Deliveries from China

I have PCBs made in China (well Hong Kong).

This is all my many small PCB projects (not FireBrick). I would rather use UK suppliers but I am sorry, even for just 5 PCBs, populated or unpopulated, even with carrier charges, China is way cheaper, I mean a *LOT* cheaper, and generally even faster. I'd love UK companies to up their game, and cope, and I have spoken to some, but they cannot get close. If they could get close, I'd got for it. It is a shame.

Duty and VAT

So, I have had to learn how it works. Before Brexit there was some stuff that worked well from EU. But in the last few years things have changed (not just because of Brexit), and now there are some things that are, honestly, better.

If you have ever ordered something as an individual from overseas, and it is over the small "gift" or "minimum" level where they don't care, you will have been hit with a surcharge by the courier. Often on the doorstep as a surprise.

This has three parts potentially.

1. Duty - some levy on some types of goods. The government have a moderately sane web site for this (https://trade-tariff.service.gov.uk/find_commodity) which helps you work it out. The system itself seems insane, and a minefield, but the web site helps. My experience is "duty" never applies to any of the bits we order, thankfully.
2. VAT - this applies always
3. Courier admin fee

The last part if the big problem, in my view. Handling customs, duty, and VAT, is an inherent part of the process of being an international courier. It is no more an unexpected cost than paying for petrol for their delivery vans. Yet, somehow, they decide they will charge the recipient for this admin work and not make it simply part of the cost of shipping.

This is simple for them, as they can legally expect the recipient to pay Duty and VAT so they add their bit. Refuse to pay and they won't deliver. It is a basic lien / or blackmail. In my view it should not be allowed. Royal Mail actually have legislation to allow it (!) which shows that it should not normally be allowed (i.e. if it can just apply normally then Royal Mail would not need special legislation for it).

The recipient has no contract with the courier. They have not agreed a price for service the courier has chosen to provide. Even if they accept they provide the service that is logically the start of negotiation on a fair price. As a consumer even an implied contract like this would be unfair and so not enforceable. But they have you over a barrel.

Postponed VAT accounting

If you are receiving goods as a company, well, as anyone VAT registered, things are better, finally.

It used to be you paid the courier, and their admin fee. You then battled to get a formal VAT invoice from them (not easy if payment collected on the doorstep). Then you included that VAT (not their admin fee) in your next VAT return to reclaim it - up to 3 months later.

End result - not paying VAT. But impacting cash flow, and you paid an admin fee.

Postponed VAT accounting changed that - you account for the fact you should have paid VAT on imports, and that you are claiming it back, in the totals on the next VAT return (surprisingly not separate fields for that). But you don't pay VAT on import. Obviously they get the tax when you finally sell with VAT at the final (higher) price.

This gives the courier no excuse to charge an admin fee - yay!

DHL, FedEx, UPS

The three main couriers used by JLC seem to be DHL, FedEx, and UPS. They have different prices and delivery speeds. FedEx is arguably the cheapest, and works (though hassle with them insisting on a signature). UPS are next. DHL cost more, but probably fastest. Until recently I was using DHL. I made the mistake of trying the others.

• DHL are quick, text/email progress, text/email on the day with time window, even live tracking the van, cope with leaving on doorstep if I ask, and handle Postponed VAT Accounting no problem.
• FedEx are OK, not the same progress messages, struggle to "leave on doorstep", but do handle Postponed VAT accounting
• UPS are idiots. Slow. No updates. And it seems have no clue on Postponed VAT accounting, so insist on charging on delivery, and their admin fee is expensive (more than difference in courier costs).

So, obvious lesson, do not use UPS, as they cost more in admin fee than it is paying DHL to send in the first place.

Don't use UPS, simple as that!

In practice the few orders using UPS in the pipeline are literally going to be returned to China, at UPSs cost, if they cannot work it out, and then I'll pay for delivery by DHL. This is slightly more than UPS admin fee, but it is the principle - I want UPS to suffer the cost of returning to China for their stupidity, and I've learned to never, ever, use them again, and tell you the same.

