Ebay and UK seller can't agree after messing up my order, sigh.

[Treehugger]

So.. some countries, I think I've read that for example Australia, has a similar tax scheme like norway, which in norway is called VOEC or "VAT on e-commerce". This tax regulation imposed on foreign sellers online (above a certain threshold of yearly trade afaik) is about two years old now, and Ebay collects VAT in advance for each purchace, regardless of order value.

 

For a customer, the consequence of paying VAT up front to the seller, seller is supposed to simply mark the parcel with VOEC and a VOEC code, to avoid the buyer having to pay VAT a second time. This way, with the parcel marked with VOEC and a VOEC code the parcel is delivered to the buyer with no customs fee.

 

So, I get my parcel in the mail, sent from the UK, however mail service also sends me in my mail box a payment request, effectively placing me in debt. for not only outstanding VAT (which was already paid on Ebay), but with an additional 149,- NOK customs fee. For a total payment debt of 258,- NOK, or about £23 or something like that.

 

So, the UK seller claims he did nothing wrong and just used Ebays integrated system, however he says he put the VOEC info on a piece of paper inside the package, which was all taped up and sealed. 

 

Ebay claims that it is "just a platform for mutual understanding" (paraphrasing this now) and that it is the seller that is responsible for marking the parcel, and seller claims he just followed Ebays integrated system of printing out labels for the parcel as I understand it.

 

So I asked Ebay now to have Ebay and seller both share half the outstanding customs fee. Oh, I wonder what bullshit they will give me next.

 

What I find annoying, is that they don't appear to take the time to read my complaint, which was well written and informative, and nobody seems to want to take any blame or even acknowledge the issue at hand, which is badly marked parcels.

Edited September 5, 2022 by Treehugger

[Kagemusha]

Is it not possible to get the tax code and send it to the relevant body, so informing them the tax has already been paid?

[Treehugger]

No. I have already complained to the local mail service, a private business. They insist on me having to pay the outstanding debt. They simply point out that parcels have to be marked appropriately. In my complaint, I had already explained the details, including some of the sellers communication and all the relevant documentation showing VAT already having been paid.

 

The serious part of all of this, is the debt issue as a matter of principle. I could be wrong, but I think in some parts of the world, you can even get thrown in jail for such tiny debts. And then, one might wonder, when is the next time the same thing will happen again?

 

As for Ebay I suspect the customer service people are causing this all to be annoying for me, because I am sure a manager would be more willing to look at the situation from the point of view of what is right and wrong here. I would have thought that doing business the wrong way, is not a healthy way to run a business.

 

Btw, re. the novel VOEC regulations in norway, I think VOEC is a direct consequence of last 10 years of high rate of imports from China. China, according to a local mail office, enjoyes some kind of international regulation which allows them free shipping across the globe or something. To be fair, it was fun getting 7 small parcels in my mailbox from Ebay, usually with free shipping, 7 being my personal record for any one day. It was like Christmas or something.

Edited September 5, 2022 by Treehugger

[Treehugger]

But wait there is more. This is even a little more complicated.

 

So.. before VOEC regulations in norway, you enjoyed no VAT and no customs fee, generally speaking, for parcels with a value of less than 350,- NOK specifically, or about £32 or somesuch. Still.. on Posten.no webpage, our country's major mail service, you can read that there is a law pending re. VOEC in norway, and so Posten.no states that you can still get your parclel delivered to your mailbox without VAT and customs fee, as long as the total value is less than 350,- NOK, like in the "old" days.

 

Now.. the UK seller claims that he never had any previous issue not marking the parcels with VOEC (even though the buyer actually paid VAT up front, and seller must have known this I think), and I guess perhaps one reason he maybe never thought about it, or that nobody complained about getting parcels with no VOEC data on it, is because in norway there is this law pending re. VOEC, so even for me in norway, the whole thing up to now was a little confusing, with VOEC being implemented, but not compulsory for parcels NOT marked with VOEC and below total value of 350,- NOK. Point being, no wonder if nobody complained with parcels not marked with VOEC, if their total value was always less than 350,- NOK, not triggering the payment requests that comes with outstanding VAT and customs fee for order values of 350,- NOK and higher.

