Redisplay Messages: Compact | Brief | All | Full Show Messages: All | Without Replies| Author: | manganschlamm  | | Posted: | Apr 1, 2023 07:41 | | Subject: | Re: Paypal collects tax on shipping to? | | Viewed: | 45 times | | Topic: | Payment Methods | |
| In Payment Methods, gylman writes:
| | As I saw Bricklink process my invoice for a customer, I saw that Paypal's
tax collection system collects tax on the shipping cost. Is that correct? is
that how it should be? It seems to me that shipping cost should not be taxable.
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But the shipping costs should already have been taxed. The costs we are charged
by the post office or some private shipment company does already contain any
taxes like value added tax. If Paypal or Bricklink takes taxes on top, it means
double taxation. This is illegal.
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| Author: | manganschlamm | | Posted: | Mar 26, 2023 08:55 | | Subject: | Re: Brittle Colours | | Viewed: | 55 times | | Topic: | General | |
| In General, yorbrick writes:
| | It happens to parts in the dark too. I was parting out a Helm's Deep yesterday
...
This horse broke in two places putting it in a bag. Luckily it happened to me
and not a buyer.
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This is totally scary. I thought with good protection from shock and light these
parts would be safe.
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| Author: | manganschlamm | | Posted: | Mar 26, 2023 07:49 | | Subject: | Re: Idle question | | Viewed: | 29 times | | Topic: | Off Topic | |
| In Off Topic, Nubs_Select writes:
| | In Off Topic, popsicle writes:
| | In Off Topic, 1001bricks writes:
| | In Off Topic, popsicle writes:
| | In Off Topic, 1001bricks writes:
| | | | No doubt. Though perhaps whatever appears, is correctly spelled
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It doesn't astonish me; Sylvain himself is a fake anyway...
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Meaning you're the one true Sylvain, of course
One to moderate them all
One Sylvain to find them
One Sylvain to bring them all
and in the forum bind them
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ChatGPT?
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Not quite sure yet what "ChatGPT" is. But if you're asking where
it came from, my warped mind is the short answer.
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It’s a powerful artificial intelligence that can respond in the normal human
ways to normal human input. It can help with anything almost since it’s trained
on lots and lots of parameters (version 4.0 was trillions) I’ve used it extensively
from customer service responses to coding a website to updating stuff on my bricklink
store and everything in-between it’s quite fun
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As we're on "Idle" mode, just found this option in a soft I use for
a few days:
find.command=
# findstr is available on recent versions of Windows including 2000
Wow, recent, Windows 2000?
Now I feel old  
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It creates the pretext for a proliferation of plagiarism and theft of intellectual
property.
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| Author: | manganschlamm | | Posted: | Mar 26, 2023 07:45 | | Subject: | Re: Brittle Colours | | Viewed: | 39 times | | Topic: | General | |
| In General, V_JAMS writes:
| | Any of those sets I acquire or build I never push the torsos and legs together
completely and are very delicate building or placing any brown plates or tiles.
In General, Nubs_Select writes:
| | In General, bengreen28 writes:
| | So what sort of age is that, the set I was building is around 2009 so the plates
are more than likely that age as they were in the bulk lot I bought, what surprised
me was the tile breaking whilst in transit, I would expect that to be a bit newer.
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I thinks that’s about when lord of the rings and pirates of the Caribbean sets
were out
Yah they can break super easy from the era. I just sold some legs from a potc
minifigure that were all good on my end but as soon as the customer moved the
legs it got destroyed so that can be very fragile
| | In General, Nubs_Select writes:
| | In General, bengreen28 writes:
| | I have had a run of Dark red coloured plates and tiles just shattering as you
try and separate them from other parts.
I had test built a set that was going to be listed on here, built it fine and
as I started to dismantle it I had parts of the edge of a 2x4 plate break off
and a 2x12 plate shatter into 4 pieces.
I had also ordered some 1x8 tiles and as they ended up loose in the box (the
bag had split) one of them was in 2 pieces by the time it arrived!
Any ideas as to why it seems to just be the Dark Red that is this bad or does
anybody know of any other colours to be extra careful with?
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Reddish brown and dark red are the biggest offenders but some other colours like
blue also have had that issue during that lotr/potc era
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The trouble starts when you need to replace cracked arms. Because this can make
the torsos crack. Happened to me with several Uruk-Hai torsos without arms that
were even new. Now when I have to change arms I polish the shoulder joints off
a little bit so that when inserting them it produces less of a pressure. This
seems to work OK.
