On delivery and local customs issues

[3zet 100]

17 minutes ago, elvissteinjr said:

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.

And I think in Poland is exactly same situation. 

[Erik 1,487]

52 minutes ago, elvissteinjr said:

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.

Email us, please - [email protected] . I believe some courier partners get confused with the method we've chosen, which is unusual when shipments go directly to consumers. This method is typically used when we import the stock to our EU warehouse, but with this batch we wanted to ship orders as quickly as possible. They might be a little confused why it's going to consumers.

Recipients in the UK haven't reported this, including most in Germany.

[elvissteinjr 355]

Thanks, support (or maybe it was you who knows) just came back to me and provided me with an invoice I could use.
Do you still want me to email you? I was gonna forward pretty much everything I got from FedEx, assuming you could step in and resolve the situation, but that won't be necessary now it seems.

Edit: I did send the stuff to FedEx Germany now for what it's worth. Let's see if that status will change from that.

Edited January 23, 2020 by elvissteinjr

[OliverTypes 152]

Please let us know when/if this works out.
If this turns into a regular "thing" I think it would a good idea if Fxtec provided customers with the corresponding invoice right along with their shipping notification.

[kemot0055 3]

Hello everyone.

I've signed the paper and sent back to FEDEX. I will notify about situation.

Thanks for mass responses. I thought that I am alone with this problem 🙂

[silversolver 849]

8 hours ago, Erik said:

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.

I wish you all the margin in the world. I hope your volume ends up scaling to where you make 300 shekels a device. This is a project that should be rewarding. It took courage, foresight, planning, and determination.

After all, if this one makes money, you'll do it again. :)

[michael.bosscha 142]

I've been in contact with both FX and Fedex, FX gave me a form to forward, Fedex was OK with a "oh, right, so you're not a company and only a person delivering it to an address which happens to be a company?" confirmation. If they're going to start with "here's an invoice because we want money" I have the DDP on-hand...

[MalteMalm 2]

1 hour ago, silversolver said:

I wish you all the margin in the world. I hope your volume ends up scaling to where you make 300 shekels a device. This is a project that should be rewarding. It took courage, foresight, planning, and determination. 

I totally agree. 

[VaZso 1,997]

10 hours ago, elvissteinjr said:

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.

Now I am a bit confused. I was on travel today and now I am reading the forum...

So I have also contacted FedEx by phone and they told me that despite of DDP, I have to authorize them and also provide payment information (of my bank).
I have also provided them what F(x)tec provided earlier, so shipping fee and "includes xxx EUR of VAT" descriptions were also there.

Basically, here one has to provide customs agency something about the order itself (like a pdf of Ebay / Aliexpress order) and payment provider (like Paypal or local bank appropriate data) because usually for packages coming from China (or may also from any other locations) there are much lower values in customs declarations than the correct value of product and they want to ensure they know the real value of that order and calculate TAX and VAT according to it. (Also, as far as I know, if that value is too low /so being unbelievable/, they may also try to charge based on the "real" price anyway.)
Also, they handle item plus shipping prices together (as there was a trick to count part of item's price as shipping price) - basically import TAX usually has a low value (maybe a few percent) but VAT is really high here (27%) which applies on the top of fees. Also, FedEx would charge me in local currency of about 18.85 EUR (including VAT) if they do Customs clearing for me.

As of the DDP, I really don't know what differences occur, so if they may agree with shipper company about an other value and they may not charge their ~18.85 EUR fee, but I don't have experience in this so I don't know.
What I know is they will contact F(x)tec and I hope they will handle the package as they should.

If I can do something regarding this, please tell me. I may contact FedEx this Friday to ask them about it further.
@Erik, do you have a suggestion?

[SchattengestaIt 557]

15 hours ago, elvissteinjr said:

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.

Usually, the value is mainly for insurance, so the value for the company is noted, not the amount that the customer pays. No insurance would pay the resell value, they will refund the amount that you have spent for the item.

