Seller set wrong item location & wrong shipping info. What can I do?

[andy3012]

Hi there,

I bought an Item (a Chinese phone to be precise) from a seller who set the Item location as United Kingdom, set shipping info as "Domestic Shipping to the UK" and even put a timeline on the listing showing UK as the shortest distance for shipping,the other day. The cost of the phone was higher than what I had seen on other Chinese websites so I presumed and after reading the listing that the product was already in the UK - thus negating any worry of having to pay VAT + Duty Tax when it arrives.

However, after paying for the item and receiving the shipping number (after asking for it more than once!) I found out that the Item wasn't in the UK and was actually in China! Which I feel is very deceitful of the seller considering his listing implications more than once that it's in the UK!

Obviously it's already in a process now so I can't bloody well cancel it - but I was wondering what can I actually do? I've tried communicating with the seller to arrange some kind of deal to get some money knocked off etc. but he won't respond to me.

If the phone gets stuck at the port which the VAT + Duty Tax required to be paid who is liable to pay? Can I refuse to pay and just allow the phone to get destroyed and claim back through Paypal as technically I won't have received the phone?

I could really use some advise please...

[TonyBridger]

Whilst I feel the seller should state that you might have to pay import duties a lot do not. They just expect buyers to know that.

The seller states he lives in the UK but does say the goods are here. The fact he says delivery may take 14 days to the UK would have started bells ringing for me.

As you have a tracking number maybe it would be best to wait and see what happens to the parcel. I recently received an expensive item from Hong Kong which was marked Import Duty paid so wasn't charged.

[andy3012]

5-14 days? I thought that was fairly average considering free postage domestically, I'm used to purchasing things with free postage on other websites with free postage and it taking almost a month to arrive if they come through cheap couriers.

Surely the panel on the right hand side of the auction where it lists quantity, condition, bids, views and location refers to the item?

[MPS16]

.....Surely the panel on the right hand side of the auction where it lists quantity, condition, bids, views and location refers to the item?

Location refers to the sellers registered address.

136454069

I suggest that the seller could be a Drop Shipper.

[andy3012]

Damn that's confusing if that's the case, since it already has the Sellers location as:
Peterborough, CAMBS, United Kingdom
On the left hand side... Why would there be 2 seller locations?

Do i have any form of protection through PayPal if I do end up having to pay for Duty Tax & Vat? This guy just tried to fob me off with a lame excuse that he was out of stock in the UK and had to order from China and then just as fast as he said that he also said he'd been doing this for 7 months, and nobody's ever paid taxes and duties for the items.

I worked in a Chinese company doing exports to the UK for quite a while and we initially sent packages marked "Gift" or "Sample" to avoid these fees but on occasion we'd get caught out and we always paid the fees for our customers - even if it ended up costing us more than the actual value of the item...

I could have bought the phone directly from one of my contacts but I was in a hurry to get it fast and thought:

"Hey, this listing says UK twice, domestic shipping is free and the length of time ain't too bad for something with free shipping + Japan is really far away and the shipping is double the duration which makes total sense! Also the price is more expensive than the Chinese sites - that must mean they're already in the country."

Bigger fool me I suppose...