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| Author: | manganschlamm | | Posted: | Mar 26, 2023 07:43 | | Subject: | Re: Brittle Colours | | Viewed: | 48 times | | Topic: | General | |
| In General, bengreen28 writes:
| | I have had a run of Dark red coloured plates and tiles just shattering as you
try and separate them from other parts.
I had test built a set that was going to be listed on here, built it fine and
as I started to dismantle it I had parts of the edge of a 2x4 plate break off
and a 2x12 plate shatter into 4 pieces.
I had also ordered some 1x8 tiles and as they ended up loose in the box (the
bag had split) one of them was in 2 pieces by the time it arrived!
Any ideas as to why it seems to just be the Dark Red that is this bad or does
anybody know of any other colours to be extra careful with?
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I have seen this happening with minifigure parts in Dark Red, Dark Brown and
Reddish Brown. I had minifigure heads of Uruk-Hai chipping off at the neck, several
torsos of LOTR minifigures developing cracks and in one extreme case a leg assembly
of an Uruk-Hai completely broke into pieces when trying to move the legs. I have
however a suspicion that these damages are more likely to happen with parts that
have been exposed to sunlight. I store my minifigures from that time period in
a dark cupboard and all packed individually in small 90 my ziplock bags to protect
them.
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| Author: | manganschlamm | | Posted: | Mar 15, 2023 08:48 | | Subject: | Rivendell set | | Viewed: | 170 times | | Topic: | Catalog | | Status: | Open | |
| Is there any time line when the Rivendell set inventory will be available? I
see that stores are already selling individual figures under the entry Incomplete
Set, and also complete or partial sets of minifigures using the same type of
entry. What appears unusual is that obviously an incomplete inventory of only
the standard parts has been uploaded some 10 days ago, but not a single one of
the new parts has been included. I wonder if there is a political order by TLG
or the BL Admins to hold back on this inventory because the sale of individual
parts may negatively impact the sales figures of this expensive set.
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| Author: | manganschlamm | | Posted: | Mar 15, 2023 04:12 | | Subject: | Re: Ban stores from having part variant policies | | Viewed: | 59 times | | Topic: | Suggestions | |
| In Suggestions, yorbrick writes:
| | In Suggestions, manganschlamm writes:
| | In Suggestions, CCBricks writes:
| | I guess the same should be noted for minifigures. They come unassembled in the
box. Why is there a need to assemble them. My listings specifically state if
a minifigure is sold unassembled or not. I browse and buy figures frequently
and I'm always looking for this verbiage in the listings. I have to email
sellers asking whether its assembled or not before I buy. Should there be an
check box available to notate such at the time of listing?
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I do not mind if sellers assemble minfigures. It has the advantage that this
prevents from some scratches and damages happening during shipment. If they ship
unassembled they would need to pack each part separately to avoid scratches etc.
under any circumstances.
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Would you expect sellers to individually bag all (printed) parts too? If someone
buys 100 torsos or decorated bricks, it would be incredibly wasteful (cost,
time, environmental) to individually bag those but they are just as likely to
scratch.
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No I would not. My point was just that assembling figures prevents the parts
of them to get scratched during transport. Only packing each part of a figure
separately provides the same level of protection as assembling a figure and packing
it well.
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| Author: | manganschlamm | | Posted: | Mar 15, 2023 02:18 | | Subject: | Re: Ban stores from having part variant policies | | Viewed: | 55 times | | Topic: | Suggestions | |
| In Suggestions, CCBricks writes:
| | I guess the same should be noted for minifigures. They come unassembled in the
box. Why is there a need to assemble them. My listings specifically state if
a minifigure is sold unassembled or not. I browse and buy figures frequently
and I'm always looking for this verbiage in the listings. I have to email
sellers asking whether its assembled or not before I buy. Should there be an
check box available to notate such at the time of listing?
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I do not mind if sellers assemble minfigures. It has the advantage that this
prevents from some scratches and damages happening during shipment. If they ship
unassembled they would need to pack each part separately to avoid scratches etc.
under any circumstances.
