Pimax update (14.10.2020) - Backer Box Shipment Advisory - Discussion

General discussion
101

Sorry but you are minimize things. What you wrote doesn’t reflect was is written black on white on your screenshot. For the EU the “no fee in first batch” was not due to a different shipping method, it was because Pimax had imported the HMDs to their EU warehouse (paying the customs for that) and then shipped to the backers from there. That’s exactly what your screenshot say they were promising to do at the time to ask our money to help funding their KS project.

I think you are mixing things up between what seems to have been done for Canada and what was done for EU. I don’t know how customs work between USA and Canada but I know how it works here in the EU: customs are paid when the goods are imported to the EU and then those goods can be shipped anywhere within the EU and there will be no customs at all for the final recipient.

So when a project creator writes in his KS he will import large quantities to his (existing!) EU warehouse and ship to the backers from there, everyone understands he (the backer) will not have to pay any customs fee for receiving that shipment. Plain simple.

If find ironic you (not targetting you or anyone else specifically) are trying to find that post from Sweviver where he told Pimax has paid the VAT when importing the HMDs as I am the one who digged that first a few weeks ago to argue Pimax was fully aware the EU warehouse mention in their KS FAQ was implying they (Pimax) were responsible for paying the customs.

I have shown that post several times already, publicly and in private messages to Pimax staff, for arguing with them I should not pay any of those fees as it was a Pimax charge given the KS terms. No one from Pimax staff ever gave me an explanation why Pimax had paid the customs at this time (including VAT from what sweviver said), never asking the backers to pay this back to Pimax, and why Pimax now claims those customs fees would be the responsability of the backers…

I have even already posted here a discussion with Pimax staff from earlier this year where I was explained (by staff) Pimax was about to transfer the remaining KS rewards to their EU warehouses (I know they have/had one in Marseille and another one in Poland IIRC). Again, that was just simply following the initial plan from the KS regarding shipping the rewards to the EU backers from an EU warehouse, and certainly not directly from China with customs to be paid by the backers…

So don’t tell me the KS FAQ is just saying Pimax only promised they “would try to”. Not only they said it was the “plan” but they have reinforced the certainty of this plan (in future backers’ minds) by affirming Pimax was already owning warehouses to make that plan happen for (at least) the USA and the EU.

This information about the shipments was without a doubt one of the Pimax (strong) arguments to make people want to fund the project. I find it was even reinforced more by claiming they were not new in the business, that Pimax was “dreamed up in the Silicon Valley”, with the developper team having “decades of experience in smart devices, including many years experience in VR headset R&D and manufacturing”.

DECADES OF EXPERIENCE IN SMART DEVICES !!!

Who could then doubt a team like this could promise your rewards will be imported by them to their existing EU warehouse before shipping to you, but in fact this is just “a vague plan they hope they can do”. Let be serious one minute, we are talking about a KS description that has generated several millions USD in funds…

102

Am I possibly. However in Canada it was not due to shipping to a warehouse. It was directly due to shipping method China Post to Canada Post. First Batch shipped from China as I was in the first batch and didn’t ship to the :us: warehouse(would still get an import fee if shipped from :us: to :canada:).

A few companies ship via a similar method pimax used in first Batch. One online retailer I have never received customs fees. However have been told by others they use a grey area to do this. Where as say Gearbest uses DHL and DHL always carries extra shipping fees on top of what is paid.

Thread from 2017 with VAT concerns.

https://community.openmr.ai/t/courier-vat-handling-charges-on-delivery-eu/4287?u=heliosurge

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103

I trust you on this 100%.

EU is just a different story and this is where I live.

104

Well found the official post

Since that post the logistics partner changed several times. However it does say some will have import fees.

Also Changes from shipping to :uk: warehouse due to brexit and other things along the way. Dallas’ post I quoted above also mentions Vat fees.

105

Thanks for finding this, it shows what I have been saying since the beginning:

for the EU the shipments were not direct from China but first imported in a Pimax EU warehouse in large quantities and then shipped to EU backers from there.

Exactly as written in the KS FAQ.

Also the mention about “possible import fees depending on the logistics partner” does not concern the EU at all (for those goods first imported in the UK). As long as the packages were going from the UK to any other EU country there were no customs regardless the company handling the shipment.