Just to add, we now have several supposed "delivery attempts" which I can prove with extensive CCTV were not, in fact, attempted, by UPS, over the last few days. Why do that?!?

Pre-pay

Another option is have JLC send via a courier but with pre-paid duty. Same set of couriers.

This is bad for several reasons - for a start the extra they charge up front is not the normal 20% VAT. It seems a random and larger amount. I have no clue why! But also it is not a VAT invoice, so you can't easily reclaim the VAT! To be fair getting a VAT invoice from couriers paid on receipt is not easy either.

It may work for an individual who cannot reclaim VAT, as may be cheaper done this way than VAT and admin fee on receipt. So worth considering in such cases.

Duty

I mentioned duty. This is not the same as VAT (which a business can reclaim). You have to pay it.

Duty applies on some specific classes of goods, from specific countries, and it really is very specific! It is basically politics.

Thankfully JLC are not totally daft - I can say the category for the goods, ensure it is right, and not have duty charged. I only got that wrong once, and had a couple of pounds duty (plus a courier admin fee)!

If you have to pay duty, tough, it may be that with enough imports an "account" somehow with chosen courier can avoid admin feeds for these. Not 100% sure. Thankfully we don't do stuff that needs duty.

It is nice that JLC offer a clear choice of couriers.

What is really nice is when sender will work with you to ensure clear and accurate marking of the goods. For a recent order from China (not PCBs this time) I searched on that duty checking page and identified the exact description and "category code" and the sender agreed to clearly use that wording and code on the parcel to avoid issues. I hope it works (will find out in 30 to 60 days).

Customs

I have been ordering a few PCBs from China lately.

Choice of shipper...

The first thing is that JLCPCB offer a choice of shipper, and some options. The main one is pre-paid duty/taxes, or paid on receipt.

The pre-paid seems like an obvious choice, but there is a catch. The pre-paid adds more than just the UK VAT 20%, more like 25%, and, importantly, does not give a VAT INVOICE, so we cannot reclaim it. So pre-paid is basically 25% more expensive!

So post paid. And that works.

Importing and VAT

Things clearly have changed a bit, and it depends on all sorts of things, but most of my deliveries have simply "arrived" and that is it.

This is good! This is almost scary - no VAT to pay or claim. It is right, financially, as a business, any VAT we pay on import we would reclaim, just like buying anything else with VAT for the business use.

Reading more on this, it seems some couriers are sensible working with HMRC, and we gave JLCPCB a VAT number, and magically that all works out. Essentially it cancels out.

But there seem to be thresholds and things, and on at least on occasion I had a demand for VAT from courier. They sent that before it even got to customs and I paid, and no delay, which is good. The nice thing is I got a proper VAT invoice, and so could reclaim it. The annoying thing is the £5 admin fee they charge.

But mostly stuff arrives and no VAT. Yay!

Duty

But it seems there is also the possibility of "duty" on an import, and I don't think I can reclaim that.

This depends on product you have shipped, and I have learned my mistake here.

Mostly these PCBs are very much "development" boards. They are general purpose boards with a processor. But I made the mistake of marking one as "heating" because it would, but default, be used to control an air-con unit.

It seems that attracts a duty of 2% somehow. And the bill came later, long after delivery, with the extra £5 charge.

So did I categorise it wrongly? I think so - all of these boards are general purpose dev boards which seems to have no duty. I don't make it a "heating" board until it gets here and I load code. So I won't make that mistake again.

Admin fees

My big gripes is admin fees, even if £5, from couriers. They are paid to get the parcel to me and that involves a lot of costs and admin, all of which are very predictable.

But if there is duty or VAT they need the recipient to pay that - which is fine, and I can do that.

But they charge a £5, or similar, fee for handling that. They really don't need to, it is all automated, or could be, and HMRC Direct Debit them at the end of the month. The only admin/cost they have is if someone queries, and really, the query, in my case, is because of the admin fee itself, so shooting themselves in the foot here.

The problem is that I don't think the admin fee is a legally enforceable charge. They usually get away with it because they will not deliver until you pay, but sometimes they do, and chase you later.

What is the legality of this?

