Importing to the UK - VAT & Delivery info

[dearmrecho]

Just a couple of little tips…

When you call customs now it's a word recognition system instead of having to wait for options to press. Strangely, it's not immediately apparent that they are asking you to say something. So when you finally figure out that you're supposed to speak, ask for "Postal Import" or "Customs". If you ask for anything including VAT you'll get through to the wrong place and they'll have to transfer you to customs.

The Border Agency are only available between 10am and 2pm - so make sure you call through between those times or they won't be able to get any further.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


So far so painless… Border Agency are contacting the Parcel Force depot and will get back to me.

[Fattyramone]

Thats good news Andrew ...

Oh yes , I forgot to mention that part about phoning , actually there seems to be a duel system in place , the voice recognition and phone button press system , I never did work out why on certain occasions i got one then ring back another time and I got the other.

Despite their optimistic sounding "we'll deal with it as soon as we can" schpiel i wouldnt hold out much hope of them actually getting back to you till tuesday or wednesday

[LeeKaye]

Just posting this so it's on my list of threads. I wish I knew all this when I spunked $900 a while ago. I can't remember what the customs charges were as they were so traumatic, I think my brain has blanked them to protect me.

[Fattyramone]

Lee , Surely having been around here since 2007 you knew the score on them constantly getting it wrong on import VAT rate values?...why on earth didnt you challenge it? ...even retrospectivly it would have taken you 3 months to have gotten it back but you would have got it.

How long ago was it?

[LeeKaye]

Lee , Surely having been around here since 2007 you knew the score on them constantly getting it wrong on import VAT rate values?...why on earth didnt you challenge it? ...even retrospectivly it would have taken you 3 months to have gotten it back but you would have got it.

How long ago was it?

Simple answer, I didn't know it was wrong. The first I ever heard about the rate being wrong was very recently on here. I registered on here that long ago, but it hasn't been on my radar until very recently. The $900 was probably two years ago now. Ah, yes, just checked my records.

[bigmuls]

I have an ebay customer who wants me to refund his shipping cost because of the high VAT he had to pay. I've been trying to send him a message on ebay explaining the process for getting a refund as described in this forum, but eBay keeps giving me this message:
"Your message wasn’t sent because we’ve noticed that it might suggest a purchase outside of eBay.
We realize that you may not have known this, but eBay members should not use the site to contact each other about offsite sales. This policy is in place to make sure that you are covered by eBay protection programs and feedback policies.
Please edit your message and remove anything that indicates buying or selling outside of eBay."

Anyone have a copy of a message they've sent to a buyer to deal with the VAT refund that I can use?

[suchanoo]

Sorry your buyer is a muppet. What an idiot thinking you should (effectively) pay his tax for him. It's people like that who really make it difficult for the rest of us to purchase from abroad. The amount of times I've been turned down by a US seller because they've been burned by dick heads like this in the past...

Anyway, bigmuls, please copy the message you are trying to send here, would help us figure out how to help you get round the problem.

[hsp123]

I have an ebay customer who wants me to refund his shipping cost because of the high VAT he had to pay. I've been trying to send him a message on ebay explaining the process for getting a refund as described in this forum, but eBay keeps giving me this message:
"Your message wasn’t sent because we’ve noticed that it might suggest a purchase outside of eBay.
We realize that you may not have known this, but eBay members should not use the site to contact each other about offsite sales. This policy is in place to make sure that you are covered by eBay protection programs and feedback policies.
Please edit your message and remove anything that indicates buying or selling outside of eBay."

Anyone have a copy of a message they've sent to a buyer to deal with the VAT refund that I can use?

You did the right thing here, Its up to the buyer to sort the custom charge of 5% if its incorrectly been charged at 20%

The best thing you could do is send him the information I found useful posted by suchanoo on this very thread.

Refunding the postage will not help and leave you out of pocket.


____________________________________
The buyer will need the BOR286 FORM to challenge the overpaid VAT.

"Just to give this a bump and to update that I'm 7 for 7 on claims. No rejections yet. I've been sending:

- Form BOR286
- Print out quoting the Customs notice (5% VAT)
- Print out of the paypal invoice
- Customs charge sticker
- Sender's customs form
- Print from the artist's website or ebay page stating details about the print
- Photo of the print with sig/#/hand finishing (haven't always included this)

I filled in a form electronically, as a template, so all I have to change is the charge reference number, which saves a bit of time. This is what I have written in the 'Details' section:

"Imported, limited edition, signed & numbered silk-screen printed art work. VAT should have been charged at an effective rate of 5% using 'Tariff Code 9702 00 00', according to HMRC Notice 702, section 11.1. Please see attached documentation."

