Re: [NTLK] Purchases in Germany

From: David Neale (david.neale_at_pandora.be)
Date: Thu Apr 22 2004 - 04:27:34 PDT


Surprise, surprise, but US purchasers also have problems with their own
US Customs, who nowadays hold back just about every package. Sadly,
Customs and excise duties have been around for an awfully long time and
if people don't realise that they can be expected to pay such charges,
it's their problem, not the sellers ("Buyer beware"). That is certainly
no reason to not wish to ship abroad. It is hard to believe that
Europeans are unaware of such charges, as these duties existed here on
goods crossing the many internal borders until just a few years ago
(thank you EU for creating the open market!).

As for credit card fraud -- it's everywhere, so there's no need to be
paranoid about it, merely careful. PayPal is an excellent alternative,
of course. And within Europe, bank transfers made in euro within the
Eurozone are free for both parties. International "trade" (if we can
consider eBay auctions as such) is very easy nowadays and there are no
convincing arguments for not being willing to send goods abroad.

David

On Thursday, April 22, 2004, at 11:33 AM, newtontalk_at_newtontalk.net
wrote:

> Date: Thu, 22 Apr 2004 01:43:15 -0500
> From: "Peter H. Coffin" <hellsop_at_ninehells.com>
> Subject: Re: [NTLK] Purchases in Germany
>
> On Thu, Apr 22, 2004 at 01:35:29AM +0200, Frank Gruendel wrote:
>>> It's amazing how many of the sellers will only post to within
>>> their own country!
>>
>> Well, that goes for every country I think. I would buy much more
>> abroad if this wasn't so. I'm of course aware of Mark's service,
>> but there are these deals that aren't tempting enough to cause
>> others any additional work.
>
> A not-small portion of this involves sellers being wary of new buyers
> from VAT-charging countries, where the buyers don't realize that their
> stuff may be subjected to VAT that the buyer is responsible for. This
> combines witht he usual customs hassles that packages crossing borders
> are often subjected to, and no small number of US sellers end up
> getting
> grief from European buyers for taxes that push the 80 Euro "great deal"
> to a 94 Euro "so-so deal". Complicate this with international money
> orders becoming almost impossible to obtain or cash, and US sellers
> frequently find that the market outside US borders is just too much of
> a
> pain to deal with.

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