The customs fees happened when the goods have entered in the UK (= in the EU) coming from China, and Pimax has paid them.

Important to note this doesn’t mean EU backers have not paid any VAT for those HMDs. This means the VAT was included in the pledge price. So when Pimax pays the VAT for importing the HMDs into the UK (= into the EU) Pimax just gives back the VAT part of the pledge amount that the EU backers had initially paid to Pimax (through Kickstarter).

In other words, when Pimax has made the promise to ship the rewards from an EU warehouse, they have implicitely acknowledged their responsability to include this in their calculations of the pledges prices.

Has Pimax done it correctly ? Has Pimax also foreseen they could have to make several shipments to ship all the rewards ? Have they foreseen all the delays, the multiple RMAs, the price to source the LHv2, etc ? In the end the backers don’t have to wonder about all this, they just have to know they have funded a project based on terms they are legitimate to expect respected/honored by Pimax.

106

Not true as one backer was requesting Austria vs Uk. And it does say that you may experience import fees; nowhere does it specify EU was exempt.

Reminds me of when I bought a Svga cable to RGB only to discover it does not work depending on monitor and device. Nowhere did it say it would not work. One could argue the cable manufacturers should specify that specific detail.

It says: (hence why the detail was not attached directly to no. 2)

May is a powerful word meaning in this case shouldn’t but could. They are not using that Logistic partner as people requested a different one due to reviews/experiences with that one. If you recall pimax tried quite a few logistic services and even had to ask backers to let them know if it arrived due to not being able to track packages. As one or more seemed to use padded track package updates that was not accurate.

107

Don’t draw false conclusions from a single post where that person doesn’t even mention he would have had to pay any customs fee.

The EU follows a policy called “Free movement of goods”.

It means not only customs duties have been purely abolished within EU, but even charges having an effect equivalent to that of customs duties are prohibited.

Man, this is just the root of the EU single market… It has a legal basis from the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU).

You can read about it on this page of the European Parliament website:

108

Yes you shouldn’t. Your presuming that

This only applies to No. 2. If it applied to only No. 2 it would be directly attached to that number. Not posted separately to the 2 listed items.

No different than when I presumed that a vga to rgb cable would work.

Your choosing which listed item that last statement pertains to. There is no direct statement that says it only pertains to non EU deliveries.

Simple truth either assumption could be true as it is not perfectly clear.

As I mentioned those backers whom opted to wait for everything to be ready & shipped in 1 box are ones that honestly have a real complaint as that requested that option. That was not honored do have real cause to be aggravated. The same is true with the op whom requested extra items to be packaged in his backer box to avoid per package processing fees.

Pimax has made numerous mistakes. However some we have to own by our comprehension being flawed.

Reminds me of the fellow after almost a year+ receiving his 8k said “I have received my headset. But there is a problem, it’s not 8k” Hard to believe after all the media coverage during and after the KS we had one or possibly more that somehow missed that spotlight.

109

I don’t understand a single word about what you’re trying to argue.

I have given you the link proving my statement is correct.

2018 shipment UK -> any EU country = no customs. Period.

110

Simply the point regarding VAT is clear it applies to points 1 & 2. If you like can provide link to EU backer whom said it was costly to receive stuff pre brexit I think it was to Switzerland?

Same can be said there are other EU backers whom were concerned about VAT costs so they obviously were not under the presumption they wouldn’t pay any VAT.

You can’t make presumptions of what is not said.

111

Switzerland isn’t in the EU

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112

hello from France !

just to check in.
i had in mail backer stretch goals box tracking number on 30/10, yet couldn’t track it.
it arrived yesterday 24/11 at my parent’s. no VAT.

still waiting for handtracking module, recieved tracking number for this one on 17/11, yet still can’t track.

have a nice day

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113

This conversation is way off topic by now. Let me bring it back on topic

  1. Indeed in 2018 I got my HMD and I paid no customs and no VAT. It was shipped within the EU. I got the product that I paid for. The HMD. The rest are addons or delayed items. The main item was shipped and delivered. It was just missing addons. They do not cost extra. They were not purchased extra. They were delayed because of Pimax was in production and logistics sucked.

