Hefty Import charges on Warranty Repair

Max223 · 28 November 2023 at 1:14PM

Coming here for advice.

Recently had a computer component fail, a graphics card, a high end one but now nearly three years old.

I had to ship it to the service company (EVGA Gmbh) in Germany to get it repaired under warranty, for free.

As you would expect they don't just repair a faulty card that required 8 nano metre machining processes to make the processor so of course they shipped me a refurbished replacement of the same card (same part number and all) back to me.

UPS charged me £164.93 Import charges (£152.73 government charges and £12.20 brokerage charges).

I tried to dispute it with UPS but they told me HMRC charges it because it was a "replacement" and there was nothing they could do about it but I could likely claim it back from HMRC so I needed the card back and paid the charges.

It seems ridiculous to me that a charge should even be considered as looking at the invoice supplied on entry(see image below) any reasonable person can see the product was replaced under warranty with the same product for free and therefore I've already paid import duty when I bought the original card in the UK.

Is there anything I can do to get this money back? Being out of pocket unexpectedly before Christmas is the last thing I need.

If I can't get this sorted then in effect a warranty with a service centre external to the UK is not worth the paper it is printed on. This card cost me something in the region of £750 back in 2020, the equivalent these days is £1249.99, if I wanted a model up it can be nearer £2000. The import charges would be insane for a service (warranty repair/replacement) that should not incur a warranty charge at all.

With courier fees, insurance and import charges I'm effectively paying near 40% of the original card's value to repair it under warranty.