LTT Backpack £69 import to UK

[MrAmos123]

18 hours ago, GOTSpectrum said:

I'll reach out to @jakkuh_tas we have a fair working relationship and see if I can get a response. 

That would be great. This is concerning as now it's coming up to a week and still no reply on my ticket. 

 

[MrAmos123]

Update. I've received a response from LTTStore's support as of this morning. 

They refunded $60 to my original payment method. 

[corey2147]

Still waiting on my wave 1 backpack here too, which I ordered back in August (two prime ministers ago!)

It's supposedly been in the UK since Nov 7th however I haven't had any letter about customs - will update if I do get one, which by the looks of this thread I will

[gameofyou]

On 11/12/2022 at 8:58 PM, DeltaBruggemann said:

LTT have already made a statement saying there’s an issue with the Taxing system they are using and they are trying to get the company that made the system to fix it but that is outside of their control.

Err is not outside there control to refund me the vat they charged me on error in their store. It is not outside their control to correctly fill in a customs declaration so i am not charged VAT on a free item as they choice to value them at a dollar. It is not outside there control to answer a support ticket for the store in a reasonable time. One week and counting is not reasonable!

 

What this is, is simple poor customer service, exactly the kind of thing Linus calls out others for. To me it feels hypocritical. Trust me bro? No sorry trust is earnt.

 

My interpretation of the last wan show was, hay there are problems with our tax software, however WE do things right... Well they didn't in this case and it would have been nice if this case for them to acknowledge that fact rather than just doubling down... Exactly what the call out in others. 

 

[gameofyou]

Posting seperately as it is not specific but more an observations on forums in general.

 

Its also really frustrating for me a customer of a company to get white noise from them and just to get fanboys who don't understand defend the company. In this case If your not from the uk, and have not spent OVER £135 pounds in store in a single transaction then you probably have no idea what people are talking about here. Yes they are right to collect tax for consignments under £135 pounds however this is the reverse case of OVER £135 pounds where tax should not be collected as it will be charged on entry to the UK.

 

I would like to point out we are lucky that the LTT store will trade with us as many companies now will not do orders to the UK for under £135 as they have to collect the tax for the UK.

[DeltaBruggemann]

2 hours ago, gameofyou said:

 

Its also really frustrating for me a customer of a company to get white noise from them and just to get fanboys who don't understand defend the company.

As the description of this Sub Forum states:

Quote

Not for support! Please email support@lttstore.com if you need assistance!

Tagging NickLMG on Twitter also helps in some cases.

 

If you come to the LTT forums you're more likely to get responses from the community rather than the staff.

 

3 hours ago, gameofyou said:

Well they didn't in this case and it would have been nice if this case for them to acknowledge that fact rather than just doubling down... Exactly what the call out in others. 

As for this point they have acknowledged this right here.

[msknight]

6 hours ago, DeltaBruggemann said:

If you come to the LTT forums you're more likely to get responses from the community rather than the staff.

That's exactly the point. Getting help and sharing experiences among ourselves. Without which I wouldn't have known about LTT's statement in the first place, and people wouldn't have learned that refunds are happening, and just to hang on for a bit.

 

When gameofyou talks about the fanboys, I believe the discussion is about comments exactly like you made above, which are just repeating what's been said before, deriding people's opinions and raising the argumentative temperature.

[MrAmos123]

15 hours ago, corey2147 said:

Still waiting on my wave 1 backpack here too, which I ordered back in August (two prime ministers ago!)

It's supposedly been in the UK since Nov 7th however I haven't had any letter about customs - will update if I do get one, which by the looks of this thread I will

I feel you should have received it by now. I was early wave 2 and have already had the customs letter, paid, received backpack, and gotten the tax refund from LTT.

[gameofyou]

@DeltaBruggemannAnd what do you propose someone should do if support@lttstore.com does not respond? As I said I waited a week for a response, and I still have not received one. After a week waiting I saw this thread and so joined it. It has now been more like 2 week, and LTT have yet to acknowledge to me that this is a problem which they are looking at. Digging up "dead threads" on some forums is actually considered bad! But all the help i has so far been given include the lovely boiler plate I got from LTT about tax (which a support reply address) when it mention tax refers to the under £135 case! 

 

At the end of the day when a company ghosts you using a public forum is one of the only options, though I would agree a not very satisfactory one. I am sorry if you think it is wrong for people to use a forum for this and feel we should just passively sit back and wait for a response. I am however rather drawing a loss as to what to do next....

