Company just sent me a revised invoice as they forgot to charge for tax?

KaratePigeon

Hello,
I bought some items from a reputable supplier in Germany (it was some fabric for dressmaking) about 10 weeks ago. All paid and used, no problems. Today they have sent me a 'revised invoice' as apparently they had a computer problem which meant a lot of invoices didn't have tax added, they've just realised and now want me to pay the extra Do I have to pay it?!

vuvuzela

KaratePigeon wrote: »

Hello,
I bought some items from a reputable supplier in Germany (it was some fabric for dressmaking) about 10 weeks ago. All paid and used, no problems. Today they have sent me a 'revised invoice' as apparently they had a computer problem which meant a lot of invoices didn't have tax added, they've just realised and now want me to pay the extra Do I have to pay it?!

Morally, certainly you do. How would you feel if you made a business error and undercharged people by a decent percentage and made a loss on items you sell ?
I'll leave it up to others to argue the case for legal.

Marktheshark

They made an offer, you accepted and the transaction was completed on delivery of the goods.
Any accounting error is now theirs to rectify.
As this is not a morals site, but a money saving one I would ignore them and cancel any continuous payment authority or DD they may have with the bank, unless you plan to use them again and have no other supplier.

shaun_from_Africa

Did you get a quotation for the material before it was delivered? and if so, was this figure the same as the invoice that you received?

If they quoted a figure that you agreed to but then made a mistake on the invoice, you do still owe them the difference.
If however, the quotation amount and the invoice amount were the same then there is nothing else to pay.

KaratePigeon

The way it works is you place an order on their website, then they check availability etc and send you an invoice to pay. I've just checked back through everything (it was actually for an order I placed back in August so longer than I thought!) The order confirmation and the invoice are for the same amount, but they do seem to be missing tax, when I compare them to a more recent order I didn't notice at the time, first time I'd used them and everything is written in German so a bit harder to read, lol.

Pretty sure they won't be making a loss, I have a tiny business (more of a hobby) and they are quite big so I wouldn't feel morally bad! Actually going to struggle to pay it now as it's unexpected, but I might well want to use them again so I suppose I should The really annoying thing is that my bank charges me a transfer fee to pay them into their German bank account, so I'd have to pay that again, and will actually be worse off?!

ThumbRemote

There's no legal case to pay it, and I personally don't think there's a moral case either. If anything they are acting immorally by agreeing a price then trying to change it later. And I certainly wouldn't be leaving myself out of pocket through bank charges due to their mistake.