I have also been highlighting all the important sections of each document, e.g. the '9702 00 00' number (when the seller has included it).

Just to clarify, this is the form I have been using:

http://search2.hmrc.gov.uk/kb5/hmrc/for ... ormId=5205

If you are not claiming back your VAT, then pull your finger out and start. One of the smaller pleasures in life is receiving a cheque from the Inland Revenue. It's a bit of hassle, but I'm already a few hundred quid better off for it, and it's gone straight back into buying more lovely posters.


Edit: I've also included the Parcelforce charge letter previously, but I think this is superfluous, so I'm not going to bother in future.

[Fattyramone]

First off , its not your fault as a USA seller that our Uk customs are useless and inept at their own job.

Your problem is that Ebay do everything they can to prevent personal contact (other than their own internal emailing system) for fear of deals being struck outside of ebay and them not getting their cut of the proceeds.

This takes the form of using softwear that recognise email addresses and external links (you could be a gallery and wanting to send him the link to it) and disallows it from being sent.

So you have to get creative in getting him your email address (e.g. Johnsmith@hotmail.com) so that he can contact you outside of ebay that will allow you to send him the link to this thread.

You can try and send your email address as a picture attachment

You can try and send it as a coded message that the softwear wont recognise e.g.

Im trying JOHN to send a SMITH message to you AT but ebay HOT wont let MAIL allow me to DOT , try this COM message , hope you understand.


But ultimately its his own problem really

[bigmuls]

Part 2:
My rejected message:

Below is the information to get the VAT refunded:

"No rejections yet. I've been sending:
- Form BOR286
- Print out quoting the Customs notice (5% VAT)
- Print out of the paypal invoice
- Customs charge sticker
- Sender's customs form
- Print from the artist's website or ebay page stating details about the print
- Photo of the print with sig/#/hand finishing (haven't always included this)

I filled in a form electronically, as a template, so all I have to change is the charge reference number, which saves a bit of time. This is what I have written in the 'Details' section:

"Imported, limited edition, signed & numbered silk-screen printed art work. VAT should have been charged at an effective rate of 5% using 'Tariff Code 9702 00 00', according to HMRC Notice 702, section 11.1. Please see attached documentation."
I have also been highlighting all the important sections of each document, e.g. the '9702 00 00' number (when the seller has included it).

If you are not claiming back your VAT, then pull your finger out and start. One of the smaller pleasures in life is receiving a cheque from the Inland Revenue. It's a bit of hassle, but I'm already a few hundred quid better off for it, and it's gone straight back into more lovely posters."

I attached the form to my previous message. More info on this can be found at the hmrc dot gov dot uk
(eBay won't let me send an actual link)

[Fattyramone]

However , and we touched on this subject a few pages back on this thread ,....

Just lately ebay have been pushing a system that calculates the import VAT rate for you Americans to send to the UK ...and this figure of 20% VAT is wrong for prints (should be 5%) , now if this is what may have happened (?) then I do feel a bit of sympathy for the buyer , ive seen this quite a few times but have yet to buy from the seller that uses this system of tax collection but i bet its a nightmare to put right.

[bigmuls]

However , and we touched on this subject a few pages back on this thread ,....

Just lately ebay have been pushing a system that calculates the import VAT rate for you Americans to send to the UK ...and this figure of 20% VAT is wrong for prints (should be 5%) , now if this is what may have happened (?) then I do feel a bit of sympathy for the buyer , ive seen this quite a few times but have yet to buy from the seller that uses this system of tax collection but i bet its a nightmare to put right.

I sympathize with him as well, but there's nothing I can do other than send him the info on how to get a refund. I used the correct tariff code of 9702 00 00.

[bigmuls]

Also, I did not use the Global Shipping program from eBay (and never do).

I was able to send my message with the text from the forum included as a JPEG attachment. Hopefully this calms him down, but now he'll have some work to do.

[dearmrecho]

bigmuls - did you not get the buyer's email address when he paid (presumably) by Paypal?

[bigmuls]

bigmuls - did you not get the buyer's email address when he paid (presumably) by Paypal?

I didn't think to get it from Paypal, but would prefer to have a record of the conversation in eBay's messaging system in case he negs me for shipping charges.