Btw, at 3000,- NOK the customs fee is doubled to about 300,- NOK alone, up from 149,- being the standard customs fee for parcels.

 

In some sense I find all this very fascinating. Anything I buy with Hong Kong Dollars, have me look at the currency. Some time ago, the value was nearly 1:1 for my NOK vs HKD, but these days, it is more like 1:1.25, making HKD 25% more expensive than it was a few years ago. I liked looking at the HKD pricing because I could just imagine it was in NOK, back a few years ago, knowing the two currencies was about, nearly equal in value as I remember it.

 

Edit: Even more mysterious now. When I check my last message sent to Ebay on Ebay website, it just a load of nonsense HTML text, obscuring my message. All I ever did was click a reply button to a previous message from Ebay, type in a the same type of input text window as earlier, and write my reply. What the hell is this?

 

Edit2: It happened again.

 

Edited September 5, 2022 by Treehugger

[thierry laurent]

Actually each seller must comply with the customs rules of the destination country. In the European Union, this means that even if VAT is collected upfront and that number is put on the parcel, this can possibly be insufficient! I had the case with 3d-printed ladders purchased on ebay from a Swedish guy. To sell in my country, the foreign reseller or his proxy (the carrier actually importing the item in my country) must fill a digital form on the customs website to be sure they will not ask for VAT payment at destination. Alas, the carrier in Sweden did not do that. So I had to pay the VAT a second time, get the evidence payment and open an ebay claim file to get back the VAT paid in Sweden. Unfortunately you are only getting back the VAT, not the customs administrative fees! UK and Norway are relying on a similar system. Actually UK was the first country who used that upfront payment of VAT approach. When this is working right, this is a good system as you just pay VAT, not customs fees. However, when this is going bananas, be prepared for a time-consuming administrative process to get back your money...

[Treehugger]

Update: So I am trying to write a message to Ebay on Ebay, and regardless if I chose the top "reply" button, or the bottom "reply" button, all messages have html code injected into my message. I don't understand what is going on.

[thierry laurent]

10 minutes ago, Treehugger said:

Update: So I am trying to write a message to Ebay on Ebay, and regardless if I chose the top "reply" button, or the bottom "reply" button, all messages have html code injected into my message. I don't understand what is going on.

My recommendation: call them. It was not easy for me either. 

[Lee White]

You can perhaps get his attention with some blisteringly bad feedback....

[airscale]

Just my opinion  but this is all on the seller..

 

Ebay collects the tax and issues a unique code to be put with the address 

 

We do this every day from our store

 

By not putting the code in a visible place on the parcel, the postal system of whichever destination country where the tax was due has no way if knowing it was paid so is seeking it from you (plus fees)

 

The seller is responsible for labeling that tax has been collected as per the eBay terms of service and in my view for your costs

 

Peter

[LSP_Matt]

Wow. Sounds complicated. Good luck.

 

Australia has a Goods and Services tax. Basically a consumption tax but not on food or medical care.

 

Matty

[thierry laurent]

7 hours ago, airscale said:

Just my opinion  but this is all on the seller..

 

Ebay collects the tax and issues a unique code to be put with the address 

 

We do this every day from our store

 

By not putting the code in a visible place on the parcel, the postal system of whichever destination country where the tax was due has no way if knowing it was paid so is seeking it from you (plus fees)

 

The seller is responsible for labeling that tax has been collected as per the eBay terms of service and in my view for your costs

 

Peter

Hi Peter, 

 

As I explained, in some countries, receiving the parcel with the code on the box is not even sufficient! It is the seller responsibility to comply with the buyer country rules. However, if this becomes to be a hassle, who is going to do that for a bunch of overseas sales?!? Personally, now, I'm informing the seller as I'm understanding it is not that easy to know all the slight administrative variants. This does not ask for a lot of time and is in any case quicker than trying to solve the issue afterwards.

[Rick Griewski]

As sooooon  as various countries decided that they were missing a tax opportunity (golden goose) from the internet, then without a standard scheme they gave authorization to scrape off as much a possible.  The seller’s burden is not well defined nor as we see sufficient or effective measures. No checks and balances to prevent bureaucratic over reach.

[Lee White]

If you used a credit card, maybe you can claw back the duplicate payment.