eglobaldigital.co.uk VAT/import scam.

jarthurs

I got an invoice this morning for £59.36 from DHL for Import Duty. As I hadn't ordered anything of value from overseas I queried it with them. This afternoon they emailed me the senders details.

It turns out I bought my wife a new Samsung Nexus 10 tablet for Christmas via a website called www.eglobaldigital.co.uk reasonable price and free delivery, item turned up within a few days. It appears the website imported it from Hong Kong and as the recipient I am now liable for VAT (+£10 admin fee from DHL).

The website appears to suggest it's run by a UK company called DWI Merchants Ltd. But I'm being hassled by DHL for import charges.

Initially I thought it was a scam letter but the DHL details on the letter are all legitimate.

Any suggestions where to go with this one?

Regards,
Jason.

http://www.eglobaldigitalstore.co.uk/about-our-company.html

George_Michael

I found the following on the page that the link you gave goes to:

We provide free delivery for our orders1 to United Kingdom with the highest quality priority service provided by our partnered world-class international couriers. They are experts in their field, with boundless experience in shipping products to customers. We have worked with these international couriers through our Australian branch and have thus entrusted them with our orders from the United Kingdom. Orders normally take around 6 to 8 working days to arrive, and it takes only 2 to 3 extra days for remote areas. If you choose to opt for our upgraded premium priority shipping1, it will take only 2-3 working days to arrive! Please refer to our Shipping and Insurance Page for further details on free delivery

And if you click on the blue link, you find this:

Shipping Location
We currently offer shipping to the entire United Kingdom from our Hong Kong warehouse. This
includes England, Scotland, Wales, Great Britain, Northern Ireland, London, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast., as well as including shipping services to Guernsey and Jersey. However this does not include Isle of Man

I'll admit that it's not too clear and easy to see, but it is there.

visidigi

Terms and conditions on the site...

15. Import, VAT & Customs
15.1 By purchasing any goods through eglobaldigitalstore.co.uk, you agree to accept and comply with any responsibilities incurred in the process of importing your purchase to your country in accordance with all laws and regulations of the country which your purchase of goods are received. You also, agree and authorize eglobadigitalstore.co.uk to ship your purchases and make arrangements for customs clearance on your behalf for the purchase you have made, as well as agree that you are the sole importer for your purchase of goods for all purpose and egobaldigitalstore.co.uk role is only limited in sourcing your purchase from other countries and making your purchased goods available on the site for you to purchase and import to your country where goods are received. Under no circumstances will eglobaldigitalstore.co.uk plays the role of importer of the purchased goods nor will eglobaldigitalstore.co.uk be liable and responsible to any liabilities arising under the laws and regulations, including but not limited to customs regulations, custom holds/detentions/seizures of purchased goods, copyright and trademark laws, of the country that goods are received for the import of such goods.
15.2 When ordering goods from eglobaldigitalstore.co.uk, import duties and tax are applicable on overseas deliveries, which are levied once the package of purchased goods reached specified destination. The import duties and taxes levied on the invoiced order, as well as courier’s custom handling fee and any indirectly related tax and duties arise from custom policies are responsibility of the buyer/recipient, eglobaldigitalstore.co.uk has no control over these import duties or taxes. Any additional charges for custom clearance must be borne by you.
15.3 Customs clearance process may mandate the opening and inspection of oversea deliveries. eglobaldigitalstore.co.uk has no control on such procedure.

15.4 Custom polices vary widely from different countries; hence you should contact your local customs office for further information.

LilElvis

They changed their policy mid December - I know because I got an email as a previous customer. They used to run it by saying that if there were any customs charges they would reimburse you, but only after you had paid. I think I still have this in writing from them (email transcripts of 'live chat') because I had a major freak out a couple of days after I placed the order when I googled the company. Look on ReviewCentre site and you'll see why. I was lucky because mine slipped through customs as it was sent their free delivery route rather than a courier. The customs declaration said it was a warranty repair with a value of £36 - and this was for a £300 Nikon camera. It looks like they have changed their terms because HMRC were on to their little scam of tax avoidance.

Sorry I can't give you any hope for recouping the customs charge.

InsideInsurance

Even on their About Us section there is a lot of clues, it gives its Working Time in Hong Kong Time, it says it gives free deliver TO the UK - if you are in the UK then you wouldnt normally say shipping to the UK. Click through to any of the links and it becomes much more obvious.

They claim to be big on service so contact them and see what they say. A lot of these companies did used to refund fees if it was caught on the way in but obviously as this one doesnt offer this and isnt as overt about where they are then dont hold your breath.

