Author Topic: Beware when orderimg from ST.com - nasty surprise  (Read 4572 times)

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Offline BreakingOhmsLawTopic starter

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Beware when orderimg from ST.com - nasty surprise
« on: December 30, 2022, 01:23:47 pm »
Hi everybody,

you might be subscribed to the ST newsletter and took advantage of their "free" shipping promotion in November.
I did, and ordered another STLink for my lab.

Today I found an invoice from FedEx in my mailbox for import taxes that nearly doubled the amount i paid for the damn STLink.

In the EU, the import VAT is calculated from the value of the merchandise plus the cost of shipping.
Of course i did not pay for shipping, but Fedex set an amount of €36,04 for shipping that I now have to pay taxes for. Plus an administrativer fee.
Thanks for the "free" shipping ST! %&$§% you very much! I ended up paying €17 more than if I would have just ordered it from Digikey.

So beware before ordering from ST.
 
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Online tom66

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Re: Beware when orderimg from ST.com - nasty surprise
« Reply #1 on: December 30, 2022, 01:39:34 pm »
Ouch.  I really hate how much the courier companies charge for paying the VAT.  It's extortionate.  If you refuse the delivery, do you still need to pay? 

However, in future, if ordering from a company outside of the EU, the VAT must be paid at the checkout to avoid this, this is called "DDP".  Digi-Key offer this, as do Mouser.  Arrow *did* offer it, but I heard they withdrew it at some point, I'm not sure if they still do offer it, but the last time I ordered from them with DDP they totally screwed up the DDP and I ended up with a large bill, which they covered after a lot of arguing back and forth.
« Last Edit: December 30, 2022, 01:41:19 pm by tom66 »
 
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Offline PartialDischarge

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Re: Beware when orderimg from ST.com - nasty surprise
« Reply #2 on: December 30, 2022, 01:55:45 pm »
That’s strange, FedEx uses the invoice to make customs payment, they cannot add anything extra( customs can)
So what you should pay is their administrative fee + Vat of the invoice
 

Offline Shay

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Re: Beware when orderimg from ST.com - nasty surprise
« Reply #3 on: December 30, 2022, 02:48:50 pm »
Ouch.  I really hate how much the courier companies charge for paying the VAT.  It's extortionate.  If you refuse the delivery, do you still need to pay? 

However, in future, if ordering from a company outside of the EU, the VAT must be paid at the checkout to avoid this, this is called "DDP".  Digi-Key offer this, as do Mouser.  Arrow *did* offer it, but I heard they withdrew it at some point, I'm not sure if they still do offer it, but the last time I ordered from them with DDP they totally screwed up the DDP and I ended up with a large bill, which they covered after a lot of arguing back and forth.
I have refused the delivery many times when the fees were 1.5x the price the product. They'll call every day, and you'll tell them the same thing, it goes on and on for a few days until they give up, and in 99% of the times, wont return the package to the seller, they would simple destory it or something.
After that, you'll be stuck in a gray zone, since the seller wants to refund only after the package will be recieved, but it will either take months, or it wont get there at all.
 

Offline Thunderer

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Re: Beware when orderimg from ST.com - nasty surprise
« Reply #4 on: December 30, 2022, 04:12:26 pm »
Before buying anything, make sure the Incoterms are well indicated before clicking Place Order. The DDP is the safest (all duties paid), but any other will get you fees beyond your wildest thoughts.

So, it is not on ST, it is on the international rules and the shipper.

I once purchased from Mikroelektronika (Serbia) while visiting Sweden. DHL delivered as if I was a EU citizen. 2 weeks after, they called me and beg me to pay some fees because they realized that I paid with a canadian credit card, so I wasn't a real EU citizen, and the amount of the invoice was superior to some maximum exemption value. I paid for a simple reason: all deliveries I made during my visit were to my employer, so they sent all invoices to my employer directly (I know, they are stupid, I paid with my personal credit card). If I would have not paid, they would have again and again contacted accounting at my job.
 
