International shipments Chit Chats Asendia Priority Tracked to EU post July 1, 2021?

[dansterino]

Does anyone have any experiences of shipping with Chit Chats using Asendia Priority Tracked to EU (such as Germany, UK, France, etc) after the July 1, 2021 changes?

On a recent order, the buyer paid VAT and eBay provided the IOSS number. On Chit Chats, there's a "duties paid postage" that ships using Chit Chats International Tracked. The Chit Chats International Tracked option can be quite costly. 

I'm curious to hear if anyone knows how the Asendia Priority Tracked option has been for buyers in the EU after July 2021. Were they charged VAT again upon delivery - or were they exempt?

[recped · Accepted solution]

I'm using Ascendia via Stallion but the situatiuon should be the same.

I use both the DDP and DDU services, no problems with the DDP shipments, a few issues with DDU. Specifically with Ireland in January and Germany & Norway last fall.

The biggest issue is that neither of those services offer returns so if a buyer choose to refuse the shipment instead of figuring out a way to deal with customs the shipment is gone forever. Most of the time Ascendia shipments  have tracking at least up to arrival in the destination country which seems to include notices of recipient refusal (which is probably good enough for eBay) should a buyer open an inr claim.

I tell buyers they will get a refund when the return arrives, it never will so I just leave them hanging. If they contacted me I would in most cases be willing to refund the double payment of VAT just to make them happy since this is not a buyer fault type of issue.

I suspect a lot of it is just teething problems with the new system of pre-collection of VAT.

[recped]

forgot to mention......

In recent months I've started putting an invoice on the outside of EU/UK packages with the IOSS number and tax charged hi-lighted in hopes that will get picked up by customs.

[dansterino]

Thanks recped. Ah yes Stallion was the other provider I was looking at as well. Yes Germany and Ireland were among a few countries that I've heard about where individuals there were having trouble with double charging of the VAT. Ebay does have a link for buyers to submit pictures of the package they received and the receipt they paid for the second VAT charges (https://ocsnext.ebay.com/ocs/mudcwf?deptName=CollectRemitRefund) but it's not published on Ebay's help pages. The buyer would have to pay the second VAT charges and depending on the agent they get from eBay, the original VAT charge may or may not be reversed.

I am curious with the practice of placing of the invoices outside the EU/UK packages with the IOSS number and VAT amount charged...I too am considering doing so myself. For packages where it was sent as DDU and the amount was under 150 euros, did it reduce the number of double-VAT charge instances?

I know in Canada when we send packages back to customs, they can at least review the package a second time but I've seldomly heard that this is even a possibility in the EU. Customs for EU residents must be like a birthday surprise, but not a good birthday surprise sometimes! 

[recped]

---

@dansterino wrote:

I am curious with the practice of placing of the invoices outside the EU/UK packages with the IOSS number and VAT amount charged...I too am considering doing so myself. For packages where it was sent as DDU and the amount was under 150 euros, did it reduce the number of double-VAT charge instances?

---

Not enough shipments to make any assumptions, I started using the invoice system in January so I have no idea if it's actually useful.

[zee-chan]

Just about to send a shipment to Germany. Curious if anyone has recent experiences to share in regards to ChitChats' "Chit Chats International Tracked"? It's about $10 cheaper than shipping small packet air with Canada Post so I'm debating about either going with CC or just shipping as letter-post instead. I think what bothers me is that if the buyer refuses the shipment for whatever reason, I won't get it back as "return service is not available". 

Anyone recently got items returned from the EU shipped as letter-post? It sounds like a big problem with letter-post sent to US. It's a few comic books.