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| Author: | manganschlamm | | Posted: | Mar 14, 2023 15:06 | | Subject: | Re: Ban stores from having part variant policies | | Viewed: | 88 times | | Topic: | Suggestions | |
| In Suggestions, PaulOfBricks writes:
| | I like to buy the correct variants, I try to list the correct variants too. Sometimes
(a) variant might be 0.05c and the (b) variant can be $2
there are a growing number of sellers listing the (a)0.05c part variant in the
(b)$2 variant category and then writing they have a variant policy (basically
they don't sort the variant) but this is clearly a deceptive policy
because they will 99% be selling the (a) variant in the more expensive (b) variant
category to maximise profits.
This is very annoying firstly because when I buy the parts, I want the correct
parts, sometimes I have to buy the part two or three times before I get the actual
correct part/variant I want, if a set comes with (a) I want (a) not (b), if I
wanted (b) I would buy from the (b) listing!,
should I have to email the seller every time asking if it is indeed correct,
It kind of slows down the ordering process a lot
and secondly it effects the analytics of the value of the correct variant.
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There should be an option for stores who are not willing to separate out variants.
A way to do this would be that parts would be assigned to the most common variant
(if not know which it is) and then one could select a checkbox which would automatically
activate a message to be displayed that part variants are not differentiated.
Then it would be clear for everyone.
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| Author: | manganschlamm | | Posted: | Mar 12, 2023 07:57 | | Subject: | Re: Non shipping seller alert | | Viewed: | 47 times | | Topic: | Selling | |
| In Selling, Ellabellaboo writes:
| | I shipped an order to norway the buyer has filed a non shipping seller alert
saying 3 parts are missing. I have responded to the alert giving the buyer the
option of me either sending the parts on to him or refunding the but he hasn’t
responded and its been 3 days now since the alert was logged….. what do i do
now? It says that he can cancel the order from 23rd march but that will mean
he will get all his money back and all the goods for free except the 3 missing
bits obviously. So how do i go about stopping the alert? This is all new to me
ive not had one of these alerts before i have missed bits before (we all make
mistakes) but the buyer usually messages me directly and i either send the part
on or refund (there choice)
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A suggestion that may be correct but maybe not: If the buyer does not respond,
simply ship out the missing part(s) to him with tracking number and proof of
receipt. Photograph the stages of packing that shipment, i.e. taking picture
of the missing parts, then in the open box, then sealed box. Now you have all
the proof you need that you indeed made a complete shipment. This should help
you get the NSS removed even if it gets completed and you have proof of shipment
against any Paypal claim the buyer may file.
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| Author: | manganschlamm | | Posted: | Mar 12, 2023 04:40 | | Subject: | Re: Crack in torso's or not? | | Viewed: | 62 times | | Topic: | Help | |
| In Help, randyf writes:
| | In Help, Brick_professor writes:
| | Hi lego fans,
This week I have bought some special star wars figures for my personal collection.
I paid a lot for it because quality is the most important for me, so I asked
every seller if all the figures were free from cracks (they al checked the figures
and said: Yes).
However I do find some small stressmarks/scratches/cracks under the arms of 2
figures (please check the pictures).
Can anyone please tell me if this are cracks or not, I really have no clue.
If you need more pictures, for example in dark with a flashligt, let me know.
Thanks in advance
Kind regards,
Arne
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Nope. Not cracks. They are weld lines from the injection molding process.
https://www.google.com/search?q=weld+lines+in+plastic
Cheers,
Randy
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Are these weaknesses the reasons why some older torsos may develop cracks over
time?
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| Author: | manganschlamm | | Posted: | Mar 10, 2023 15:23 | | Subject: | Re: Very long pending time/catalog contributions | | Viewed: | 47 times | | Topic: | Help | |
| In Help, randyf writes:
| | In Help, Biglesdug writes:
| | In Help, randyf writes:
| | In Help, Biglesdug writes:
| | I added a few items to the catalog awhile ago and they are still pending. Will
these be aprroved anytime soon?
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We are swamped with work for all of the new sets right now. We will get to those
minifigures when we get a chance. Thanks for your patience.
Cheers,
Randy
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Sadly the excessive wait, makes me not want to contribute to the catalog ever
again. I know there is a lot of new sets being added but 6+ months for some figures
to be approved seems outrageous.