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Offline MrMobodies

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Re: Beware when orderimg from ST.com - nasty surprise
« Reply #5 on: December 30, 2022, 08:15:42 pm »

en.ST Terms and Conditions of Sales.pdf
Quote
STMicroelectronics – Terms and Conditions of Sale (rev. date: February 2022)
STMICROELECTRONICS
TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF SALE

In these Terms and Conditions of Sale (these “Terms and Conditions”), “Seller” shall mean the STMicroelectronics legal entity providing Products (defined below) to the purchaser of such Products (“Buyer”).
1. ORDERS AND CONFIRMATION: Unless otherwise stated in a written agreement duly signed by Seller, these Terms and Conditions shall apply to all sales of semiconductor and/or other products by Seller to Buyer (“Products”), including Products sold as processed, unpackaged semiconductor chips, or processed wafers. Notwithstanding the terms and conditions set forth in any document from Buyer, including, without limitation, as may be found in Buyer’s purchase orders or consignment pull orders, Buyer agrees that Seller’s acceptance and confirmation (“Order Confirmation”) of Buyer’s order, either in writing or, when agreed by Seller for the purposes hereof, by electronic mail or by EDI, constitutes (i) Buyer’s acceptance of these Terms and Conditions and (ii) Buyer’s agreement that none of the terms and conditions contained in any document from Buyer shall apply, unless such terms and conditions have been expressly accepted in a written agreement duly signed by Seller.

2. DELIVERY, TRANSFER OF TITLE, PRICES, PRODUCT SPECIFICATIONS: Transfer of title shall take place upon delivery Ex-Works (Incoterms 2010) at Seller’s designated facility unless otherwise specified by Seller. Price of Products (i) exclude any applicable tax, customs duty, tariff, levy and/or similar charge imposed by any public authority, all of which shall, where Seller is required by law to pay or collect them, be added to the price by Seller and paid by Buyer; and (ii) are based on economic and financial conditions at the date of Seller’s Order Confirmation. For Products not yet shipped, Seller may adjust prices prior to delivery, to account for any significant increase in the cost of raw materials, metals, fuels or other production related costs. The cost of non-standard packaging is not included in the price of Products and any corresponding additional costs shall be charged separately to Buyer; all instructions concerning non-standard packaging, weight and customs may be considered and abided to by Seller in its sole discretion, provided such instructions are clear and received by Seller with reasonable prior notice. Carriage of Products shall be at Buyer's sole risk. Reasonable care is exercised in packaging goods for shipment and no responsibility is assumed by Seller for delay or damage after delivery. Buyer will file any claims for damage with its carrier, and Seller will reasonably assist Buyer’s pursuit of such claims. Unless otherwise stated in a written agreement duly signed by Seller, the applicable “Specifications” for Products shall be solely those specifications stated in Seller’s data sheet at the time of the Order Confirmation and Seller reserves the right to change Product Specifications at any time and without notice.


It would have been nice to put a disclaimer at the bottom something like:
"*Free delivery offer over $99 applicable to certain states only, excludes tax, customs and important charges.
For more details read terms and conditions."
 

Offline Bud

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Re: Beware when orderimg from ST.com - nasty surprise
« Reply #6 on: December 30, 2022, 08:22:05 pm »
I found FedEx being reasonable when calling them about unexpected charges. On some occasions they even talked back to the merchant to sort out shipping charges. FedEx in my experience is much better in this regard then UPS, at least here. And they waved different fees a few times I called them. I guess you could try, though I do understand EU may be a totally different animal.
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Offline BreakingOhmsLawTopic starter

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Re: Beware when orderimg from ST.com - nasty surprise
« Reply #7 on: December 30, 2022, 09:50:20 pm »
However, in future, if ordering from a company outside of the EU[..]

ST is a French/Italian company, but they used Mouser for shipping from Texas.

Not what you'd expect.
 

Offline EPAIII

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Re: Beware when orderimg from ST.com - nasty surprise
« Reply #8 on: January 03, 2023, 09:32:18 am »
If it is a Value Added Tax, just how and how much does shipping add to the value? Seems to me that it adds nothing.



