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Beware when orderimg from ST.com - nasty surprise

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VK3DRB:
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.

Psi:
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.


thm_w:

--- Quote from: VK3DRB 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.

--- End quote ---

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

Someone:

--- Quote from: Psi on January 05, 2023, 09:55:10 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)
--- End quote ---
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.

thm_w:

--- Quote from: Someone on January 06, 2023, 10:05:51 pm ---
--- Quote from: Psi on January 05, 2023, 09:55:10 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)
--- End quote ---
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.

--- End quote ---

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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