Interest - have you bought from EU Europe in last 10yrs

[b1mble]

Flavour concentrates from France, eXpromizer parts from Germany, GG parts from Greece. NiMH cells from Holland.

Depends really if the postal charges outweigh the savings.

[toots]

Feb 3, 2016 12:47:48 GMT Lee said:

Spain were on a downer with vaping
From memory, they were trying to put a stop to online sales
www.linkedin.com/pulse/law-electronic-cigarettes-vaping-spain-ivan-vaper

Yeah Lee that's in the draft TPD - all online sales will be banned and they then can only be sold in pharmacies or specialist tobacco shops, so it looks like all the vaping shops will have to close down, all the online vaping sites will disappear.

Big problem for Tenerife vapers is that we don't have any of those 'specialist tobacco shops' here so we are left with just the pharmacies selling e-cigs - however I have spoken to a fair few pharmacies and they've all said they will 'not' be stocking e-cigs in the future - so gould knows where that leaves us

[Deleted]

Handbags - germany (including Mod Destroying bag I've had for years - 100 euros well spent (was £170 over here)

taifuns - germany

Odd bits and vaping bobs = holland/Denmark? (pink mule?)

Now I even boycott Lidl - cos it's german preferring m+s / fish shop

[toots]

Feb 3, 2016 9:00:11 GMT calnorth said:

Feb 2, 2016 23:07:04 GMT toots said:

I was buying quite a few of my concentrates plus little bits & pieces and a couple of mods from Spain fairly regularly till one of the packages suddenly acquired a customs charge of over 17 euros

So now I have gone back to buying those items from the UK as I don't get any customs charges when the UK sends anything over. It's real stooooopid when the Canaries are a part of Spain but we get charged custom fees for stuff bought from Spain - don't make any sense to me

The only other thing I've bought from another EU country, Germany, was a wacom pen for my bamboo designing pad - got clobbered with customs for that too. Damn pen cost 30 euros and I paid another 30 euros in customs fees on arrival, so it cost me double the amount in the end. I found out later I could have ordered one from Amazon UK cheaper and with no fear of customs fees

I don't know what would happen if the UK came out of the EU - I suppose I would get clobbered with customs charges when ordering from there - probably would be far cheaper for me to take a trip to the UK with an empty suitcase, fill it up with litre bottles of VG & god knows how many bottles of concentrates etc than to get the stuff posted out

That customs fee isn't right unless the shipping docs show no german vat charged at source? Looking at stuff of minor value quite closely..aren't they? 

If we go out of the EU I would have thought that VAT would not be double charged, then it moves to import duties. 

Tell me about it, that particular item was shipped via DHL and when DHL is involved we always have a customs charge - irrelevent of the cost of the item. Wacom was supposed to have sent a packet of 5 pen nibs with the pen but they forgot to pack it in the parcel. When I contacted them they said they would send these pen nibs out separately - I told them not to bother as I didn't want to have to pay any more customs charges for something as small as pen nibs. I ended up ordering these pen nibs from China with no customs charges added

[pedro]

Feb 3, 2016 13:16:58 GMT toots said:

Feb 3, 2016 9:00:11 GMT calnorth said:

That customs fee isn't right unless the shipping docs show no german vat charged at source? Looking at stuff of minor value quite closely..aren't they? 

If we go out of the EU I would have thought that VAT would not be double charged, then it moves to import duties. 

Tell me about it, that particular item was shipped via DHL and when DHL is involved we always have a customs charge - irrelevent of the cost of the item. Wacom was supposed to have sent a packet of 5 pen nibs with the pen but they forgot to pack it in the parcel. When I contacted them they said they would send these pen nibs out separately - I told them not to bother as I didn't want to have to pay any more customs charges for something as small as pen nibs. I ended up ordering these pen nibs from China with no customs charges added

Its cause the canaries are outside the EU VAT agreement (but inside the EU for travel and legislation) kind of like Gibraltar and channel Islands so even a person in the UK will be liable for VAT from British territories I listed. To further add confusion for UK people Isle of Man is not part of the UK or the EU its a crown dependency. But in the UK I wont be charged VAT for items from there as they have a VAT agreement with UK