Hi everybody,

you might be subscribed to the ST newsletter and took advantage of their "free" shipping promotion in November.
I did, and ordered another STLink for my lab.

Today I found an invoice from FedEx in my mailbox for import taxes that nearly doubled the amount i paid for the damn STLink.

In the EU, the import VAT is calculated from the value of the merchandise plus the cost of shipping.
Of course i did not pay for shipping, but Fedex set an amount of €36,04 for shipping that I now have to pay taxes for. Plus an administrativer fee.
Thanks for the "free" shipping ST! %&$§% you very much! I ended up paying €17 more than if I would have just ordered it from Digikey.

So beware before ordering from ST.
Paul A.  -   SE Texas
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You will find that it has discrete steps.
 

Offline Miyuki

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Re: Beware when orderimg from ST.com - nasty surprise
« Reply #9 on: January 03, 2023, 01:04:36 pm »
You can do taxes yourself
But it is deliberately complicated to do so, to deter people and collect more taxes  ::)
And you use a bank statement as a base for tax calculation and pay tax only from the amount you really send
 

Online themadhippy

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Re: Beware when orderimg from ST.com - nasty surprise
« Reply #10 on: January 03, 2023, 01:42:56 pm »
Quote
And you use a bank statement as a base for tax calculation

great idea as that means i wont pay tax on 2 jobs i do a year that pay me in  pound notes that never get to see my bank account.
 

Offline jfiresto

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Re: Beware when orderimg from ST.com - nasty surprise
« Reply #11 on: January 03, 2023, 01:46:42 pm »
If it is a Value Added Tax, just how and how much does shipping add to the value? Seems to me that it adds nothing....
How much value does a part have for a circuit you are testing/building/selling, if it is still sitting in a warehouse on another continent? A bird in the hand....
-John
 
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Offline Faranight

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Re: Beware when orderimg from ST.com - nasty surprise
« Reply #12 on: January 05, 2023, 06:38:33 am »
If it is a Value Added Tax, just how and how much does shipping add to the value? Seems to me that it adds nothing.
It doesn't, but shipping itself is a service, which is taxable by itself. I wondered the same a few years ago i.e. why do we have to pay more, if we ship an object from EU to US and then back. The object is the same as it was before, so how come it now costs more? And an act of simply increasing something's price apparently counts as added value, even without any physical change to the object in question. Yuck.
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Offline Jeroen3

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Re: Beware when orderimg from ST.com - nasty surprise
« Reply #13 on: January 05, 2023, 06:50:44 am »
However, in future, if ordering from a company outside of the EU[..]

ST is a French/Italian company, but they used Mouser for shipping from Texas.

Not what you'd expect.
Can you name an equivalent eu-based distributor for mouser?
 

Offline Berni

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Re: Beware when orderimg from ST.com - nasty surprise
« Reply #14 on: January 05, 2023, 07:00:22 am »
Yeah unfortunately we have to deal with this crap when importing stuff into Europe.

None of this is STs fault. It is the local government enforcing import tax and then shipping carriers using it as an excuse to charge more money.

This is the reason why i love AliExpress shipping options. It costs a bit extra but they somehow magically get the package into the EU and then send it trough the post from there. As a result there is never any import bullshit.
 

Offline VK3DRB

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Re: Beware when orderimg from ST.com - nasty surprise
« Reply #15 on: January 05, 2023, 09:21:30 am »
You Europeans are not alone. In Australia, Fedex collects the shipping cost, the GST (ie: VAT) for the government, plus an obscure government import tax, plus another obscure "administration fee" which is not cheap considering the process is all automated by computer. I don't mind paying shipping or the GST, but the rest is price gouging (or in Australian vernacular, a ripoff). DHL is not much better. They hold you to ransom by not releasing the goods until you pay every cent they demand. They do it because they can.
 

Online Psi

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Re: Beware when orderimg from ST.com - nasty surprise
« Reply #16 on: January 05, 2023, 09:55:10 am »
Yep, i've had this from DHL as well.
Usually on digikey invoices if they get close to the limit.

I think what happens is either

- They look at the invoice, can't see a shipping cost shown (because it was free) so looks up the shipping price in their system and adds it onto the invoice.

