with no additional charges applied, so even if a package didn't have enough postage on it somehow and still makes it over to the other country, it's the original postage service's problem and there's no further postage charges that can be applied).

In your case, I would refund less all costs incurred.

Re: Help with polite response needed

onekiwi0 — Wed, 31 Jul 2019 11:44:05 GMT

good suggestion digital, I looked up the tracking and it said delivery was attempted and then again 5 weeks later, then they sent it back to me. odd... but as I'm guessing a card was left and they ignored it due to incorrectly ticked after reading your info....