Firstly I am not a lawyer, but my feeling is that if this was a simple legal and legitimate charge the conversations with the likes of DHL would be a lot simpler. They are not. They were not with FedEx either.

For a start: Royal Mail have legislation to allow them to charge an admin fee. That alone tells me that there is no a legal basis for non Royal Mail - else they would not need a special law to make it legal.

I queried with DHL.

You agreed the charges.

The first argument was I agreed the charges, and the reason is that terms DHL have with the seller include a clause that: "When ordering DHL's services you, as "Shipper", are agreeing, on your behalf and on behalf of the consignee of the Shipment ("Consignee") and anyone else with an interest in the Shipment that these Terms and Conditions shall apply." And further in 'Section 5: Shipment Charges, Duties and Fees.'"

This is a hell of a stretch - why would any shipper agree to that, as they don't have authority to act as an agent for their customer to agree a contract with DHL on their behalf. I mean they could try that in their terms (and I don't believe they do), but no way that will work with most customers. Agreeing a contract as an agent is huge!. It could mean agreeing anything. I mean what if DHL's admin fee was £1,000,000? Agreed on behalf of the recipient? No customer will hand the seller authority to bind them to some unseen contract terms. And worse, the "anyone else with an interest in the Shipment" as that is not even their customer. No way that gets close to legal, in my view. And if the customer as a "consumer" that falls foul of a lot of consumer protection laws.

I pushed this, and pushed this, and stated I did not believe I had given the seller any authority to act as my agent to agree a contract with DHL.

Finally I get: "I am not advising that you have entered a contract with DHL." - yay! Huge win there.

The fee is for HMRC?

I then ask, if not contractual, what the legal bases is, and eventually get the rather oddly worded: "The legal basis is that the charges is supplied from HMRC."

Well the "duty" is, and I paid that (it was £5.09). But the extra charge is clearly not for HMRC, it is "DHL's deferment fee".

They also suggested the £5.09 was VAT not Duty, but have not issued new paperwork to say that (2% VAT?).

So this is the second lie they have told (in my opinion) to try and get me to pay.

Blackmail

The last resort is: "If you do not wish to pay this invoice, we are to call our customer service team and advise that the goods are to be returned to China accordingly."

This is the blackmail - pay our fee, even though no legal basis for it, or we will not deliver.

The only snag is I got the goods over a week ago.

Scam?

To be honest this is, in my view, a scam. I cannot explain it any other way.

Handling the VAT/Duty is not expensive, it is simple, and something I am sure they automate. It is just one of the many admin and costs they have getting a parcel from China to UK, something the sender paid them to do.

Picking on this one thing to charge the recipient is silly. It is no different to deciding to charge the recipient for the diesel for the van to get to recipient as some sort of surcharge. It should be part of the costs of getting the parcel here, as paid by the sender.

The only reason they do this is (a) they are charging the VAT/Duty anyway so can tack this on with no effort, and (b) they can usually blackmail you that you won't get your parcel until you pay.

This is no different to a "speculative invoice scam" where someone sends a company an invoice for something that has no legal basis in the hope the accounts department will pay it. Seriously, it is invoicing for a charge that has no legal basis, not contract, just "because you can".

VAT

One possible option is to get an HMRC deferment account myself, and advise DHL, and other couriers, to use that.

I am tempted, as simpler, but it seems VAT is done specially now anyway, which is why most of my parcels have no issue. And if I ensure all my PCBs are "development" (which they are until I zap them otherwise) I probably avoid duty anyway. That said there is this magic £135 level that matters somehow, so maybe it is worth it anyway.

We'll see how it goes.

Result?

They stopped replying, and the last thing they threatened was returning the parcel to China.

Now they have sent a credit note for the £5 *AND* the duty charge. Even though I paid the duty.

It would make sense if they had returned the parcel to China, I guess.

I guess I take this as a win!

FedEx

It gets crazier - I have two FedEx from same sender. The sender automate everything so labels will have VAT number I am sure. I'll know if/when it finally arrives.

Yesterday, FedEx, just arrived, no problem. No VAT bill. Just worked. Yay!

Today, FedEx advise VAT due for next package (plus admin fee).