Or

- They look at the invoice and find there is a shipping price listed, but unknown to them it's just their for reference not something you actually paid separately.
They look for the invoice total and the shipping cost and add them together. Likely because their computer system wants a separate goods cost and shipping cost.  (Subtracting the shipping cost from the total to get the goods cost is one step too difficult for them to bother with.)

It's probably also more complicated by the fact that sometimes goods are shipping on a FEDEX/DHL account, so sometimes an invoice wont show anything related to shipping at all, but it must be added on to get the total shipping cost to comply with the rules, So they look it up and add it on manually.  In this situation that is correct, but when they do this procedure to a freeshipping order it's not.


It really comes down to a legal question. If you buy something as 'free shipping' what does the law say about it.
A) Did you pay the shipping cost as something incorporated into the cost of all the goods you bought. (You could argue the seller will be making their goods more expensive to cover free shipping)
Or
B) Did the seller just choose to not charge you for shipping. So there was a shipping cost but the seller paid it themselves. In which case the true cost of the shipment is more than what you paid for it.

If A then they should NOT be adding it on a 2nd time as that causes you to be double-taxed for part of your shipment.
If B then they are correct to add on the true shipping cost to comply with shipping rules that say import tax include shipping costs.


« Last Edit: January 05, 2023, 10:10:56 am by Psi »
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Online thm_w

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Re: Beware when orderimg from ST.com - nasty surprise
« Reply #17 on: January 06, 2023, 09:52:13 pm »
You Europeans are not alone. In Australia, Fedex collects the shipping cost, the GST (ie: VAT) for the government, plus an obscure government import tax, plus another obscure "administration fee" which is not cheap considering the process is all automated by computer. I don't mind paying shipping or the GST, but the rest is price gouging (or in Australian vernacular, a ripoff). DHL is not much better. They hold you to ransom by not releasing the goods until you pay every cent they demand. They do it because they can.

Yes and no, it is gouging, but you are legally required to pay GST, so there is no way they can release it to you.
Most likely its possible to self clear in advance, if you have excess time on your hands https://www.abf.gov.au/imports/Pages/How-to-import/Import-declarations.aspx
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Online Someone

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Re: Beware when orderimg from ST.com - nasty surprise
« Reply #18 on: January 06, 2023, 10:05:51 pm »
Did you pay the shipping cost as something incorporated into the cost of all the goods you bought. (You could argue the seller will be making their goods more expensive to cover free shipping)
Digikey also marks up for foreign destinations (fill a cart in USD to a US address, then do another in USD to a non US address) so "free" shipping is a marketing thing and the prices most certainly are increased to cover the costs.
 
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Online thm_w

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Re: Beware when orderimg from ST.com - nasty surprise
« Reply #19 on: January 06, 2023, 11:09:45 pm »
Did you pay the shipping cost as something incorporated into the cost of all the goods you bought. (You could argue the seller will be making their goods more expensive to cover free shipping)
Digikey also marks up for foreign destinations (fill a cart in USD to a US address, then do another in USD to a non US address) so "free" shipping is a marketing thing and the prices most certainly are increased to cover the costs.

Yeah, general shipping, but also can include duties, customs clearance, and currency conversions.
Example part is 10.20 USD on .com or 15.86 CAD on .ca, roughly a 16% increase in price. Just wildly guessing the average order might be $140, so ~$22 markup.
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Re: Beware when orderimg from ST.com - nasty surprise
« Reply #20 on: January 07, 2023, 12:08:39 am »
Did you pay the shipping cost as something incorporated into the cost of all the goods you bought. (You could argue the seller will be making their goods more expensive to cover free shipping)
Digikey also marks up for foreign destinations (fill a cart in USD to a US address, then do another in USD to a non US address) so "free" shipping is a marketing thing and the prices most certainly are increased to cover the costs.