So that's perfectly legal and even in Germany there is no reason why the shipping value had to be higher. Taxes are covered differently and the only reason of higher package value would be higher shipping costs (for better insurance coverage), although the driver wouldn't benefit from that.

[Zamasu 258]

1 hour ago, SchattengestaIt said:

Usually, the value is mainly for insurance, so the value for the company is noted, not the amount that the customer pays. No insurance would pay the resell value, they will refund the amount that you have spent for the item.

So that's perfectly legal and even in Germany there is no reason why the shipping value had to be higher. Taxes are covered differently and the only reason of higher package value would be higher shipping costs (for better insurance coverage), although the driver wouldn't benefit from that.

The declared values are definitely used for calculating the different import costs, as well as the insurance. At least for private orders, I am not so sure about business orders. It is why some shops declare lower values, to help their customers. That is also one of the risks though, that the insurance will only insure the declared value.

[VaZso 1,997]

@Erik, @Waxberry, I have just called FedEx to gather some additional information and spoke with Customs handling person.

I sent them what they have requested on 22th, so they have a receipt of what I have paid and also they have the information on order page so they see product price, shipping and also the note that the included amount of VAT.

She told me they work with these values so I have (649-100) EUR + 24 EUR, so 573 EUR payed with 112.17 EUR of VAT included, so they will subtract the latter and they will handle customs based on that value (so 460.83 EUR for me if I count well).
Also, as being DDP, they will not put on their handling fee as they would if I would pay these fees instead of F(x)tec.

They told me I can not prove the mentioned amount of USD which is the real costs of F(x)tec per production unit as they wrote here.

I have asked them what happen if a user does not provide order info so the amount of VAT included and she told me then they will ask the user to also send that information (the same as it is written in their notice), so they will also subtract TAX value for them.

However, for a standard (non-IGG) order, the base value will be even higher than their real cost...

So this is what I could get as additional information about Customs handling (at least for Hungary anyway).

Edited January 24, 2020 by VaZso

[Erik 1,487]

26 minutes ago, VaZso said:

@Erik, @Waxberry, I have just called FedEx to gather some additional information and spoke with Customs handling person.

I sent them what they have requested on 22th, so they have a receipt of what I have paid and also they have the information on order page so they see product price, shipping and also the note that the included amount of VAT.

She told me they work with these values so I have (649-100) EUR + 24 EUR, so 573 EUR payed with 112.17 EUR of VAT included, so they will subtract the latter and they will handle customs based on that value (so 460.83 EUR for me if I count well).
Also, as being DDP, they will not put on their handling fee as they would if I would pay these fees instead of F(x)tec.

They told me I can not prove the mentioned amount of USD which is the real costs of F(x)tec per production unit as they wrote here.

I have asked them what happen if a user does not provide order info so the amount of VAT included and she told me then they will ask the user to also send that information (the same as it is written in their notice), so they will also subtract TAX value for them.

However, for a standard (non-IGG) order, the base value will be even higher than their real cost...

So this is what I could get as additional information about Customs handling (at least for Hungary anyway).

I think some branches really don't understand what DDP is, but given the little volume of these reports, feel free to pay for the difference, and we'll refund it to you.

[VaZso 1,997]

2 minutes ago, Erik said:

I think some branches really don't understand what DDP is, but given the little volume of these reports, feel free to pay for the difference, and we'll refund it to you.

They seem to understood DDP so it should be okay, I have just asked them if they see the full amount is not really fair as a base number to count Customs.
...so they told me they are going to subtract mentioned VAT amount and use that value but they will do administration according to DDP so I don't have to pay any fees.

I have just did not want to have F(x)tec costs higher than what is necessary (or which would be even unfair).