[calnorth]

Feb 3, 2016 14:02:53 GMT pedro said:

Feb 3, 2016 13:16:58 GMT toots said:

Tell me about it, that particular item was shipped via DHL and when DHL is involved we always have a customs charge - irrelevent of the cost of the item. Wacom was supposed to have sent a packet of 5 pen nibs with the pen but they forgot to pack it in the parcel. When I contacted them they said they would send these pen nibs out separately - I told them not to bother as I didn't want to have to pay any more customs charges for something as small as pen nibs. I ended up ordering these pen nibs from China with no customs charges added

Its cause the canaries are outside the EU VAT agreement (but inside the EU for travel and legislation) kind of like Gibraltar and channel Islands so even a person in the UK will be liable for VAT from British territories I listed. To further add confusion for UK people Isle of Man is not part of the UK or the EU its a crown dependency. But in the UK I wont be charged VAT for items from there as they have a VAT agreement with UK

Which highlights the inconsistency of the whole thing...no wonder closer integration (cuffs) is definitely on the agenda.

[Bob]

Atties from Germany, Juices from France, Italy & Romania in the past, not so much these days, some items I get on Amazon come from EU countries rather than the UK, and of course the nasty one Cigarettes from Belgium mainly but any EU country I might have been on holiday in, because the wife still smokes, I managed to give up 2 years ago

[toots]

Feb 3, 2016 14:02:53 GMT pedro said:

Feb 3, 2016 13:16:58 GMT toots said:

Tell me about it, that particular item was shipped via DHL and when DHL is involved we always have a customs charge - irrelevent of the cost of the item. Wacom was supposed to have sent a packet of 5 pen nibs with the pen but they forgot to pack it in the parcel. When I contacted them they said they would send these pen nibs out separately - I told them not to bother as I didn't want to have to pay any more customs charges for something as small as pen nibs. I ended up ordering these pen nibs from China with no customs charges added

Its cause the canaries are outside the EU VAT agreement (but inside the EU for travel and legislation) kind of like Gibraltar and channel Islands so even a person in the UK will be liable for VAT from British territories I listed. To further add confusion for UK people Isle of Man is not part of the UK or the EU its a crown dependency. But in the UK I wont be charged VAT for items from there as they have a VAT agreement with UK

What gets to me though pedro is that I pay the Spanish VAT equivalent (IVA) at around 20% or more even though the Canaries maximum VAT equivalent (IGIC) is only 7% and some items even lower but still get charged customs on top of paying that Spanish equivalent VAT. Works out a damned expensive way of buying things.

Now when I buy from Amazon.co.uk I don't get charged any VAT at all, and don't get charged by customs this end. If I was to buy from Amazon.es (the Spanish Amazon) I would be liable for customs fees, not sure if they charge the Spanish equivalent VAT though or the Canarian one or no VAT at all - never ordered from the Spanish Amazon coz the postie told me I would be charged customs.

[nanotm]

I order stuff via amazon that comes fro macros the EU, one item I regularly order is manufactured in Dortmund and regularly has a £20 delivery charge switched around to make it expensive because its shipped direct then switched around and becomes free with prime when it gets shipped to the local warehouse..... to be fair I always wait for it to be a prime item before ordering, some pc items I used to order via a website in Germany (company based in Holland) due to the negative tax rate they charged (it was a bit of a trick though, you order the item C.O.D. then ring them up and pay for it over the phone so it gets shipped to the UK, because in Germany deutche post would apply the taxes and a shipping fee when you showed up to pay for it) of course probably 50% of the stuff I buy every month is listed as being EU produce (I doubt that any of it did more than get packagaed there) I use lidl and aldi when I get the chance, but since its all shipped to the uk or produced in the uk as far as i'm concerned because that's where I buy it (like the Spanish French irish german Belgian booze and food) strangly even after being home for more than a decade I still love a lot of the delicacies that were everyday food when I lived in Germany, actually despite it being 20+ years since I lived in france for 9 months that still holds true for certain French food items (although fortunately they have been available in the UK for a lot longer)