Yeah, general shipping, but also can include duties, customs clearance, and currency conversions.
Example part is 10.20 USD on .com or 15.86 CAD on .ca, roughly a 16% increase in price. Just wildly guessing the average order might be $140, so ~$22 markup.
For example digikey are not offering DDP terms to Australia unlike say mouser, so clearance and duties/taxes are all paid by the recipient to the courier. Currency conversion is a non-starter too as that cost is paid by the customer (digikey receiving USD). So any markup is for international drama/support and most of all; shipping.
 

Offline tooki

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Re: Beware when orderimg from ST.com - nasty surprise
« Reply #21 on: January 07, 2023, 01:36:37 am »
However, in future, if ordering from a company outside of the EU[..]

ST is a French/Italian company, but they used Mouser for shipping from Texas.

Not what you'd expect.
Can you name an equivalent eu-based distributor for mouser?
The Distrelec group and Farnell are two. (Well, they're technically both headquartered in non-EU Europe, but they both have EU warehouses.)
 

Online Psi

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Re: Beware when orderimg from ST.com - nasty surprise
« Reply #22 on: January 07, 2023, 01:55:01 am »
Did you pay the shipping cost as something incorporated into the cost of all the goods you bought. (You could argue the seller will be making their goods more expensive to cover free shipping)
Digikey also marks up for foreign destinations (fill a cart in USD to a US address, then do another in USD to a non US address) so "free" shipping is a marketing thing and the prices most certainly are increased to cover the costs.

Definitely. The question is, when this is done, are you paying for shipping or not.
If you are paying for shipping then what part of your payment is for the shipping. This amount is the shipping cost and DHL/Fedex should not be adding their own shipping cost on top since that would be paying for it twice.
If you are not paying for shipping then DHL/Fedex have to add the shipping cost in and the only value they have for this is the one in their system for your shipment. So they add that to the total.

(Of course this only applies in countries where the law says that items are taxed based on the value including shipping)
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Online Someone

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Re: Beware when orderimg from ST.com - nasty surprise
« Reply #23 on: January 07, 2023, 02:50:25 am »
Did you pay the shipping cost as something incorporated into the cost of all the goods you bought. (You could argue the seller will be making their goods more expensive to cover free shipping)
Digikey also marks up for foreign destinations (fill a cart in USD to a US address, then do another in USD to a non US address) so "free" shipping is a marketing thing and the prices most certainly are increased to cover the costs.
Definitely. The question is, when this is done, are you paying for shipping or not.
If you are paying for shipping then what part of your payment is for the shipping. This amount is the shipping cost and DHL/Fedex should not be adding their own shipping cost on top since that would be paying for it twice.
If you are not paying for shipping then DHL/Fedex have to add the shipping cost in and the only value they have for this is the one in their system for your shipment. So they add that to the total.

(Of course this only applies in countries where the law says that items are taxed based on the value including shipping)
If you paid for product(s) with free delivery, there is no defensible way they can "add" imaginary value to the shipment. But if they should it'll be endless rabbit holes of claiming not their fault, no liability, and  "too bad as it has been submitted to the abf and its not refundable". Even when 100% their own fault for misrepresenting the value of the packages to the abf.

It is the usual problem with the couriers and big business, they have your (expensive) shipment and will make up any random excuses to pull money from you (who remembers redelivery charges?) even if they are outside the law because well they are huge and have lawyers and you are not. Fighting it will end up costing more than their demands, and any "win" will be a no admission of guilt/liability situation that cannot be used as precedent or shared with others....

having pushed down this several times before! Auspost are just as bad when it comes to non-standard situations or trying to claim "extra cover" (not insurance, excludes liability for just about everything, almost impossible to claim on, will take you several days filling rounds of duplicate in paper work to their satisfaction).

So much easier when shipments in that grey region come through the postal service, and leave the expensive stuff for DDP terms.

/rant
 

Offline free_electron

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Re: Beware when orderimg from ST.com - nasty surprise
« Reply #24 on: January 07, 2023, 03:03:29 am »
tl;dr but this thing is made in the EU and you are in the EU ... why are you paying import duty ?

Unless... this is a US only promotion in which case this thing will be shipped from either Digikey or Mouser or a US place....

Beware of promotions : they are very often region bound.
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