Don't use UPS

I know I said before, but this is an update on the saga.

Executive summary

• I had 4 parcels sent from China (same sender) via UPS, all marked with our VAT and EORI.
• UPS tried to charge a fee, it seems contrary to HMRC advice they do not do Postponed VAT Accounting by default.
• I refused delivery and they confirmed return to sender (I confirmed the rest by email), but only sent 3 of the parcels back.
• They told the sender the missing parcel had been disposed off.
• They told me the missing parcel had been abandoned because "the sender is not served by UPS", something that is clearly a lie.
• They have invoiced for VAT (and an un-agreed disbursement fee) for all 4 parcels, and then late payment penalties.
• It has taken over 6 weeks for this to get close to being resolved.
• Use DHL, or maybe FedEx. Don't use UPS!

Postponed VAT Accounting (PVA)

I've explained PVA, but basically a VAT registered business getting overseas deliveries should get them without paying a fee if the sender includes the VAT/EORI when sending, that is HMRC advice to couriers. It gets declared on import and we (recipient) get paperwork from HMRC to ensure we account for it and the reclaimed VAT on next VAT return. Simple, easy, no admin fees, no delays.

• DHL manage it - not problem
• FedEx manage it - usually - not always - but seem to cave when pointed out.
• UPS want a separate signed agreement with us and the sender, and extra paperwork by the sender on every shipment. No way random foreign senders will do this. It is just, in my view, incompetent. Senders know to do VAT/EORI, but not extra UPS paperwork.

What did they do wrong?

I did try a parcel via UPS and it all worked well, but the good value of the parcel was $2, one of JLCs super discounted bare PCBs. That arrived, no fees, no invoices. Surprising. That lulled me in to a false sense of security and 4 more orders were shipped using UPS. Big mistake.

First arrived and driver wants a fee paid, I said no. I actually include the VAT on the address as an address line as well as on the waybill so I pointed to the VAT number on the label and explained it should be PVA. He had no idea, and literally threw the parcel back in the van.

Of the 4 parcelled, one other was tried and my wife rejected it. On that occasion the driver was very used to such things saying loads of people reject parcels with fees - usually because they paid fees to sender to handle and UPS cocked up (slightly different to out case). This really says something of UPS's competence.

The tracking showed each of the 4 parcels having multiple refused deliveries, this was clearly a lie. Not their first.

They took weeks to send 3 of the parcels back to sender. I guess they can take as long as they like. But when only 3 arrived we asked questions. They told the sender the parcel was disposed of. This was a lie, what a surprise.

They told me it was abandoned. It took weeks to get the explanation that "the sender is not serviced by UPS". This is a lie, wow.

They sent an invoice for the abandoned parcel (VAT and disbursement fee), which is not valid, obviously. I checked the HMRC import records and they only recorded (and hence paid HMRC) for the other 3 parcels. They were charging me for VAT they apparently have not paid HMRC. That sounds really fraudulent to me.

They sent invoices for the other three, even though returned to sender.

They kept quoting their terms and conditions that they can basically lose or destroy a parcel and not be liable to anyone. Wow! I have repeatedly had to explain that I am not subject to their terms and conditions. I have not agreed them. I am not a customer. I have no contract with them.

I have explained that if they have appropriated my parcel, that is Theft, a criminal matter. If they have lied ("sender is not served by UPS") to do that, then that is Fraud, a criminal matter. I was getting nowhere.

Surprise!

To my utter shock, they sent back the missing parcel to China. It arrived there after many weeks. The UK UPS contact seems unaware of this?!

But then, I get an invoice for late payment penalties - even though I have no contract with them that could lead to such penalties. Even statutory late payments penalties are a statutory contract term and don't apply if no contract. This is verging on harassment.

They have, eventually, cancelled invoices and late payment penalties. I have not seen any attempt for them to correct the HMRC import VAT reports though.

Update:

We are late March now. They are no longer chasing invoices or late payments, but would not accept that late payments are invalid and they should refund every customer (late payments are statutory as part of a commercial contract which does not exist in this case).

But they are now hassling JLC, the sender, saying a parcel is stuck in customs awaiting payment of duty. It is almost tempting to pay it and then claim damages when they fail to deliver the parcel (the one they sent back to China months ago).

Don't use UPS to ship to UK

I posted about shipping and importing and tax and duty - general info. But this is specific.

DON'T USE UPS!

I had assumed the UPS issue was some minor oversight or administrative error, maybe one they could fix, but no. I got this from the sender (a major PCB manufacturer in China).

It seems UPS need some per sender and per receiver paperwork (like any senders are going to do that?!), and sender doing extra paperwork and notification on every shipment (yeh, again, will any do that).

