On delivery and local customs issues

[EskeRahn 5,399]

I have made this for the delivery and customs issues some are experiencing, so other can find hints on how to deal with the couriers.

Will try to move things in here from various other threads, let me know if I overlooked moving something relevant.

[shani 14]

Hi there,

I got a phone directly sent to me from Hongkong, but then today the package delivery guy told me I'd have to pay ~50€ for the customs fee.

Shouldn't that have been covered by the paid amount already?

I heard fxtec would refund those customs fees but couldn't find anything through the forum search.

@Erik Do you maybe know more?

 

Best regards and thanks in advance

Edited January 6, 2020 by shani

[Erik 1,487]

Contact support and we'll pay for it. To our understanding, we pre-paid that as you are in the EU, but maybe someone in the warehouse in Hong Kong made a mistake with your order and didn't pre-pay it.

[shani 14]

Ah ok, thanks!

I didn't know there was a dedicated support contact. 🙂

I was in contact with the fxtec twitter account (they facilitated the shipment) already, but then I'll contact support. Thanks for the quick reply!

[sasha 10]

5 hours ago, Erik said:

Contact support and we'll pay for it. To our understanding, we pre-paid that as you are in the EU, but maybe someone in the warehouse in Hong Kong made a mistake with your order and didn't pre-pay it.

@Erik

Clarification, please.

FxTec is prepaying Customs for ONLY the EU?

 

[Erik 1,487]

15 hours ago, sasha said:

@Erik

Clarification, please.

FxTec is prepaying Customs for ONLY the EU?

 

Yes, I think there was one batch that didn't go to London first, but was sent directly to the European customers from our Hong Kong warehouse. We are legally required to pay VAT in Europe, which we already charged our customers for, therefore we are pre-paying the duty for EU-based customers. I am not sure if this is happening again though, as we'd likely continue shipping to London first and then to customers. Either way, customers are unaffected, and if there is a problem, let support help you with it - [email protected].

[kemot0055 3]

Hello, I got the stock assigned letter and as well I got the tracking number from FEDEX.

I got today the e-mail from FEDEX about the need to pay for the customs.

What is weird in this situation is fact that customs value is 300 USD as you see in the attachments below:

And as well in commercial invoice entitled as "TOTAL INVOICE VALUE":

According to Erik in this post: https://community.fxtec.com/topic/2461-pro1-pre-orders-updates/ custom fees should be pre-paided by the company. But in this case is probably not...

Quote

Those in Europe and the US will have their customs fees pre-paid by us, as we charged you for duty in those regions already.

I got also the letter to be signed (I translated it):

According to the letter attached - I must pay for the fee

What I should do in this situation? I can count on help from the f(x)tec side? Maybe someone from poland had this situation before?

Thanks in advance.

Pinging @Erik

[omikr0n 10]

I'm in a similar situation (in Czech Republic), however FxTec has managed to screw this up even a bit more for me.

In my order, I have entered my home address as the billing address and my work office address as the shipping address.

However FxTec have used the shipping address on the invoice. Hence FedEx assumes that these goods are intended for my company for further resale. Which they of course are not - it's a personal order which I wanted to have shipped to my office for convenience.

Now FedEx is asking me to provide import details such as company identification number and goods importer identification number. I have neither of those, of course.

I assume this would not have happened if FxTec used the billing address on the invoice. I have reached out to their customer support, but haven't heard anything back yet.

Edited January 23, 2020 by omikr0n

[3zet 100]

10 hours ago, kemot0055 said:

What is weird in this situation is fact that customs value is 300 USD as you see in the attachments below:

And as well in commercial invoice entitled as "TOTAL INVOICE VALUE":

 

Wait... Is that means they lied in declaration? 

 

Erik's explanation below.

Edited January 23, 2020 by 3zet

[Doktor Oswaldo 901]

14 minutes ago, 3zet said:

Wait... Is that means they lied in declaration? 

