German buyer wants me to send merchandise as a gift.

A German buyer wants me to send some $152 in merchandise he bought from me on ebay marked as a gift on the customs forms. Ebay forbids this as does the EU for anything over like sixty bucks and other reasons. Geeze, he doesn't say word one about this until the auction is over and I got the money, preventing me from steering him away and ending the auction with a customer who isn't a douche-bag . I told him politely that there was no way I would risk fines and or prison time so he could save $27 bucks in vat fees. His translated emails are coming one on top of the other insisting that I do this. It's a negative feedback for sure comin' down the pike. My plan is to get ebay involved, refund his money and re-list the item. In the future, all my auctions will have the warning "I will not send merchandise as a gift to international buyers. I will report you to ebay if you win this auction and insist that I do mark it as a gift." Does anyone else run into this? How do you deal with it? I'll keep posting until the situation is resolved.
:ebay:

Your best bet is to only auction/sell on eBay in US then you won't run into those issues


Bad Boy Bill

Yes don't do it,you don't need or want trouble with customs..........................

Thats the reason that all are risking to buy from China sellers. They are ready to mark all as "gift". And indeed no problemo with the customs . And the bad thing is that the VAT is over the price + the shipping costs which is making the goods way to expensive At the end all taxes were payed a few times at least for those old goods once....... So what is the point to pay for them again and again......... We are paying for paypal and other fees anyway . And what if you, for any reason refund him later - how he can have the taxes back? What if he get the boomer broken - he must pay import taxes anyway too ......
And so on and on.
Its up to you, but i can see the point. A lot of sellers are marking like a gift and they are not in the jail. All those ebay auctions are really subjective and never one deal is finished before the buyer got the goods in one piece. So, is up to you .
What if the boomer was imported once from Europe, than resell back again ??? Should we pay all taxes again and again??? We are not a huge companies which are hiding billions from taxes . We are just collectors .

Hah, been there. I hate it when confronted with this proposition. Thats one of the many pitfalls of international shipping. Its too bad

Being in the UK i agree with everything Stromsven says however, i think an email to the seller out of courtesy to ask if he was willing do this BEFORE placing a bid would have been best option.

Yup. Immediate full refund and move on. Get eBay involved if you must.

My bro lives in Germany and their Customs is a biatch. I sent him a packet of stuff for my nephew and he had to pick it up in person and open the package there. For a country with very liberal immigration rules, they sure make up for that with the way they try to protect their economy...!

k2j said:

Hah, been there. I hate it when confronted with this proposition. Thats one of the many pitfalls of international shipping. Its too bad

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jaetee said:

Yup. Immediate full refund and move on. Get eBay involved if you must.

My bro lives in Germany and their Customs is a biatch. I sent him a packet of stuff for my nephew and he had to pick it up in person and open the package there. For a country with very liberal immigration rules, they sure make up for that with the way they try to protect their economy...!

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Full refund given. Moving on. I feel for your bro Jaetee. Being ordered to open your mail in front of others sounds humiliating. I'm $152 dollars poorer and I feel like I've been bitch slapped around for a few days but at least I can relist and recoup. I'm going to listen to my boom box and drink a beer.

There's really no reason for the insistance. I was hassled like that, more than once & every time, I told the buyer that he was asking me to do an illegal thing, although low risk. I let them know I wanted to do things on the level so they were covered by insurance. Otherwise I couldn't guarantee the ITEM to arrive safely or be able to file a claim in case of a damaged shipment. That shut them up fast & no complaints after that.

I buy & sell all of my computer parts that way & it worked out great so far & every time the buyer backs down & doesn't whine about taxes, etc. after that cause they know they're cheating the system & making me the bad guy. If they really want it they will pay for it. If not, you can report them for non-payment to ebay if they want to play hard ball.

I would just do what the buyer asks this time, because re-listing it isn't worth the hassle. And then on your future auctions, just add a statement saying that you refuse to mark it as gift.

The only time I have ever done anything as a gift overseas where customs is an issue was private transactions. The main problem with eBay is that there is a trace. It may not matter if you sell one or two items this way in a year. But if you are like Chroninc and do this as a business it can get you.

And I agree about the taxes. We have the same problem here in the US. Joe Flacco of the Baltimore Ravens signed a HUGE 120m contract, but will have an effective tax rate of 51%. That is before his "jock" tax when he plays away games. This is where the host city taxes the visiting players. Then there are all the other taxes he'll pay just for day to day stuff. By the time he's done if he does not invest it or max out his charitable donations he will pay about 73-76% in taxes. This will turn his 120 million to about 9 million. DIvide that by 6 years (the term) and it's about 1.5 million per year left over. That's a long way from 20 million annually. Whether he's rich or not, the point is that the system sticks it to us. This is a simplified version of what happens but it shows you how much it sucks because the same priniciples apply at the everyman level.

Should have sent a message to the buyer that his Paypal payment should be made as a "gift" instead of payment for a product, inform them that Paypal payments sent as a gift has no "buyer protection" and if the item was "lost" in the post they no recourse through either eBay or Paypal.

