International Duty and Charges notice to buyers

[vproshop]

Hi Everyone,

I had one buyer who was upset that he had to pay £11.30 for his countries DUTY/TAXES (UK)

and he said that I told him nothing more had to be paid... (which is a lie).

In all honesty, I had NOT told anyone about what they need to pay in their country

for the collection of Duty and Taxes. He is just mistaken.

I don't know what Duty taxes other country charges.

In any case and making the story short, I gave him the refund he wanted,

ie, approx $19AUD

My thoughts is, its very little money to keep him from giving NEG feedback.

But now, We need some good words in the conditions to put in the listings 

so that all buyers are aware that it is their reaponsibility to pay the duty taxes in

their own countries.

So If there is anyone on this forum to tell me what the best 

wordings I can put on the listings and just incase I forget to be clear, all input from

everyone will be taken into consideration and your help is greatly appreciated.

[clarry100]

Here is the link to the ebay.AU help pages where this topic is discussed.

http://pages.ebay.com.au/help/pay/international-shipping-rules.html

Their words on thereare:

International buyers – please note: Import duties, taxes, and charges aren’t included in the item price or postage cost. These charges are the buyer's responsibility.

Please check with your country's customs office to determine what these additional costs will be prior to bidding or buying.

[jellybirddesigns]

I had a customer similar to that - they contacted me to let me know that they had to pay GPB11.00 in taxes and that they wanted to leave "feedback" to warn other buyers. I wrote to them that it has ALWAYS been the responsibility of the buyer to know the tax application in their country - it is NOT the sellers responsibility. I sent him a link to the Ebay policy and I never heard from him again and he never left feedback.

You should definitely NOT have refunded him - if the buyer left a feedback mentioning taxes, Ebay will remove it as it goes against their feedback policy.

After that buyer had contacted me - I went to the Ebay policy on taxes, copied it and put it at the bottom of every single one of my listings.  On top of that, if I know and item will go over the GBP15.00 (AUD24) threshold, I let the customer know and give them an opportunity to respond/cancel.

Have a look at one of my cushion listings and feel free to copy the text I have put at the bottom.

Stand your ground when it comes to taxes.

BTW, if you ship to Canada, they are in a similar situation as the UK with a low tax threshold (i have removed them from my country list as they have had major postal issues on top of the tax ones)

[vproshop]

Hello,

Thankyou so much for the help.

Its going to take quite a bit of time to update about 150 listings with this new 

info, unless anyone knows any shortcuts, besides the TurboLister thing (which I dont use).

But, Im determined not to get stung again.

Once learn't, then corrected, is my aim.

Thanks Again.

[vproshop]

Ok, I just figured out a pretty quick way to add this to the relevant listings.

First of all, Thanks to Cushioncovers for letting me use the wordings and clarry100

for all the info.

There is a Bulk Edit option that you can use to add anything to the description

to the selection of listings you want.

If there are any helpful tips I learn along the way, i shall be sure to

share with you all.

Thanks.

[digital*ghost]

Just an observation, but I actually find it really interesting that so many UK buyers, after all these years of well established international online shopping options, are completely unaware of their own country's import laws, taxes, duties, etc. 

Someone once said it's not widely advertised over there, but I've been hearing stories like this for a good few years now, so you would think if nothing else, word of mouth would have informed a good number of the population who use computers and phones to shop, considering the prevalence of social media (a common platform for blissfully ignorant complaints  ). 

Some people are truly ignorant of it, I suppose, but I've also seen it said (by a UK seller) that some will feign ignorance and outrage to get exactly this kind of result. 😞 

[vproshop]

Hi,

I agree, its a bit rich to ask seller to look after buyers cost. However, I squarely put the blame on 

the government for setting such a low threshold on the duty tax.

We have AUD$1000, which is very good, but BPD£15 is very low.

Anyway, here is the positive feedback the customer left, even after I refunded the £11 promptly.

thanks but had £11 extra postage to pay on delivery

Ohh well, Im quite forgiving.

[phorum_junkie*]

A lot of people probably don't realise there can be charges because it is not policed consistently especially by Royal Mail. In my experience items coming through RM that do not need to be signed for are delivered without any charge being levied, if you have to sign for a parcel or you are not in and it is carded so you have to go to the sorting office then the charge has to be paid. I used to buy from a seller (not ebay) who used RM not signed for and never had to pay anything, they then changed and I got a parcel delivered by a courier and got a bill for duty, taxes and fees. I now only buy from that seller when I am in Australia lol.

[lyndal1838]

Leave a followup that it was not postage but import fees payable by the buyer...it would be nice if you could also indicate that you paid it even though it was not your responsibility.  80 characters is not always enough gor some transactions.

[digital*ghost]

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@phorum_junkie* wrote:

A lot of people probably don't realise there can be charges because it is not policed consistently especially by Royal Mail. In my experience items coming through RM that do not need to be signed for are delivered without any charge being levied, if you have to sign for a parcel or you are not in and it is carded so you have to go to the sorting office then the charge has to be paid. I used to buy from a seller (not ebay) who used RM not signed for and never had to pay anything, they then changed and I got a parcel delivered by a courier and got a bill for duty, taxes and fees. I now only buy from that seller when I am in Australia lol.

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I send a lot of ariticles that don't require SOD to the UK (large letters, so also untracked), and believe me they get the taxes whacked on them. 

Besides, after all these years, even if not policed consistently, it still doesn't explain the apparent lack of awareness - by which I mean, the more stories there are around of someon gettin' hit by the swinging buzzsaw (metaphorically speaking) the more aware people would be that they're running that gauntlet with every purchase they make that's over the threshhold.