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As recently as two months ago, we had a backlog of items going all the way back
to February of last year. We are now caught up to November of last year, and
we are trying very hard to get to the rest. If you had submitted the items six
plus months ago, they would be in the catalog by now, so the truth is that you
submitted them earlier than six plus months ago. When I look at the pending items,
you submitted them on November 30, 2022, so they should be one of the next things
that we get to in our process of catching up. By the way, November 30 is about
three and a half months ago.
Cheers,
Randy
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A useful starting point for speeding things up and saving a lot of time would
be to import directly the images of new parts from LEGO database. Why reinvent
the wheel and take fresh pictures of everything?
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| Author: | manganschlamm | | Posted: | Mar 10, 2023 15:20 | | Subject: | Re: Very long pending time/catalog contributions | | Viewed: | 51 times | | Topic: | Help | |
| In Help, Biglesdug writes:
| | In Help, randyf writes:
| | In Help, Biglesdug writes:
| | In Help, randyf writes:
| | In Help, Biglesdug writes:
| | I added a few items to the catalog awhile ago and they are still pending. Will
these be aprroved anytime soon?
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We are swamped with work for all of the new sets right now. We will get to those
minifigures when we get a chance. Thanks for your patience.
Cheers,
Randy
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Sadly the excessive wait, makes me not want to contribute to the catalog ever
again. I know there is a lot of new sets being added but 6+ months for some figures
to be approved seems outrageous.
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As recently as two months ago, we had a backlog of items going all the way back
to February of last year. We are now caught up to November of last year, and
we are trying very hard to get to the rest. If you had submitted the items six
plus months ago, they would be in the catalog by now, so the truth is that you
submitted them earlier than six plus months ago. When I look at the pending items,
you submitted them on November 30, 2022, so they should be one of the next things
that we get to in our process of catching up. By the way, November 30 is about
three and a half months ago.
Cheers,
Randy
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ok, I was incorrect about the 6 months but it has been a long time now. Bricklink
is now owned by a multi billion, that's billion with a B company. Seems like
they could hire more people to help with the catalog, that's all.
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Your argument ignores the fact that trashcans are very expensive.
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| Author: | manganschlamm | | Posted: | Mar 6, 2023 12:47 | | Subject: | Re: Macro Economics | | Viewed: | 43 times | | Topic: | Off Topic | |
| In Off Topic, Nubs_Select writes:
| | In Off Topic, s0l0kr writes:
| | Hey everyone, I have macroeconomics exam in a week, and I know something around
nothing. Can someone say to me how the Swan model works please
|
I asked chatGPT and it said
(I asked it to explain it so a 8 year old could understand so that’s why the
weird references)
“ Macroeconomics is like a big picture of the economy. Just like how you can
look at a picture of your family or your school and see how everyone is doing,
macroeconomics looks at how all the people in a country are doing with their
money and jobs.
One important thing that macroeconomics looks at is how much money people are
making in a country. This is called the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). It's
like the amount of money your family makes in a year, but for an entire country.
When the GDP goes up, it means that people in the country are making more money.
Another thing that macroeconomics looks at is how many jobs there are in a country.
If there are a lot of people who don't have jobs, that can be a problem.
It's like if there weren't enough chairs in your classroom for everyone
to sit down - some people would have to stand and that wouldn't be very comfortable.
So, having enough jobs for everyone is important.
Macroeconomics also looks at how prices of things are changing. When prices go
up, it's called inflation. This can make it harder for people to buy the
things they need, like food and clothes. It's like if the price of candy
suddenly went up - you might not be able to afford to buy as much candy as you
used to.
One way that the government can try to help with these problems is by using something
called monetary policy. This means that they can change how much money is in
the economy or how much it costs to borrow money. It's like if your parents
let you have more allowance or if they charged you interest on the money you
borrowed from them.
So, that's macroeconomics in a nutshell! It's about looking at how everyone
in a country is doing with their money and jobs, and trying to make things better
if they're not going well.”
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So yet another weird theory based on the Story of Separation.
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| Author: | manganschlamm | | Posted: | Mar 6, 2023 12:46 | | Subject: | Re: Macro Economics | | Viewed: | 43 times | | Topic: | Off Topic | |
| In Off Topic, SylvainLS writes:
| | In Off Topic, Nubs_Select writes:
| | […]
| | Why I just can't have large lego shop so I don't need this university
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Economist: An expert who’ll explain tomorrow why what they predicted yesterday
didn’t happen today.