Well it is important to note that the sender is EXPANSYS and not fxtec. Could it be that 300$ is what fxtec pays for the phone? It is strange in anyway

[_DW_ 628]

You need to send this to support.  But do report back here! interesting to know.

[Val 75]

I have the same problem (EU) and even more, because in my case was supposed to be an EU B2B transaction, reverse charge VAT.

In my case TNT (Fedex) wants also some custom services fees.

[Erik 1,487]

10 hours ago, kemot0055 said:

Hello, I got the stock assigned letter and as well I got the tracking number from FEDEX.

I got today the e-mail from FEDEX about the need to pay for the customs.

What is weird in this situation is fact that customs value is 300 USD as you see in the attachments below:

And as well in commercial invoice entitled as "TOTAL INVOICE VALUE":

According to Erik in this post: https://community.fxtec.com/topic/2461-pro1-pre-orders-updates/ custom fees should be pre-paided by the company. But in this case is probably not...

I got also the letter to be signed (I translated it):

According to the letter attached - I must pay for the fee

What I should do in this situation? I can count on help from the f(x)tec side? Maybe someone from poland had this situation before?

Thanks in advance.

Pinging @Erik

 

[Raksura 270]

9 minutes ago, Erik said:

Pay it, and email us to correct that for you.

While the idea of paying the customs fee that was already included in the phone's price a second time, then having it be re-reimbursed by you is indeed a good solution, the issue here is about the amount indicated (300 instead of at least more than twice this amount, unless maybe an IGG coupon was used).

From what I can tell, signing the first document (the one with the pre-filled 300.00 USD value) would be committing perjury.

Edited January 23, 2020 by Raksura

[Erik 1,487]

1 minute ago, Raksura said:

While the idea of paying the customs fee that was already included in the phone's price a second time, then having it be re-reimbursed by you is indeed a good solution, the issue here is about the amount indicated (300 instead of at least more than twice this amount, unless maybe an IGG coupon was used).

From what I can tell, signing this is committing perjury.

I'd like to remind you that we are the ones importing the device into your countries, and as this is DDP (delivered duty paid), we are the ones paying for it. Therefore, the value is defined similar to the cost that our factory sells it to us.

[Erik 1,487]

Let me make it a little more clear. If you get these letters, simply sign them. The value might confuse you and I will explain why, but you should sign it and it is safe to do so.

We are the ones importing the devices to your countries, as the device hasn't technically arrived into a European (or US) warehouse before shipping directly to you. Therefore, the value is defined similar to what the factory charges us (Fxtec) for the device, excluding transportation and labour. The value will not match what you paid, because we are importing the products to your countries based on our production cost, and later paying the VAT on what we charged you (but that is for us to take care of).

Once the paperwork is signed, there should be no additional costs on your side.

This should be pretty straightforward, but if you have any questions please forward them to [email protected].

[Val 75]

15 minutes ago, Erik said:

This should be pretty straightforward, but if you have any questions please forward them to [email protected].

I've forwarded you the email received from TNT (Fedex). It's not in English, but it's self explanatory, as above. 

[EskeRahn 5,399]

...And on the value part. Before people think that is a huge profit, remember this is the value of pure raw hardware out of the factory. The margin up to the sales price has to cover all the common base cost like he development costs, financing plus all other F(x)tec costs. And then licensing, delivery, customs  and taxes are on top.

For a low volume product as the Pro1, these base expenses makes a huge impact on each device (On a millions selling device they would be spread out to a few dollars each)

A guessing calculation: Let us guess they are selling 20K devices, this would mean for every $2M spent, they would need to add a $100 to each device before taxes, just to break even...

[cube48 51]

Czech Rep. FedEx also wanted from me to declare/prove the shipping costs (i.e. with PayPal invoice) in regard to import tax handling. One option was to not declare any shipping costs in which case they use the actual costs in FedEx system. That's what I did.