The easiest way to avoid these situations is to add a disclaimer within the listing stating any customs and excise duties are the buyers responsibility I have found that having clear T&C's within my listings has made selling easier. Despite what the uninformed masses (not here but on the net in general) say about you can't add terms of sale to eBay the fact is you can. You as a seller can have whatever terms you want as eBay is purely operating as the "agent/avenue" for the sale (+ taking commission) If a buyer decides to initiate a small claims case it is the seller who is the accused and eBay will distance itself as much as possible.

I haven't had a single overseas buyer since I altered my terms and conditions to reflect my feelings about marking items as gifts. Also I've altered my preferences in which ebay members are allowed to bid on my items. No one without a paypal account and no one with two or more non paying bidder strikes and no one with four or more ebay policy violations are allowed to even contact me much less tie up my merchandise with all that drama and whining. I get less buyers now but at least they are a higher class of people who pay very quickly. I get friendlier emails and feedback as well. I've had no non paying bidder issues since then. I advise other members here who sell on ebay to make similar changes. I wish I had done it a long time ago. I used to feel like I was walking against the current. Now I'm...

About half my buyers are overseas. Americans aren't the most affluent people in the world anymore.

oldskool69 said:

But if you are like Chroninc and do this as a business it can get you.

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I don't know why you made the assumption that I'm doing this as a business. That is plain false. I buy & sell stuff on eBay for my personal needs & to recoup money from used ITEMS I no longer need or want. Please refrain from posting assumptions, even if they are innocent in nature, when you mention other members by name. This may discourage members of BBY from buying from me if they have the perception that I'm out to make a buck instead of being an honest enthusiast who LOVES boomboxes, as I do. I only own 3 boxes, & I love every one of them so the assumption that I'm doing this as a side business is false.

I hope this doesn't offend anyone but I had to set things straight on that GIANT leap of an assumption & caution members about making false statements about another member's intentions. I've had some experience with selling to US eBay members & every time they tried to pressure me to 'gift' 'ITEM's I remind them it is illegal & impossible to file claims for damaged shipments if I falsify customs declarations to save a few bucks. Pretty simple really & the rest of the debate is MOOT.

Thank you,
Cpl.

German customs really suck. But they wouldn't believe that it's a gift anyway so in the end the buyer always has to pay.

oldskool69 said:

Joe Flacco of the Baltimore Ravens signed a HUGE 120m contract, but will have an effective tax rate of 51%. That is before his "jock" tax when he plays away games. This is where the host city taxes the visiting players. Then there are all the other taxes he'll pay just for day to day stuff. By the time he's done if he does not invest it or max out his charitable donations he will pay about 73-76% in taxes.

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Holy guacamole! I didn't know that!

Cpl-Chronic said:

oldskool69 said:

But if you are like Chroninc and do this as a business it can get you.

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Cpl-Chronic said:

...I don't know why you made the assumption that I'm doing this as a business. That is plain false. I remind them it is illegal & impossible to file claims for damaged shipments if I falsify customs declarations to save a few bucks. Pretty simple really & the rest of the debate is MOOT.

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I will gladly eat the public humble pie regarding any presumptions about you buying and selling parts as a business... My misunderstanding as when you said "buy and sell all of my computer parts that way" lent itself to sounding more of a business given your technical acumen. Simple mistake of saying of saying someone may be in business like someone else.

I will also however note that the reference, albeit incorrectly, presumed you being in business, did not state that you did anything wrong, merely that if if an individual was in business in similar fashion, like many do on eBay (which is what I should have said) buying and selling all the time back and forth often, it (gifting) would be high risk. Your postitions on that were very clear from your initial comments.

oldskool69 said:

I will also however note that the reference, albeit incorrectly, presumed you being in business, did not state that you did anything wrong, merely that if if an individual was in business in similar fashion, like many do on eBay (which is what I should have said) buying and selling all the time back and forth often, it (gifting) would be high risk. Your postitions on that were very clear from your initial comments.

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No worries man. I Didn't mean to come across harsh. I apologize if it sounded other than it was. I just wanted to make it clear that it was an incorrect assumption & I am not running any business of any kind. I love blasters & can't leave them alone. I used to hobby computers but I pretty much have every type of PC I want so I got bored with it & wanted to try this for a while. That's why I mod them at the risk of de-valuing them as an antique. As most collector's often do, I must sell 1 to make room for another. I can't stockpile 30 & 40 radios like some of you magnificent B@$+ARDS. I can't afford to.

The only blaster I sold, I sold at a loss because I completely borked the deck trying to get the record function to work & I modded it like my JVC DISCO M-7-OHH!!.

I know there's some notoriuosly bad sellers out there, out to gouge people for a profit & who really jerk US around & I don't ever want to be confused with any 1 of them. If members percieve me as a business or a trying to make a buck off our our passion, that will create some hesitation, in a normally intrerested buyer.