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So exactly the same as epidemiologist or virologists.
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| Author: | manganschlamm | | Posted: | Mar 4, 2023 08:24 | | Subject: | Re: Important update reg. Ukraine and Russia | | Viewed: | 117 times | | Topic: | Administrative | |
| In Administrative, Nikonov writes:
| | It's difficult to believe that you have decided to deactivate russian brickLink
stores after so many years of cobusiness. (((
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Only if the average Russians start to be affected by the actions of their president
something may change in the course of current actions.
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| Author: | manganschlamm | | Posted: | Mar 4, 2023 03:26 | | Subject: | Re: I am EXTREMELY disappointed….. | | Viewed: | 112 times | | Topic: | LEGO products | |
| In LEGO products, BricksOfFaith writes:
| | In LEGO products, jennnifer writes:
| | In LEGO products, BricksOfFaith writes:
| |
Like, C’mon, Lego!! You just lost out on SO MUCH MONEY!! nobody is gonna buy
that phone booth! Nobody even knows what a phone booth is anymore! It’s not even
minifigure size! 🤦🏼♂️🤦🏼♂️🤦🏼♂️
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Well, considering the red phone booths are an iconic item from London and the
UK, I would expect the millions of people who have lived there would know what
they were. Or, the millions who have travelled there, watched a movie or a TV
show, read a book or a magazine...
Hey! I'm a nobody.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_telephone_box
I found this one outside of Two Temple Place in London. Good times...
Jen
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Ok, I’ll admit it does look pretty cool irl, but outside of the UK, I kind of
doubt TLG will get too much profit.
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If this logic would apply, nobody would buy the Chinese New Year set outside
China. But they do. Because they find icons of other cultures genuinely interesting.
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| Author: | manganschlamm | | Posted: | Feb 21, 2023 02:22 | | Subject: | Wheel Wagon Small (27mm D.) | | Viewed: | 88 times | | Topic: | Buying | |
| Dear all,
according to the catalogue information, this Wheel Wagon Small (27mm D.) is only
known in the colors Black and (old) Brown.
Now some stores do offer this wheel also in Reddish Brown. I have made few attempts
to buy this part in Reddish Brown in the past, but each time I learned the hard
way that what was supposed to be Reddish Brown turned out to be (old) Brown.
My question would therefore be if there is real evidence that this part exists
in Reddish Brown and if this turns out to be true I would appreciate offers for
this part in Reddish Brown.
Best regards, Thomas
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| Author: | manganschlamm | | Posted: | Jan 13, 2023 11:23 | | Subject: | Re: Still prevalent today... | | Viewed: | 38 times | | Topic: | Buying | |
| In Buying, popsicle writes:
| | the added after-commitment costs through inflated shipping or additional charges,
sometimes both. At least with some vendors using the invoice method.
Example: Just paid a member within the EU, for some heads. Having never transacted
with this member before, I initially thought the price good. Silly me. At least
they only used one of the two available "additional charges" columns
In moving forward, what I typically do is create a note for the member (collected
quite a few over the years) so that the next time I am pondering a buy with them,
I’ll know to factor these types of costs (shipping rate and additional charges)
before pulling the trigger. For me it’s that simple.
I gotta say though, that it's been buyer experiences like this, that have
motivated me early on to structure our selling practice with no additional charges
and low shipping costs, to the point that we often subsidize the shipping by
a small amount. I'd rather bake any ancillary costs into our prices than
hit the buyer with them afterwards.
-popsicle
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Be happy that the seller does not charge some absurd lot limit or lot size or
whatever lot fee that is not explained properly in the terms.
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| Author: | manganschlamm | | Posted: | Jan 3, 2023 14:23 | | Subject: | Re: VAT collected twice | | Viewed: | 65 times | | Topic: | Taxes | |
| In Taxes, oasis writes:
| | First time with a VAT problem, don't know where to file for help.
US order, German customer, BL collected VAT, but customer had to pay again when
picking up the package. I'm sending him a copy of the VAT form that was on
the package.
Thanks for any tips.
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Maybe he had to pay customs fees and processing fee. This happens to me all the
time. BL collects VAT, then I pay customs fees and a lump processing fee of 6
Euro on top. Germany wants to discourage ordering from outside the EU I supposed.
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