 

[msknight]

23 minutes ago, gameofyou said:

And what do you propose someone should do if support@lttstore.com does not respond?

 

Just a suggestion... we leave them alone and don't respond to them any more in this thread.  I might actually put them on ignore. There's enough negativity in the world already

[msknight]

1 hour ago, MrAmos123 said:

I feel you should have received it by now. I was early wave 2 and have already had the customs letter, paid, received backpack, and gotten the tax refund from LTT.

Well... I'm fortunate in that I can wait a while longer. What with the backpack, the screwdriver, all the regular stuff and if Linus has found out about the irregularities with the customs forms he's hopefully giving them something else to think about  ... I'm happy to wait a while longer. If the black shaft screwdrivers don't dispatch by the end of the month, then I'll put in a query. If Linus sticks by his ethics, it'll all get sorted out in the end; just need a bit of patience.

[msknight]

17 hours ago, corey2147 said:

Still waiting on my wave 1 backpack here too, which I ordered back in August (two prime ministers ago!)

It's supposedly been in the UK since Nov 7th however I haven't had any letter about customs - will update if I do get one, which by the looks of this thread I will

It likely came in via DHL and on the DHL tracking page should be a link with a parcel force reference number. That should have more detail on it, but I have noticed that parcel force and royal mail's track and trace web site has had problems for a few days, so you might have to give them a call once you've got the parcel force number from the DHL tracking page.

[corey2147]

14 minutes ago, msknight said:

It likely came in via DHL and on the DHL tracking page should be a link with a parcel force reference number. That should have more detail on it, but I have noticed that parcel force and royal mail's track and trace web site has had problems for a few days, so you might have to give them a call once you've got the parcel force number from the DHL tracking page.

 

2 hours ago, MrAmos123 said:

I feel you should have received it by now. I was early wave 2 and have already had the customs letter, paid, received backpack, and gotten the tax refund from LTT.

Just got my Parcelforce letter today (dated 8th Nov), post is a bit wonky in my area sometimes. I did notice Parcelforce website was under 'maintenance'.

Invoice paid and hopefully getting backpack on Thursday, now to play the waiting game with LTT support to get a refund

 

[gameofyou]

@corey2147 I had a problem (feel free to look at my tracking earier in this thread) where my parcel was at the sort office but repeatedly kept being miss sorted as they were busy and trying to get a different office to deliver it who then rejected it! I suggest you phone parcel force to find out what has happened, if you call 0344 800 4466 select the option for tracking then don't respond with a number 3 times your get put through to a human! But hopefully it will be plain sailing   (if you get delays) for the delivery after you have paid the charge

[DoctorNick]

On 11/10/2022 at 8:05 PM, MrAmos123 said:

I've received my Parcelforce letter demanding I pay £66.89 to release my backpack parcel.

What do I do here? LTTStore's support is non-existent or unacceptably slow. They give me 20 days to pay (before returned to sender), but my ticket has been open for 7 of those days without a reply.

 

Looking for the community for answers to an LTTStore problem... Doesn't make sense but it's all I have left.

I've paid for shipping/tax on the product, yet I'm being charged customs/import fee. I'm not sure how this makes any sense.

Shipping, tax and import fees isn't the same thing

[gameofyou]

1 hour ago, DoctorNick said:

Shipping, tax and import fees isn't the same thing

I am not sure what exactly what your trying to say here, I presume your not a back pack purchaser from the UK. Yes your right there are many different charges you could get when importing goods, parcel force is good enough to break is down for us (see pictures earlier in thread for example break downs). No one here to my knowledge as complained about the other costs only the "VAT" line (All be it I was rather surprised by them as I thought everything had been taken care of by the LTT store, but they do seem be in order). We are complaining about the "VAT" line because when we bought the good from the LTT store we were charged "TAXES" which amounted to 20% of the goods value (which happens to be the rate of VAT here). Unless someone can explain what these 20% taxes are on my LTT receipt and they are something other than VAT collection for the UK. I will continue to assume I have been double charged VAT.

 

I can completely understand why purchasers would assume everything had been taken care as the LTT store had charged them "TAX" (I did). However it would appear the error here is from LTT they should not have charged TAX, and Parcel Force are completely right to charge VAT, Import charges and Fee (really high).