In contrast, both DHL and FedEx cope. FedEx are not without other issues. Indeed, no carriers are. But these days major international carriers (all except UPS), understand postponed VAT accounting for UK import. They just need the VAT and/or EORI from the shipper. Shippers know how to supply such already (EORI needed for EU I think). I even put VAT number in the actual address lines to be very clear.

But it seems UPS don't just do PVA as normal, they create an administrative nightmare.

Thankfully JLC have said they will add a remark on their checkout for anyone stupid enough to pick UPS for shipping to UK. This should stop anyone else mistakenly using UPS.

So four parcels return to sender, in China, at UPS's cost (LOL), to be resent via a sane courier.

Why?

Well principle for a start - I will not be blackmailed to pay an admin fee I never agreed to, for a service I never asked for, that was provided solely due to incompetence.

But also a simple practical aspect - the fees are demanded on the doorstep and the delivery driver looks ill equipment to provide a formal VAT receipt.

That means my time getting one, assuming it is possible. The web site says "government charges", not "VAT". The customer service email says "tax and duties", not VAT. Without a clear VAT receipt I cannot legitimately reclaim the VAT, and so I won't - we are very careful with VAT (and everything else). I may be wrong, a VAT receipt may be simple, but their attitude gives me no confidence at all.

So the very real risk I will not even be able to reclaim the VAT means this is not just their admin fees. Return to sender and then paying to send via DHL works out cheaper overall. Shame about the delay.

Update:

They said they are returning to sender, and then said out for delivery again. I have no clue what the hell they are up to and that is yet more reason never to use them!

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).

Power on the line

Who ensures you can call 999 in a power cut?

This blog does not have all the answers, it has a lot of questions, opinion, and some history. I am trying to address the issue and explain some of the technical, financial, and regulatory challenges. It is not simple, and some will undoubtably have a different opinion. I hope it helps address the very understandable knee jerk responses though.

I also have personal views on 999 service moving to the 21st century, but this blog covers just power for 999 calls.

A bit of history

Telephones have been around well over 100 years now. Surprisingly the basic working of the old fashioned analogue phone still works today, but that is changing.

They way an analogue phone works happens to need a small amount of power. There needs to be a voltage (no power really) to detect you lift the receiver. There needs to be enough power to allow the microphone and earpiece to work. There needs to be a bit more power to make a bell ring. This was done using batteries at the telephone exchange.

This meant a telephone would work without the home having power. Indeed, mains power was less common and less reliable over a century ago when phones started. It is also worth remembering that consumer electronics did not exist either - these days we see DC USB power on wall sockets and are used to a small switch mode power supply working some electronic gadget - the idea of a telephone handset being powered from you home is not daft. But a century ago the very power supply itself would be complicated, to say the least, and the phone handset had no electronics anyway - it would not make any sense for a telephone handset to be power from your home mains electricity. So they were line powered, simple as that.

The telephone handset was also part of the service, even wired in, for a very long time.

Catch up to today

Today, analogue telephone lines do the same. Yes we have DTMF now, and the handset itself has electronics that do that, but a simple handset is powered by the line still. Of course we have also moved to the telephone being the customer's responsibility and not part of the service itself, something you can choose, and plug in.

It is an issue for the telcos as the electronics in a handset could expect more power than the original telephone lines were every designed to deliver and there are current limits defined as a result.

But also we have a lot more complex telephones now, even simple cordless phones, DECT base stations. phone with answering machine, PABX, and so on. These work using local mains power, and in some cases DO NOT work when no local mains power. In a lot of cases there are special work arounds - a phone system in an office will typically have at least one old school phone, and maybe a relay that switches that directly to the line when power fails. But not all consumer equipment has any means to work in a power failure.

But also, mains power is way more reliable in almost all places.

However, if you have a simple old school telephone handset somewhere in the house, you can still use it during a power cut - yay!

20th Century

For a long time it was expected that ISDN was the future. Indeed, in some countries it really did take off, and a basic ISDN2 telephone could plug in to a socket and work. My understanding is that ISDN2 was design to power a basic ISDN telephone.

I am not sure if BT did power ISDN2 sockets - I have a feeling they did not. They did a consumer ISDN2 (Home Highway) which did have an analogue phone fallback, which was good. But for anyone using ISDN2, an actual ISDN2 handset was unheard of - people used and ISDN2 card in a computer (mainly for data) or a small ISDN2 PABX which needed power to work.

ISDN30 is a large scale service, and that definitely did not power a handset. It was often using fibre. It did not have power fail working, even though 999 should work just as much for such cases as a home phone line.

Somehow BT were legally able to provide a proper telephone service on a line in such cases with no power fail backup! (Do correct me if I have that wrong).

21st Century

The problem is that times are changing, the old school telephone service (landlines) are going away. These days telephony is an over the top service, working over IP, VoIP, that is Internet Protocol. This changes things.

So how does this work in a power cut and who is responsible for it?