[Erik 1,487]

13 minutes ago, VaZso said:

They seem to understood DDP so it should be okay, I have just asked them if they see the full amount is not really fair as a base number to count Customs.
...so they told me they are going to subtract mentioned VAT amount and use that value but they will do administration according to DDP so I don't have to pay any fees.

I have just did not want to have F(x)tec costs higher than what is necessary (or which would be even unfair).

That's perfect, as long as there's no trouble with you receiving your package :). Our shipping partner Expansys can later dispute their decision, but even if they don't, the amount of people that reported to have this issue is relatively small compared to the shipped orders, so it's not going to hurt us in any way. We have accounted for possible lost devices in transit and little things like this already.

Expansys was used to deliver some of Google's devices, including the pixel, so they know what they're doing.

[VaZso 1,997]

40 minutes ago, Erik said:

That's perfect, as long as there's no trouble with you receiving your package :). Our shipping partner Expansys can later dispute their decision, but even if they don't, the amount of people that reported to have this issue is relatively small compared to the shipped orders, so it's not going to hurt us in any way. We have accounted for possible lost devices in transit and little things like this already.

Expansys was used to deliver some of Google's devices, including the pixel, so they know what they're doing.

She told me everything is okay with documents, so I should receive it next week without problems. 🙂
(I have a knowing of another two persons here having the same request of FedEx and as far as I know, they have not contacted F(x)tec anyway.)

So that way it seems to be okay, thank you the information you provided.

[michael.bosscha 142]

I'm not cheering too soon, but... I got a present today, without extra costs. If I don't get any invoices, I'll let y'all know 😊

[Muth 132]

Received this morning in France, without any issue, no extra to pay.

Thanks a lot F()xtec ! I yet love the phone 

[elvissteinjr 355]

Update:
Nothing happened. Status is still as before and FedEx did not react to me sending stuff their way either.
Not sure at which point I should panic. I've heard customs being slow often, but I have pretty much no experience on my own there.
I did not contact FedEx yet as I assume they'll just tell me it's handled by customs and there's nothing to do right now.

Anything happen to anyone who had their stuff held up as well so far?

[Kabbone 36]

19 minutes ago, elvissteinjr said:

Update:
Nothing happened. Status is still as before and FedEx did not react to me sending stuff their way either.
Not sure at which point I should panic. I've heard customs being slow often, but I have pretty much no experience on my own there.
I did not contact FedEx yet as I assume they'll just tell me it's handled by customs and there's nothing to do right now.

Anything happen to anyone who had their stuff held up as well so far?

Also no progress on my side. Fedex didn't react on my sent emails with documents. If there doesn't change anything till monday I will call them just to make sure they don't sent it back

[jjarmasz 81]

Just got a call from FedEx to pay customs for my delivery (to my home) in Canada. As Canadian orders didn't have customs charges prepaid unlike the US (I think) I am not surprised. No paperwork from them though yet, just a voicemail. Have sent an email to Fxtec support for further direction but I figure I'll just be paying the fee. But I'm wondering whether any other Canadians have also been contacted about or paid the customs fee?

Edited January 24, 2020 by jjarmasz
Typo

[pistikem 83]

regarding customs charges in Canada, i have not yet been contacted by FedEx - delivery expected for coming monday 2020-01-27.

[VaZso 1,997]

Mine has passed customs and "Tendered to authorized agent for final delivery" on Friday afternoon.
They still show scheduled delivery of 29th but I have a feeling it will arrive sooner.

[Uncledingo 25]

Not trying to cause widespread panic, just curious

If I have not received a call or email or text from fedex about this situation should I assume I don’t need to worry about it? US customer expected the 29th

[elvissteinjr 355]

If the tracking doesn't show any issues, you'll probably be fine... or notice when it's time to go through the customs.

As for me, nothing changed yet.

Edit:
Another day, another nothing.
I've now written to FedEx support, just to see if they're gonna send it back or something. It should be solely up to the customs office in theory, but maybe they're hiding something.

Edited January 26, 2020 by elvissteinjr