 

So what we need now is for LTT to refund the money they charged in error. As I believe they have with MrAmos123 so sit tight and everything should be over by Christmas!

[Noodlefu]

Came across this thread wondering why DHL had been stuck with no update since the 3rd. Decided to go back to Wizmo where I saw a parcel force link and my heart sunk.

 

Clicking the link shows me it's been waiting a customs charge since the 3rd, but I've received no letter to pay what I imagine is going to be the same amount.

 

Looks like I need to call them tomorrow morning immediately. This isn't the first time I've had shipping issues to the UK from LTT store. Disappointing - and knowing support I doubt I'll get a reply in time. 

[YaBoiiGeorge]

43 minutes ago, Noodlefu said:

 

 

Clicking the link shows me it's been waiting a customs charge since the 3rd, but I've received no letter to pay what I imagine is going to be the same amount.

 

Yeah that sounds about right. I only just received my Parcelforce letter yesterday when it arrived in the UK on the 7th Nov. I chose to just call them on the 8th and get the reference number and pay as I wanted the backpack ASAP and wanted to sort this double VAT as quick as possible. I don't understand why their letters take so long to arrive.

[MrAmos123]

8 hours ago, Noodlefu said:

Came across this thread wondering why DHL had been stuck with no update since the 3rd. Decided to go back to Wizmo where I saw a parcel force link and my heart sunk.

 

Clicking the link shows me it's been waiting a customs charge since the 3rd, but I've received no letter to pay what I imagine is going to be the same amount.

 

Looks like I need to call them tomorrow morning immediately. This isn't the first time I've had shipping issues to the UK from LTT store. Disappointing - and knowing support I doubt I'll get a reply in time. 

Hope you get that letter in 20 days. On the Parcelforce letter it says, "We will hold your parcel for 20 days after the date of this letter, after which your parcel will be returned to sender." so if your letter is stuck in mail, you might receive it close or after the deadline. I don't even know what happens here. Do you get a refund, or do they reach out if you'd like it reshipped, who pays for that reshipping? 

[Noodlefu]

I'm not pleased. I called without my letter as I was worried about the 20 day holding limit, and found I had 1 day left remaining to pay this but didn't receive a letter or email prior to this indicating it was pending payment. I'll document the ABSURDETY of trying to find out I had to pay a customs charge in the first place below.

 

Thanks go out to this thread, as without coming across this, I don't think I'd have ever received my backpack due to not looking further into this...

 

Looking on the Wizmo website, it states it’s with the carrier, no instruction to click “Track at dhl.com”, at the top:

 

Click through to DHL via the logo/link at the top, says it’s arrived at pickup point, nothing further:

 

If you somehow magically figure out to click the hyperlink under Delivery by...., and refresh the page enough times for it to actually display data, it looks fine:

 

This is until you scroll ALL the way to the bottom (why would you do this?!):

 

If you then click on THIS link:

 

It's bonkers that I haven't received any tracking information via email about this (and I've checked my junk/spam folder). The fact that it's been sitting waiting a customs charge leaving 1 working day until it gets returned to sender, leaving me to do all the detective work and ultimately find I need to pay an ADDITIONAL GBP 68.91 is, unsurprisngly, not a pleasent experience. For anyone wondering, the 68.91 is broken down to:

Duty: £4.77
VAT: £52.14
Clearance Fee: £12.00
 

I'd love to know who's going to foot the bill for this. Before anyone elses asks, I've already contacted LTT Store about the ridiculouslness of finding out I had a package that needed a customs charge paying, and about the charge. Their action on this is going to define whether I spend another penny on the store (to which I'd add I've been quite the spender), and whether my day-1 Floatplane OG subscription is going to remain.

[msknight]

1 hour ago, Noodlefu said:

I'd love to know who's going to foot the bill for this.

The procedure is to pay the fees yourself, and then send a copy of the receipt to LTTStore and they'll refund your original VAT payment, because they took the VAT in error. If everything had gone as it should have gone, then you'd have been paying the UK customs anyway... that's what should have happened in the first place. Parcel Farce not getting you the customs letter is their issue, not LTT's... mine arrived five days after I'd already had my backpack delivered.

 

Only kill your OG floatplane subscription if you really don't care about it, because it'll probably hurt you more than it will them.

 

If you want to make a point, then not buying anything more from them is likely to be the strongest message. More to follow...

