Bought from Hong Kong-got VAT refund!

dinneenp

Hi,
I bought a Tamron 17-50mm f2.8 lens, Pentax fit from online store in Hong Kong for £239.
I had to pay VAT to customs of €65 on top of it. The company said that I can claim a VAT refund from them, I e-mailed them the VAT receipt yesterday. I was wondering if they're actually refund or if it's some scam. Got e-mail from Paypal today and the money has already been refunded and transfered back to my credit card!

I know that my lens might be a 'grey import' but I don't really care.

Pa.

HighKickerPete

Cool, I bought a 5D MKII and a few other bits it Bangkok in August. filled out the VAT form and posted it at the airport as instructed, still haven't heard anything back

Fionn

not bad prices, did you have to pay Duty as well as VAT and was there any handling fee imposed by DHL or FedEx.
I remember once having to pay a shipping company because they acted as agents for customs.

qwertz

You can get very similar prices from the continent without having to go through VAT refiunds.

Effects

What? How can the company issue you a vat refund? Are you vat registered? What am I missing?

dinneenp

I did a fair search and didn't find it in Europe for same price. Pentax fit seem to be more expensive than Canon/Nikon. About the next best I saw was £290.

I'm not a company, it just says on their site-
We offer "VAT Free" guarantee on all of our products for FREE, meaning we guarantee that you will not have to pay any import charges (namely import duty, courier handling fees, VAT and GST), i.e., DUTY FREE. If you are asked to pay import charges when you receive your package, please pay for these charges as requested and send the VAT receipt to us. We will then reimburse such charges upon receiving the receipt.

At the moment, this VAT Free guarantee only applies to orders shipped to Australia, France, Ireland, Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland and United Kingdom.

It was delivered by An Post, they added on €6 handling fee or similar but all that was refunded.

qwertz

Let me clarify, you can get similar prices from companies on the continent. Similar as in the prices listed on the HK website. Of course you pay VAT (Irish or the rate from the seller's country, depending on retailer) but you are freed from paying customs and duty.

Similar, not same! Some of the stuff I found was cheaper, some more expensive. All in all the differences were very small.

Also, buying in Europe means you receive European warranty, not the Aisan one. This is relevant to Nikon and Canon bodies. I haven't checked out Pentax' warranty rules since I have never purchased anything from them.

Zillah

Effects wrote: »

What? How can the company issue you a vat refund? Are you vat registered? What am I missing?

I think the idea is that they are offering to pay your VAT for you to encourage foreign customers. Obviously not everyone gets caught by the taxman so they wait to see if you're charged VAT or not.

Effects

I picked on it a little later on and figured not everyone would get caught at customs.

Antomus Prime

Do you know is this unique to the company you purchased from or do they all do it? I boutgh a 50mm Sony lens from a seller in hong kong from ebay and got shafted with the import tax

gezzajax

have used one stop digital for various purchases without issue.

I usually opt for addional £10 to get courier delivery and avoid post.

g