Clearly you owe the monies to DHL and so you probably dont want to add debt collection costs on top of that

LilElvis

I found the e-mail I had about the changes re VAT - it was 19 December - and it is actually showing still on their home page on the right hand side. They have actually changed their T&Cs again (13 January), but it says within them:

18. Alteration of Service or Amendments to the Conditions
18.1 eGlobaL reserves the right to make changes to our website, policies, and these Conditions of Use & Sale at any time. You will be subject to the policies of Conditions of Use & Sale in force at the time that you use the website or when you order goods from us, unless any change to those policies or these conditions is required to be made by law or government authority (in which case it will apply to orders previously placed by you). If any of these conditions are deemed invalid, void, or for any reason unenforceable, that condition will be deemed severable and will not affect the validity and enforceability of any remaining condition.

Presumably, as it was a Christmas present then you would be bound by the T&Cs prior to the change re the VAT and customs. Impossible to prove unless you downloaded a copy at the time, unless someone else has any idea how you could retrieve it. Also, it would depend on exactly what the wording was re customs as their get-out would likely be in the clause above about 'law or government authority'.

LilElvis

The following is a transcript of the 'livechat' I had with them 8 October re the issue of customs, and their confirmation that the price on their website would be the final price I would have to pay and that they would refund any charges.

(02:11:48 PM) *** Caroline joined the chat ***
(02:11:49 PM) Caroline: I don't suppose anyone wants to respond to my ticket number from yesterday #17949?
(02:13:52 PM) Caroline: Anyone?
(02:14:34 PM) *** CS - Support and Sales joined the chat ***
(02:14:38 PM) CS - Support and Sales: hi there
(02:15:55 PM) Caroline: Can youi confirm that my order will ship today or I need to cancel it
(02:16:06 PM) CS - Support and Sales: Let me check it for you, please wait
(02:16:27 PM) CS - Support and Sales: your order has dispatched
(02:16:36 PM) CS - Support and Sales: however we have yet to receive tracking information from the courier
(02:16:52 PM) CS - Support and Sales: once we have receive the relevant tracking information we will forward that to your email
(02:17:25 PM) Caroline: The tracking information is on the part of the docket your company keeps!
(02:19:17 PM) Caroline: Can you also confirm that the correct monetary value has been declared so that it does not get held up at customs? I will certainly not be liable for any additional customs charges.
(02:19:40 PM) CS - Support and Sales: we will check with our relevant department
(02:19:51 PM) CS - Support and Sales: however there should be no issues with the order
(02:19:56 PM) CS - Support and Sales: We ship our orders with special logistics arrangement and therefore all you will need to pay is the prices on website, no VAT, import fees nor hidden charges involved for the customer on any order. Any VAT or customs duties incurred will be refunded back to you upon submission of payment proof. The price you see on the website is the final price you pay for the product
(02:20:48 PM) Caroline: If any additional customs charges are needed then your company needs to settle them, nit me!
(02:21:34 PM) CS - Support and Sales: rest assured we will forward you the tracking information once we received it from our courier
(02:23:00 PM) Caroline: When you say that you would refund any VAT and customs duties do you confirm that this would also include any additional handling charges which may be levied by the carrier or HMRC?
(02:25:43 PM) Caroline: ???
(02:26:08 PM) CS - Support and Sales: yes
(02:26:30 PM) CS - Support and Sales: any additional fee that you have paid will be refunded back to you upon payment proof
(02:26:42 PM) Caroline: Many thanks.
(02:27:30 PM) CS - Support and Sales: no problem
(02:27:34 PM) CS - Support and Sales: please kindly submit the proof of payment for the VAT and we shall arrange the refund to be completed asap
http://www.eglobaldigitalstore.co.uk/taxReturn.php
(02:27:52 PM) Caroline: If the customs declarations are completed properly then surely there should not be any additional charges?
(02:29:04 PM) CS - Support and Sales: there should not be
(02:41:51 PM) Caroline: please can you e-mail me the transcript of our last conversation - it seems to have been lost (ie today at around 3.20)
(02:43:19 PM) CS - Support and Sales: this conversation will be emailed to you automatically once it finishes
(02:46:04 PM) Caroline: I was talking to someone about my order and subsequent ticket number 17949 when the connection was dropped. I could not request the transcript be sent and the system told me to refresh and now it has all gone.
(02:46:53 PM) CS - Support and Sales: this transcript will be forwarded to your email once the livechat session is over
(02:47:24 PM) Caroline: will that include the earlier conversation I had?
(02:47:45 PM) CS - Support and Sales: all livechat conversations will be recorded and emailed to you
(02:48:12 PM) Caroline: OK - thank you and goodbye!
(02:49:20 PM) *** CS - Support and Sales left the chat ***
(02:51:10 PM) *** Caroline left the chat ***

shaun_from_Africa

LilElvis wrote: »

