Play.com, Items starting to get taxed again!

Rael

Greetings fellow boardies,

I was out with a mate of mine tonight and over the course of conversation he was ranting about a DVD his Missus ordered for him. Seems she bought Rome Season 2 from play.com last week for £36.99. It arrived on Friday morning and he was caught with a bill for €12.50 Vat and €5 handling charge.

Looks like xmas is coming and they're starting earlier this year

311

I don't mean to be nosey ,whereabouts in ireland are you ,county wise ?

Colonel Sanders

I ordered a book about 2 weeks ago and have yet to receive it. I got it sent to my work address so maybe this is the problem.

tman

Ah bollocks, I might cancel my order for the bladerunner special edition then:(

indiewindy

Colonel Sanders wrote:

I ordered a book about 2 weeks ago and have yet to receive it. I got it sent to my work address so maybe this is the problem.

You've no problem books are exempt from duty and vat, the UK postal strike is probably why your book hasnt arrived, there are big delays being caused by their 48 hour strikes

byte

This is not good news.

Can anyone remind me what the threshold is, before you start getting charged Duty? Think it's something silly like €20 limit or so, but not sure.

TheDriver

Think its 22 euro AFAIK

jor el

Just so you know, customs always inspect parcels coming into the country from outside the EU, however they don't, and can't, check them all. Your friend got caught as it was simply his turn, nothing to do with Christmas. If you order enough DVDs online, eventually you will get caught for VAT on something.

Every year I order lots of DVDs from Play, CDWow, Sendit and others at Christmas and have never had anything stopped. I did have a DVD set stopped in June one year though and had to pay VAT on it.

I reckon the annual Christmas Clampdown stories are nothing more than a scare tactic. They're hoping people won't order too much. Of course, the more you order, the more chance you run of getting caught, though not everything will be stopped unless your extremely unlucky.

Rael

To answer your question, my mate lives in Crumlin in Dublin

jor el

Rael wrote:

for £36.99. It arrived on Friday morning and he was caught with a bill for €12.50 Vat and €5 handling charge.

£37 is about €54, add in the €17.50 brings her to over €71. Don't tell her she could have picked it up in Virgin for €50. Double ouch I got it there at the weekend.

Snake Plisken

I was just going to post to see if they had started back in the "lets grab all the parcels coming from the US and charge the Shi te out of them", I just stuck in an order for HD-DVD of The Shining from DVD Pacific, the total value including shipping is 17.10 Euros, will they hit me with VAT charge?
TMan, If you were buying Blade Runner Boxset from the US (and your DVD plays Region 1) then goto Axel Music who ship from within Europe therefore no customs and pretty cheap (I'll probably get the HD set from them as well) http://www.axelmusic.com/productDetails/085391144830

Snake

311

Rael wrote: »

To answer your question, my mate lives in Crumlin in Dublin

Thanks Rael ,I thought it may have been a small rural town or something .

Seems to make no difference anyways, if they always have been checking.

jor el

Snake Plisken wrote: »

the total value including shipping is 17.10 Euros, will they hit me with VAT charge?

At 17.10 I'd doubt it. The only things I've ever heard of getting stopped had values of about 40euro or more on them.

Snake Plisken

jor el wrote: »

At 17.10 I'd doubt it. The only things I've ever heard of getting stopped had values of about 40euro or more on them.

I suppose if they wanted they could charge me for the VAT. But hopefully not.

jackdaw

DVD.co.uk also ship from the mainland UK , so VAT is exempt,

jackdaw

Also , let us know when this Royal Mail strike is over ..

Rael

I think the general taxable limit is €22 from outside the EU (Channel Islands etc) and about $45 from the States

konawi

I ordered off play.com a week and a half ago. Hadn't received anything till this morning when I go ta letter from Revenue asking for 15.81 (5 of which is postal charge) which is crazy!!
I ordered 2 other things off play.com at the wkd thinking the delay was a result of the postal strike so does that mean i'm going to get charges for each of them as well? ? Lunacy!! And it's way down their list of T&Cs. No good.

I don't think I'll pay it, I'll let it go back to play.com and ask for my money back off them saying I never received it at all and just go spend a few yoyos extra in HMV!

konawi

has anyone had any luck getting through to play.com?? i tried that other number on the boards but getting the same messages as the 0845 number that they have up there.

Must be something going on in the ebuying world cos I just ordered a sound systemoff pixmania in Sep, send it back within 7 days as it was faulty and have yet to receive a replacement. what a nightmare.

AntiRip

but i thought you didn't get taxed on stuff inside the EU?? I've ordered off amazon.co.uk, play.com, cdwow.ie alot and never been charged. Thought it was just outside the EU like the States obviously. Have ordered off Play-Asia.com even although one game at a time for 34-35 Euroes

what a load of c0ck if u end up paying more online and with this WEEE (?) with electrical good now you can't buy electrical goods online with amazon anymore.

If you bought a camera off Pixmania can you be caught for duty?

311

Jersey is not part of the EU.

They have no taxes there ,so goods bought from there must be taxed when imported into a country.

Not just Ireland either.

dts

I have never seen this stated on the play website?
If you do get a letter can you refuse to pay and claim your money back?

jor el

I think you can refuse to pay, and then the package gets returned to the sender. The sender (Play.com in this case) may charge a re-stocking fee (either a percentage or a fixed fee) for their troubles so you may not get all your money back.

This is fairly standard practice worldwide. Any shop operating outside your country generally will not accept responsibility for import duty and taxes.

byte

dts wrote: »

I have never seen this stated on the play website?
If you do get a letter can you refuse to pay and claim your money back?

Play.com wrote:

# If your delivery address is outside of Jersey, you may be subject to import duties and taxes, which are levied once a shipment reaches your country. Any such additional charges for customs clearance must be borne by you. You should note that customs policies vary widely from country to country; Play.com advises each customer to contact their local customs office for further information.
# Please note that when shipping products internationally, you should be aware that cross-border shipments are subject to opening and inspection by customs authorities.

http://www.play.com/HOME/HOME/6-/AboutUs.html?page=terms#jump-04

Steve J

you wonder is it more looked out for around Christmas though