Wow-hd

[Sifox211]

Perhaps email them explaining the situation (which you'd hope they'd be aware of) and make sure they include either a VAT declaration or a return address?

[Nebiroth]

Originally Posted by Slice_N_Dice

Beginning to feel like I may have made a terrible mistake ordering the January bundle from Vinegar Syndrome on the 1st of Jan now...

I don't mind getting hit with the 20% fee once it arrives but don't really want it to never arrive.

Any others in the same boat?

VS always put an originating address on the package so the worst that could happen is that it will get bounced back. Have you had notice of despatch? If not then the most likely scenario is that USPS would refuse to accept it. It's my understanding that the primary enforcement mechanism is with the mail carriers who shoudl refuse to accept commercial items that do not have the "VAT paid" code on them. Just as they would now refuse a package with no Customs declaration on them (or should!)

But this, of course, assumes that all the parties are aware of the new rules. If it goes toa US Post Office the staff will certainly be aware than a non-US destined package requires a Customs slip, but might not be aware that there is a particular requirement for the UK (i.e. that there's a new simplified one and that it should show the VAT-paid code)

Given that HM Border is currently struggling with covid rules and the consequences of Brexit, I don;t think the policing of small, low value packages will be a top priority.

There were, after all, many instances in the past of packages that should have attracted Customs charges but which slipped through regardless.

I'd email VS. If they're not aware of this then they should be. Not least because in June the same system will apply to EU destined items as well, and indeed, already applies to Austrlian ones (though iirc there's a threshold there, whereby businesses that export volumes below a given annual limit are exempt, thus excluding low volume traders)

[malcy30]

The other complication with VS is because of the high fixed postage I tend to order a big batch of titles in the Half Way to Black Friday and Black Friday sales as they are reduced at those times.

The issue now is that as these orders are over £135 the new rules say this should be sent by the retailer tax free and then the customer pays import duty, VAT and handling fee on arrival in the UK.

However, VS never declared the full value on the customs label.

So no idea of what they plan to do now with orders to the UK. As noted are they aware of the new requirements, and have reacted.

Also as you say USPS should refuse their parcels to the UK without the tax paid label given it must be obvious to USPS they are a commercial enterprise given their parcel volume. But will a small local USPS sorting office / post office be fully aware of the rules if they get a whole heap of parcels for multiple countries jumbled up in one mail sack.

[Zaku-118]

I decided to bite the bullet and make an order from WowHD last night, and got a VAT Invoice this morning. So hoping everything goes smoothly

[philip74]

Originally Posted by Douglas R

I’ve been waiting 4 weeks for my Wow order to arrive, which even given the Christmas period is excessive. Tracking gives a Hermes number but not in a numeric length which Hermes recognise.

If it makes you feel better i received a WOW order that I was still missing from November 22nd today.

[Nebiroth]

Yeah I had one from Wow that was posted on December 12th and it was processed correctly (i.e. under the old rules)

[Douglas R]

Received my WOW order today which was shipped on 8 December. The package has a Jersey Post sticker and the label says 'Jersey Post Global' as the sender. Not seen that before.

[malcy30]

Originally Posted by Douglas R

Received my WOW order today which was shipped on 8 December. The package has a Jersey Post sticker and the label says 'Jersey Post Global' as the sender. Not seen that before.

They are the people who used to do the Play.com deliveries over a decade ago.

[Blu Lemmy]

aaahhhh play.com

Never had an issue with them.

[Markgway]

Ordered soooo many DVDs from Play.

#thosewerethedays

[Geoff D]

#theycertainlywere

Bought my first ever thing online ever at play.com, it was a R1 DVD of Fight Club IIRC (man, those really were the days when you could freely buy R1 and R2 discs on the same site before Play had to split them up). Can still remember how I was sweating bullets at putting my card details into this 'website' thingy and hoping that it wasn't gonna get hacked.

[Sky_Captain]

I looked at my order history before they folded and lmao @ people complaining about physical media prices today.

[malcy30]

Originally Posted by Sky_Captain

I looked at my order history before they folded and lmao @ people complaining about physical media prices today.

Exactly. £17.99 seemed to be the go to price for releases in those days as that was the tax free limit at the time from Jersey to the U.K. Subsequently cut to £14.99 then £0 for Channel Islands and now £0 everywhere.

Actually meant I was much more selective in what I bought. So a lot less random buys as they’re a low price so take a punt.

[eddyw78]

Originally Posted by Markgway

Ordered soooo many DVDs from Play.

#thosewerethedays

Yes, same here. They were my go to site along with CDWOW and if I wanted something a little more exotic Sazuma although their delivery was very hit and miss. Pre having the internet in our house I used US Direct. I used to write down my order and send it with a cheque and a few weeks later I would get my R1 DVDs through the post.

[Nielsb90]

Ordered 4 in-stock titles in order to get it shipped in a box (didnt want Parasite digipack damaged). Well - 3 of them shipped last night and guess which one didnt

[CinemaScope]

Originally Posted by Markgway

Ordered soooo many DVDs from Play.

#thosewerethedays

Yup, Play was my first order site, esp. for R1 discs, I bought loads. There was a question then as to whether was it even legal to buy them. There was a shop in London that used to sell R1 discs that used to get raided by the authorities every now & again

[drush9999]

I always bought R1 discs from a Canadian site in the early days 99/00, I forget the exact name, DVDBoxOffice or something, but was always cheaper than play.com for imports. Prior to that I used a mail order import service, which was pricy.

[minister_x]

I was always interested in that aspect - if a shop wanted to sell the imports in store, all the content would need to be rated by the BBFC (hence the raids mentioned above - clearly those releases could not be guaranteed to have been rated/granted a rating). Could the shop take a superior R1 edition (with more extras), submit the content to the BBFC, slap the relevant rating stickers over the import and sell it? Perhaps there is some subtlety there / implicit copyright violation. And I guess with DVDs, there was that time where the BBFC didn't allow two works with differing classifications to be sold at the same time...

[minister_x]

Originally Posted by drush9999

I always bought R1 discs from a Canadian site, I forget the exact name, DVDBoxOffice or something, but was always cheaper than play.com for imports. Prior to that I used a mail order import service, which was pricy.

And then there was DVDSoon (?) with its unsustainably low prices, including that $0.02 misprice that surely didn't help anything - 2c for a DVD delivered from Canada to the UK!

[drush9999]

Originally Posted by minister_x

And then there was DVDSoon (?) with its unsustainably low prices, including that $0.02 misprice that surely didn't help anything - 2c for a DVD delivered from Canada to the UK!

Yep I shifted over to DVDSoon later on, as well as DVDPacific which had slow shipping of 3 or 4 weeks but were dirt cheap and no bilingual covers