This is silly as both DHL and FedEx say they do "Postponed VAT" (PVA) by default, so both should do this for VAT, even if not Duty. This was just VAT.

I have paid FedEx under duress, as they will not deliver until paid, and I got a "receipt" just for payment, but no paperwork to say VAT paid! So I asked for...

1. A proper VAT receipt so I can reclaim.
2. An explanation of why PVA (and hence no fee) done.
3. An explanation of why the admin fee is valid legally, and refund if not.

Notably, I have said if they consider the fee viable under some sort of contract, which I dispute we have, but if they do, then I consider them in breach of said contract as they state on their web site they will do PVA by default. Their failure to do that has caused me admin to pay them and account on my VAT return, so not only do I want their admin fee back for the breach, I want them to pay me for my extra admin. We'll see what they say.

Update: Finally get a paper invoice, nice, except it does not say paid, and looks like they want paying (again). But also includes the original "commercial invoice" from JLC which *does* correctly show our VAT number, so PVA should have been applied.

On line orders

I ordered something recently, on-line, on a whim, a new iPhone case.

I paid in UK pounds (£) there was no immediate clue that the site was anything other than a normal UK supplier selling something to people in the UK.

I ordered on Saturday.

What pisses me off is how this is so much not the case. It seems it was a US company, and I know things can get from US, or almost anywhere in the world, to here, in a day or two, but they picked the slowest means to send to me on the planet from what I can see.

They seem to have used DHL (which people will know how I am unimpressed with them) and some sort of service that is slower than slow - delivered by snails. This is an item ordered and paid for on 7th. It is now 13th, and the damn thing is still in the US, FFS.

What is worse, there is a chance I end up with some damn duty or VAT bill to pay on top.

I just went to a web site - saw an item listed in £ and paid, why the hell is any of this my problem now?

All I can say is it better be a damn good phone case when it gets here!!!

P.S. It did eventually arrive. Quite a nice case for £16
P.P.S. It promptly broke, so I have a spigen one now, much nicer.

When is "next day" not in fact "next day"?

Technically, the rant is not that much about DHL, it is about Plates For Cars, a company that print number plates. You can work out why I am in touch with them from previous block post. Top tip - normal acrylic plates from Halfords do not fit the plate holders on a Tesla, you need the metal (thinner) ones!

The ordering page is good, lots of sensible options for style of plate, badges, etc, shown clearly graphically. Very impressed with that bit.

When you get through placing most of the order you get to a page with loads of options for plate holders and screws and all sorts which you scroll past and click to continue, and then to a page with this image followed by a continue button.

On seeing this I immediately took the message that ALL ORDERS (so obviously including mine) are shipped with DHL which is explained as Next Day to UK & Ireland and longer for outside UK. As I'm UK I took that as my order will be Next Day. I was pleased and clicked continue.

This is where my first disappointment comes in. The smaller print above this large and very clear graphic says when I can expect the delivery, had I noticed it. I did not, as the graphic was so clear. They don't ship same day, they ship the next day when they have made it, so it will always be at least TWO WORKING DAYS.

The bit I had not noticed was that there is in fact a choice of DHL Economy or for £2 more, DHL Express. Economy (the default) is 3 to 4 working days away and Express is 2 working days away.

So why hit me with the big graphic saying ALL ORDERS and NEXT DAY when neither is true!

So, bad website design and wrong (lying) graphic. Even allowing for time to make the plate it is either not "All orders" or not "Next Day" for (all) DHL. It is a choice of next day or not, after a day to make it.

Now we get to DHL incompetence, which I have come to expect, and email saying :-

"Your DHL EXPRESS shipment with waybill number 8316007442 from PLATES FOR CARS LIMITED is on its way and will require a signature."

Hang on, that says DHL EXPRESS, which is the "Next Day" option. Wow, good...

It goes on to say expected delivery Monday, which is not "Next Day".

So I wonder which lie it is? Is it not DHL EXPRESS, or is DHL EXPRESS not "next day"? There is at least one lie in here somewhere.

Very annoying, hence the rant.

P.S. They did not fit properly either :-(