Edited January 23, 2020 by cube48

[Craig 1,435]

7 minutes ago, EskeRahn said:

The margin up to the sales price

The last big company I worked for, our gross margin target was 42%.  CEO's gotta make their millions somewhere.

Edited January 23, 2020 by Craig

[Doktor Oswaldo 901]

19 hours ago, EskeRahn said:

...And on the value part. Before people think that is a huge profit, remember this is the value of pure raw hardware out of the factory. The margin up to the sales price has to cover all the common base cost like he development costs, financing plus all other F(x)tec costs. And then delivery, customs  and taxes are on top.

For a low volume product as the Pro1, these base expenses makes a huge impact on each device (On a millions selling device they would be spread out to a few dollars each)

A guessing calculation: Let us guess they are selling 20K devices, this would mean for every $2M spent, they would need to add a $100 to each device before taxes, just to break even...

An that is not a uncommon high margin I expected it to be higher tbh. Other companies have more:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-iphone/apples-iphone-x-has-higher-margin-than-iphone-8-analysis-idUSKBN1D62RZ

Quote

The iPhone X smartphone costs $357.50 to make and sells for $999, giving it a gross margin of 64 percent, according to TechInsights, a firm that tears down technology devices and analyzes the parts inside. The iPhone 8 sells for $699 and has a gross margin of 59 percent.

 

Edited January 24, 2020 by Doktor Oswaldo

[Erik 1,487]

6 minutes ago, Doktor Oswaldo said:

An that is not a uncommon high margin I expected it to be higher tbh. Ither companies have more:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-iphone/apples-iphone-x-has-higher-margin-than-iphone-8-analysis-idUSKBN1D62RZ

 

Correct. It excludes the factory labour, shipping, customs that we pay for, in addition to the hefty licensing costs with Qualcomm, certifications and everything else that is needed for the device to be on the market. Once all of that is deducted, the margin is actually very low compared to other technology/phone startups. We have made the decision to keep it low to allow more users to afford the Pro1.

Our margin will increase in tandem with our production volume, as costs usually drop on larger scales.

[Val 75]

3 hours ago, Erik said:

Once the paperwork is signed, there should be no additional costs on your side.

That may not be the case in Eastern Europe, even if we're talking about an EU country. In my case, TNT (Fedex) works with a private person/company regarding the custom services and they've pushed for some fees. Should I mention that the person/company have a gmail address?:D And this is kinda official, the email being sent from TNT address with the "friend" in cc, asking to contact them directly.

I'm also talking with Fxtec over the mail and I asked them to talk with Expansys in order to apply some contractual/legal pressure to Fedex regarding this matter. 

[Erik 1,487]

2 minutes ago, Val said:

That may not be the case in Eastern Europe, even if we're talking about an EU country. In my case, TNT (Fedex) works with a private person/company regarding the custom services and they've pushed for some fees. Should I mention that the person/company have a gmail address?:D And this is kinda official, the email being sent from TNT address with the "friend" in cc, asking to contact them directly.

I'm also talking with Fxtec over the mail and I asked them to talk with Expansys in order to apply some contractual/legal pressure to Fedex regarding this matter. 

Oh god.... we've heard similar stories before but didn't expect that from TNT & Fedex.

[elvissteinjr 355]

In my case, FedEx Germany wants some proof of the declared value/invoice stating I paid the exact amount as declared. I cannot simply say the value is correct, but I lack proof of the declared value as well of course.
They also want me to allow them to handle customs in my name, no indication of pre-paid customs fees anywhere, though I'm not sure where I'm supposed to look.

I only have very shallow knowledge of this, but I think in Germany I really need to have the price I paid declared and won't get away with shenanigans as explaining what Erik told us here.
F(x)tec Support isn't responding within 24 hours anymore either it appears.

Current status on the tracking page is just "clearance delay" ...which after googling could mean many things, including customs just being slow or them waiting for me to fix my shit. It does say "no action required", though I do have that mail that came much earlier than this status.