Presumably, as it was a Christmas present then you would be bound by the T&Cs prior to the change re the VAT and customs. Impossible to prove unless you downloaded a copy at the time, unless someone else has any idea how you could retrieve it. Also, it would depend on exactly what the wording was re customs as their get-out would likely be in the clause above about 'law or government authority'.

The exact wording used prior to the change (This is from the 6th August) was:

14. Customs
14.1 To simplify the
process of buying internationally, eGlobaL choose to handle the process of custom clearance for customers. By purchasing products through eGlobaL, you authorise eGlobaL to make arrangements for clearance of customs on your behalf for the products in your order. As importing products from overseas can be a hassle for most of our customers, we organise this process for you. We then provide you with fast local shipping to deliver the goods to your door. As a result, prices shown on this website are the final total you have to pay to have the order delivered to your door, without any customs delay.

https://web.archive.org/web/20130806183512/http://www.eglobaldigitalstore.co.uk/terms-and-conditions.html

LilElvis

Thanks for that Shaun!

Though I doubt he will get them to refund the additional charges as others who ordered prior to the change in their T&Cs (as shown on http://www.reviewcentre.com//Online-Camera-Shops/eGlobaL-Digital-Store-www-eglobaldigitalstore-co-uk-reviews_1825903#Reviews) have failed to get them to do so.

youval

These people are professional scammers.

On one hand they have chosen a misleading URL ending with co.uk to get you to believe it is a UK based website. Furthermore their prices are in GBP. On the other hand, they do ship everything from Hong Kong and only in the small prints of their terms and conditions, towards the end - you will see that the prices on their website do not mean a thing because customs duty , VAT and other charges will apply when your product enters the UK and you will be charged for them.

Not only that you will end up paying much more than other locally offered prices but you will also have no local warranty. They will provide warranty from Hong Kong - so you will need to ship the product to them in case you require repairs, etc.

I have purchased an LG G2 phone from them. The price on their website was £329. Nowhere on the product page it was mentioned that additional charges will apply. Another £72 were requested by DHL. £10 of them for DHL administration charges.

Do Not Buy from eGlobal Digital Store - you will end up paying dearly and you won't have any local warranty. There is no telephone customer service support and only useless chat.

rrobbo

I'm embarrassed to say that I fell for this as well. Probably got a little complacent buying so much over the internet without problem and the site looks legit, quotes in sterling, accepts all major cards and appears in the shopping comparison sites. I bought a Moto G from them for £145 (Tesco had a deal for £140 but were out of stock, maximum price elsewhere was £159, so price seemed plausible). After I'd gone through the payment screen the site crashed, I received no confirmation and didn't see a payment taken from my Barclaycard.

When I received messages from DHL requesting a payment for £36 for a delivery of 'lithium batteries' from Ace Photo in Hong Kong I assumed it was a scam and refused to accept. Then I finally received an e-mail from eglobal saying that if I didn't accept delivery then I would need to pay them between £35 and £55 in return delivery costs. At this point they also took the £145 from my Barclaycard. When I spoke to Barclaycard they said that they were aware of what they believed to be 'scams' like this but were unable to do anything through the chargeback process as it was difficult to build a case.

It's very easy for people to say that the details are there on the site if you look for them but it's a shocking precedent to set and there really ought to be legislation to compel companies to state the full price at checkout or at least specifically state that other charges will apply. I've never read the full terms and conditions for Tesco or Amazon - I hope that they don't suddenly decide to add a 50% surcharge in the Terms & Conditions on their website.

I did wonder if it fell foul of the Unfair Terms In Consumer Contracts Legislation 1999 and it's implications to 14.6(b) of the Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000. Equally, I wonder if the charges they impose are consistent with 14.5 of the Consumer Credit Regulations. It's just hassle to try and follow up a claim to find out, given the time and expense involved.

I personally think that this would be a good campaign for MoneySavingExpert to pick up, supporting legislation to enforce greater clarity in the total costs associated with internet purchases. You only need to look at the eglobal company reviews (which I unfortunately didn't at the time) to see just how many people are misled into purchasing from them to see just how much of an issue this is/can be.