[msknight]

Personally, as a result of this, I killed my own floatplane subscription for a number of reasons.

 

I have been supporting Linus for many years because I like his ethics, what he's stood for, the effort and strain that he has put in, over the years... basically he's been a breath of fresh air. However, money has always been tight and the customs thing has been a major reason why I haven't bought much... having said that, the backpack and the screwdrivers have been the first things which stand a chance of making a difference in my life. (the backpack will be an upgrade to my infrastructure engineer tool bag, and the screwdriver will be a serious boon in the server room; being able to support a server with one hand, while the ratchet driver enables me to handle screws without battling the ratchet... but enough of that)

 

Some of the videos in the early days really helped me out. Being aligned to servers, the desktop has been an arena which has floated past me... I can't be an expert in everything. Thanks to some of the output, the Hyperion Fury is now my go-to mouse, I have six of them. (three in use, one in my laptop bag and another two spare because they're getting harder to find) The ten for under a hundred were very useful. I've got some of the tech that they featured because they made a difference in my life and I could afford them.

 

However, the later videos are really not much help. They're a bit showey, going really to extremes like burying servers, running hard drives in water, stuff that I'll never do, or be able to afford. They're good entertainment, sure, but I generally know what's going on in the IT world before it hits the quick bits... that's just because I work in that world and get the news from the same channels that others do. Seeing them make pettabyte servers and other things is fine, but there are other things taking my attention.

 

I do have hope for the labs... more of the kind of testing that took me to the Hyperion Fury... although for many things I'm already there... I have my headphone collection, I've already been on the journey of mechanical keyboards, etc.

 

So there has been a change in LTT... it doesn't necessarily serve me any more... and that's fine... all good relationships come to an end when the partners interests diverge. But Linus' ethics has been a key thing for me, and his stating that LTT do everything right by the tax situation, while already having put out a statement that there are known issues and problems... the crown is starting to slip, and the complaints and delays... while not all LTT's fault... are showing that I might as well back off for a while until everything is sorted out, and maybe come back to LTT next year and see what they're doing.

[msknight]

One thing that sticks in my mind is the halloween thing when Linus was giving away tech. Gave away some serious stuff to a few kids, word obviously got around, and the next child turned up and got a bag of sweets or something. I could hear the confusion and disappointment in his voice. I mean... anything for free, even a bag of sweets, is free... but Linus had set an expectation and... well, I just think that wasn't very well thought out. I just think of that confused kid and cringe a little inside.

 

It's a theme that seems to be creeping in more and more. The LTTStore must be under such a heck of a load right now because of timings with the screwdriver and backpack, and the delivery problems, and now potentially more quality issues? It's starting to be a fairly large company now and perhaps Linus is spreading himself too thinly... while also having to be the face of LTT. There's a lot of balls in the air and some of them look to be being dropped.

[Noodlefu]

1 hour ago, msknight said:

The procedure is to pay the fees yourself, and then send a copy of the receipt to LTTStore and they'll refund your original VAT payment, because they took the VAT in error. If everything had gone as it should have gone, then you'd have been paying the UK customs anyway... that's what should have happened in the first place. Parcel Farce not getting you the customs letter is their issue, not LTT's... mine arrived five days after I'd already had my backpack delivered.

 

Only kill your OG floatplane subscription if you really don't care about it, because it'll probably hurt you more than it will them.

 

If you want to make a point, then not buying anything more from them is likely to be the strongest message. More to follow...

 

I appreciate the letter issue is Parcel Farce's, not LTT's. Having said that, the rest of the debacle is within their hands to resolve. It is entirely within their power to automatically refund all VAT taken for orders into the UK, and they certainly have power over their shipping partners, who should have sent notifications via email (I have received these in the past, including for DHL, Parcel Force, etc, so I assume they're not passing on the right info in the first instance, and as a result, no notifications are received).

[msknight]

1 minute ago, Noodlefu said:

Having said that, the rest of the debacle is within their hands to resolve. It is entirely within their power to automatically refund all VAT taken for orders into the UK...

True. However, I don't think they can automatically refund VAT. Some people have received packages with $50 on the customs form, so if they refund those people, then no VAT would have been collected at all, by either LTT or HMRC, so this has opened up a real can of worms... and yes, as you say, it's in LTT's hands to resolve. Nothing we can do other than wait, I guess.