Broadband/Internet

A broadband/internet service never had any requirement to be 24/7 100% reliable, or to work in a power failure. OFCOM are pushing more and more for this, and even talking of power failure requirements (for at risk customers, at least). This is a change, and has a cost.

The internet itself is a large interconnected network - an ISP cannot guarantee that even Google works 24/7, that is down to Google, and even they had an outage the other day. An ISP cannot guarantee they have connectivity to some VoIP telephone service provider 100% of the time, as a lot of that connectivity is outside the ISPs control, as is the operation of the VoIP provider themselves. Yes, an ISP may also be a VoIP provider, but there is not reason to make more onerous obligations in such a case, especially as such a company could simply split its operations in two if that was the case, so assume they are separate.

The elephant in the room here is actually where and what a broadband/internet service is - it is provided at the Network Termination Point. For DSL this is the master socket. It is a clear demarkation for where service is provider.

If OFCOM insist that an ISP has to have a broadband service that works during a power failure (even if only for an hour), that is the point at which it has to work. That is no different to the landline provider providing service at the master socket.

The problem is, unlike a landline, having a service working at a master socket is not a lot of help to a consumer in a power cut. Unlike a landline telephone service, broadband service never provided power (for a router). It provides connectivity - the ability to DSL sync on the line using a modem. You need a modem, and that needs power.

Interestingly, BT are talking of battery backup for optical network termination points (ONTs), where the network termination point is an Ethernet socket. That could be useful to a customer if they have a laptop with an Ethernet port and a PPPoE stack. That would allow them internet access in a power cut. But that is an edge case. In almost all cases the consumer has a modem/router/switch/access point, and they have to power that to make it work. Just as they would have to power a DECT base station if they had one plugged in to a landline master socket.

From a regulatory point of view the whole concept of a network termination point is important, it defines where the service is provide and who is responsible each side. The ISP is simply not responsible for what is plugged in.

From a technical point of view the ISP could not sensibly power arbitrary customer equipment. Here, for my laptop to work, I have a router, and modem, and large PoE switch, and 6 access points. Powering all of those for an hour is a big undersaking, but not doing that means I don't have internet at all. I don't have a system to fall back to just a modem and one access point, but powering even one AP is a lot.

Should companies making and selling network routers, switches, and access points, have to ensure battery back up, just because they could be used to carry VoIP traffic for a 999 calls?

So yes, I suspect a service still working at the network termination point, and hence powered ONT, might happen. It happens for DSL lines, we think (BT have batteries in street cabinets, but not sure if all, or for how long). But it will be not help for 999 calls.

VoIP provider

The other side of the coin is a telephone service provider using VoIP.

The very nature of the service is that it is oIP, i.e. over IP. It depends on working internet access.

Does it make sense to expect the VoIP provider to somehow make it work when no internet access, well no, it does not.

Does it make sense for the VoIP provider to provide battery backup? Well, for what? If the provider rented a SIP handset, maybe they could power that for you, but that does not help in a power cut if nobody is powering your modem, router, and network switch, all of which are very much out of the scope of the VoIP provider. And if they are not renting a SIP handset, or providing as part of the service, even that handset is out of scope.

I VoIP provider should ensure their equipment has power backup and redundancy to allow 999 calls, but that is actually pretty easy in a data centre. Data centres have lots of power backup and redundancies.

The key issue here is that making the broadband work at home is down to a lot of equipment for which the consumer is totally responsible, and not the broadband provider, and not the VoIP provider.

Should companies making/selling SIP handset have to ensure battery backup? And would it help? Maybe if modem and switch manufactures had to do the same. But none of that sounds sensible.

Landline replacement

There is a middle ground here, a landline replacement service. This is something we see, and likely to be something BT has to do as the incumbent operator with a Universal Service Obligation.

Being a replacement it IS REASONABLE for the customer to expect it to work like the service it replaces. This means a provide providing not just internet access to a network termination point, but modem and router with an old school analogue telephone socket. The termination point for that overall service is the analogue phone socket on the router, and so it is reasonable to expect that to work in a power cut, with an old school analogue phone. So likely that will have battery backup as an option.

So, at least for now, due to jet more legacy it is likely BT will still provide this, at least for at risk customers.

Should someone else do this anyway

The big issue at hand is power cut. Would it not simply be sensible to regulate that power companies have to do something.

They already have a priority service register and already roll out generators to vulnerable users (e.g. those with powered medical equipment at home). I'm on the register as I have insulin in the fridge, which was one of the criteria - I also (now) have Tesla batteries so won't need a generator for even a very long power cut.

Having to provide a small USP enough to cover a broadband modem, and router, and SIP ATA to work a handset, is not a big step, and not a huge cost if only for at risk customers.

It makes a lot more sense that insisting telcos provide power. Just like it makes sense that power companies are not expected to provide telephony.

Maybe this is the real way forward here?