  2. I had to pay 90$ to get the PAID FOR (as discussed above) knuckles and base stations. Most of that money was the customs officer fee. About 65$ of that actually. Customs and taxes was only 25$.

  3. I paid 140$ (give or take) a couple of days ago to get the stretch goals. The actual customs fees were like 20$ as well (including VAT). The rest was the fee of the officer (they are private companies taking care of those things) and storage fees and a court order (which was not necessary for some reason last time).

  4. The difference in fees I paid those 2 times has only to do with what company they used for shipping. Different companies, different fees and expenses. It’s a gamble.

  5. Excluding the taxes and duties, all the rest of the cost above IS ENTIRELY PIMAX’s fault. And if they shipped as they promised within the EU it could have been avoided. So about 45$ of the two shipments above was fees that I should pay to import those stuff in my country. About 185$ is money I paid because pimax went back on their initial promise.

Also when I pay for an item, I pay for that item and you have to ship it to me. Nobody would buy anything if shipping is not included during checkout and had to pay it upon delivery.

That’s why we ASK about how people will ship those items. We would not back pimax if they said that we would have to pay for customs each time they sent us something! We would wait to get another headset. Or none at all…

It’s a bad place for a company when they get their customers so frustrated when they prefer the “none at all” option…

114

Glad I am in Canada vs the EU as that is corruption at it’s finest. Adminstration fees from fedex are small and we don’t seem to pay storage fees here.

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115

To be fair, it is not EU but (presumably) the country local setup. I have paid ~ 15 EUR fees to FedEx (plus VAT).

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116

Well then it is a problem with countries within the EU. Those are nasty processing fees that well exceed the amount of VAT. Those processing charges are criminal imho.

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117

DHL does not charge storage fees for a week. It’s a per company thing. It’s a gamble.
All fees are perfectly legal.

As I said though, we know how things are here. That’s why I asked beforehand. And that’s why I’m so frustrated now that Pimax went back on their word.

118

I haven’t had it with any Shipping service as of yet. They shouldn’t be billing storage fees after collecting a parcel that has paid shipping.

I had 0 import fees with the original shipping method used. It was only after they started to explore other delivery couriers been paying ever since.

Vat/import should be paid but not overinflated handing fees.

Unfortunately with Brexit and Covid many things have changed and not for the better.

Which agreed if pimax at least used an eu warehouse you might wait longer but should only pay VAT instead of corrupt add on fees.

119

You see they lean on the fact that they give you 2 options.

  1. You pay and you get your package
  2. You don’t pay and you return the items.

Trying to get justice or fair treatment is, of course, one-sided, time-consuming and expensive…

I do not see what brexit has to do with that though. I still get items from the UK without going through customs.

As for the VAT… transactions within the EU are relieved of VAT ON BOTH SIDES!!!
Not many people know that but it’s true. Amazon supports it and I get a bunch of DJI stuff (like my drone) that are relieved from VAT because it’s an internal EU sale. I actually receive these items at a price lower than the one on their webshop… it’s calculated minus the VAT. Which is great…

So let’s no longer use that statement “you have to pay your VAT”. No, you don’t. The truth is… “it depends”. So Pimax, being international, having offices in Sweden and warehouses in EU, should help us get our products without the risk of these high fees.

120

We can’t or shouldn’t compare things to Amazon and Ebay whom are very well established in international markets. An office doesn’t equal a distribution center. One fellow checked out the :us: so to speak warehouse. Which by the sounds of is what I thought a cheap 3rdparty facility.

Tradewars for small companies is a mess. I would be more curious how the EU Gearbest operates as I imagine will be just as messed up and there support makes just about any other company’s support look like gold.

Eu shipments were originally going to the UK at one time. Sure there are ways to reduce VAT from what people have said. Imho pimax should have delated EU orders to ship to warehouses there. However I am sure you’d agree folks would be upset waiting seeing other regions receive ahead of them.

Main thing pimax needs to ask customers if they want their order split shipped(more cost to recipients) or wait for items to be bundled in 1 shipment. Because yes I am paying extra processing fee/package when there is duty owed. DHL you always seem to have a base of $25 DHL fee. Still much better than the extremely over inflated charges you describe. And yes if pimax uses tge proper hs code from what I read your vat should be minimum to none. Which still leaves the overinflated extras.

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