After not ordering from Banggood for a long time (too many bad experiences), my cheap inner me got the better of me. A deal to good to resist, so I gave it another try and see how it goes with their “no import tax because we pay and declare taxes for you already promise”. Well, that was a mistake.
Banggood is NOT IOSS compliant apparently. Customs is holding the package prisoner until I pay taxes and handling costs (a 43% increase in price, not including taxes already paid to Banggood!). So I called customs to ask what’s going on. They were kind enough to send my photographic evidence that there is no IOSS number on the package and thus no taxes paid. Haven’t figured out what my options are yet, but one thing is for sure; Banggood is permanently on my online shop ban list.
If BG was IOSS compliant and added tax at order, the price you had to pay would anyway increase accordingly. Your only loss now is the customs handling fee, how much?
What is your order worth? I’ve ordered multiple items from Banggood lately to Sweden and not been requested to pay any taxes… yet I should say.
I received one yesterday. However, I do leave the default “insurance” fee for VAT option on. The items I bought I would have bought anyway if the “insurance” was not an option and already added to it’s price so I left it. I also order with Klarna “pay in 30 days option” so I don’t prepay anything either, I pay when I receive the order. I figured they would be more inclined to bother to do it right if I don’t prepay and include that small insurance fee. So far they haven’t screwed with me.
strange all my orders from banggood always came through holland and it showed no signs the packages origin was from china… maybe thins changed now? havent order there since a few months ago… they even state on their website u shouldnt have to pay vat…
Got a reply from BG and it’s your typical bs answer:
While on it’s own this is correct. But they explicitly state “VAT and duties(if applicable) have been included in their selling prices, and you don’t need to pay additional tax.” and it’s on the invoice. Not to mention why would I buy insurance if they make it clear in every product description and their FAQ that taxes are already covered. Insurance is not checked by default btw (why does this option even exist when they stress that no additional costs should arise?).
From their FAQ:
It’s not about the money, it’s about the principle. This is just not ok.
Well you convinced me. Gearbest was already stricken from my shortlist. I’ve moved Banggood to the section “if they are the last and only store who sells what I need”.
Since most sellers (also) have a store in the Ali-building I know where to go to.
Fast delivery and no additional handling fees.
I noticed it was shipping insurance that was on by default, not VAT insurance. I have a few more orders on they way that have been shipped so I’ll just have to see. If I get screwed I might try a dispute with Klarna payment system and see how they handle it.
but does the package actually show its from china ? if so then things have changed at banggood… i have like 20+ orders last few years and never got to pay any insurance to them just standard priority mail shipping and no fees…
I used to use EU priority mail before I was fed up with them the 1st time and long before IOSS was in place. That went good (but also more expensive, but still cheaper than import handling fees).
Scan customs send to me (only address and phone removed):
After 3 replies from BG from an equal amount of different persons, all repeating the same standard reply, I’m done with this for the day. It’s a broken record, just the same thing over and over again. I’m starting to think it’s a bot and not real persons. Probably triggered by the word “customs”, since the actual contents of mails is completely ignored. Their live chat is definitely a bot. Me and a colleague did some probing some time ago. After getting suspicious I asked it “Are you even human?”. Got “I am x and are here to help” as reply. That settled it
Taking a good night rest and think of how much energy I want to spend on this. Off course I can continue mailing (incl customs) or maybe refuse to pay so it’s gets send back and try to get money back (BG or VISA), but it’s starting to get under my skin and that’s not worth it.
PS, another weird thing is that I ordered a single flashlight (Convoy S11). Why is the package so big? What else is in there… There’s also a photo of the backside and in good BG tradition the package is ripped. You can clearly see 2 separate and differently sizes things… a smaller box and something bigger. Is this even my order?! My name’s on the label though.
PS 2, anyone ever noticed there are never any Asian named persons working at Banggood. Always have to deal with Eddie, Jason, Jean, Susan, etc…
TL;DR Banggood has the most shittiest customer service I have ever come across.
They’re nearly off my list now, too, and I’m in the US where I don’t have to wrangle with these new changes. I would copy those two FAQ passages and use those in a dispute, maybe get refunded the same amount as the fees…it’s possible your card issuer has similar protections as PayPal does, and since this likely falls under fraud you’re more likely to get some resolution.
I was a purchasing agent about 25 years ago when the China-import and small vendor game was really starting to ramp up in the US. Certainly was a learning curve to arrive at sales/deals/transactions with the language difficulties and some vastly different cultural perspectives. Pretty much everyone we dealt with was named Peter or John or Mark, and one David. It was intimated that they did this for “our benefit” so that we could call them something familiar and comfortable…or that they didn’t believe we were capable of understanding or pronouncing their real given names. Kinda weird…still like that, though, as the trend stuck. We didn’t see this with vendors from India or Vietnam, though, just China.
It’s not a sales thing… all Chinese systems engineers I’ve worked with over the years have used English names.
“Chinese people began to give themselves English names after the Reform and Opening Up in the late 1970s, when they were exposed increasingly to western cultures. For many, English names are informal haos that represent another layer of identity.”
Our info came directly from one of our vendors after we’d developed a pretty good relationship and finally just asked him about it at a show. Anything handwritten they’d use their real name (characters) but spoken it was always the moniker. Fun and interesting experiences for the most part. Interesting to see how the market has changed and so vastly expanded, too ( just talking direct, not all the middleman “brands” these days). The latter part of the info above was almost offensive but it was explained that it wasn’t meant that way at all and was based more upon what they’d been told of our culture. Go figure.
if its a CN22 sticker then thats why they want fees, because from china that sticker is needed when sending stuff abroad… so they have changed to worse now… what a shame
