Ordering From Cousins

[Rafael]

On 9/10/2020 at 9:27 AM, Mark said:

Well, let's be clear - looking at the title of this thread people could assume the VAT and Customs charges are from Cousins when clearly they are from your countries government. Or did Cousins ALSO charge UK vat (20%) on your order? In other words, if you have been DOUBLE charged duties from both countries then maybe you need to seek advice from a TAX lawyer to claim back either the UK levy or the Swedish levy.

I live in Thailand and have been waiting for a package from Cousins to clear customs for the past week Cousins did not charge VAT as it is an export, and VAT was 7% and customs duty normally 5% they decided would be 10% because they say watch repair tools should be at a higher rate (crazy but true) PLUS I had to pay a fee to UPS for clearing services and another bullshit charge I cant even work out was for, but I can't do nothing about it so I accept it if I want to import products from other countries.

I am not a huge fan of Cousins, but it's clearly not their fault that governments rake these TAX's from us - the money doesn't go in their (cousins) pockets!

Hope you don't mind me asking but when did you move to Thailand? Looking back the Seiko video was a hint, but I always assumed you live in the UK 

Edited September 11, 2020 by Rafael

[Rafael]

What was your parcel value? I live in Israel and buy quite often from Cousins. Cousins don't charge me with any VAT (which is usually the case in export transactions) but if my package value is higher the the Israeli threshold of 75 USD (~60 GBP), i'll need to pay local Israeli VAT (17%). Maybe the same principle applies in Sweden. From what I read online, they shouldn't have billed you fot VAT if you live in Sweden so i'd start by asking them to explain.

[jdm]

13 hours ago, Rafael said:

What was your parcel value? I live in Israel and buy quite often from Cousins. Cousins don't charge me with any VAT (which is usually the case in export transactions) but if my package value is higher the the Israeli threshold of 75 USD (~60 GBP), i'll need to pay local Israeli VAT (17%). Maybe the same principle applies in Sweden. 

As mentioned above, Sweden doesn't have a VAT import allowance or threshold - everything from outside the EU gets charged.
By mistake one can be charged even if it's coming coming from a the UK.
I think Cousins is not helping by placing a Custom Value form on the package which may misled the operators, even if that is not required at the present time.

[Flubber]

Update.

I have still not gotten an answer from PostNord but yesterday when I came home home from work I found a slip that said I could pick up my package from the local service point so I did and I did not have to pay any extra charges so it must've been a slip up.

On 9/11/2020 at 12:55 PM, Flubber said:

Do you have any good watch parts/tools dealer in Thailand you may recommend ?

I didn't realize there already existed a list with part suppliers here on te forum.

https://www.watchrepairlessons.com/2019/11/08/watch-parts-tools-suppliers/

 

But when searching the net I found this one probably located Italy.

https://www.swissforniture.it/

Perhaps @Mark could add it to the list since I could not se it there.

Edited September 12, 2020 by Flubber
Fixed spelling.

[jdm]

35 minutes ago, Flubber said:

But when searching the net I found this one probably located Italy.

https://www.swissforniture.it/

I do not recommend buying from a materials house in Italy, or for that matter, from any other EU country unless they are the only one having what you need. You would pay more compared to Cousins UK which has a nice best price promise, and not get a VAT exemption even if you qualify for one.

[Flubber]

55 minutes ago, jdm said:

I do not recommend buying from a materials house in Italy, or for that matter, from any other EU country unless they are the only one having what you need. You would pay more compared to Cousins UK which has a nice best price promise, and not get a VAT exemption even if you qualify for one.

Yes, that is one of the things I like with cousins, that and that it is usually easy to find what you need (if they have it) on their website and to a reasonable price compared to others but who knows what happens and what the prices will be after Brexit :-( 
 

Besides, quite a few retailers don't want to deal with hobbyists (another plus for cousins).

[jdm]

1 minute ago, Flubber said:

Yes, that is one of the things I like with cousins, that and that it is usually easy to find what you need (if they have it) on their website and to a reasonable price compared to others but who knows what happens and what the prices will be after Brexit :-( 

Net prices will remain the same. VAT will be charged only on domestic orders. Each country will continue to apply VAT or any other duties as they do now, that means in EU countries someone will pay more and and some less.
If there will be a trade agreement with the EU that won't change much to EU buyers, because that won't cover VAT, and most often the import duty fees are so small to be waived.

1 minute ago, Flubber said:

Besides, quite a few retailers don't want to deal with hobbyists (another plus for cousins).

Formally Cousins is not different, when buying from them you accept trade terms, that is no returns at will and other consumer protections. It's just that they accept your declaration without further verification. Surely I wish there were more sellers as good.  

[Geoffrey]

On 12/5/2020 at 9:31 AM, Geoffrey said:

Thanks for this info. Much appreciated. I have ordered a total of 7 products as recommended by Mark in his post further up this forum. It's Christmas after all!

After some complications in sourcing and ordering (CousinsUK doesn't get great reviews so I tried a few German vendors but there were stock issues, so in the end, after issues with banking and card verifications etc etc and zero human response from CousinsUK), the lubricants arrived this morning.....Happy Day!

[jdm]

1 hour ago, Geoffrey said:

After some complications in sourcing and ordering (CousinsUK doesn't get great reviews so I tried a few German vendors but there were stock issues, so in the end, after issues with banking and card verifications etc etc and zero human response from CousinsUK), the lubricants arrived this morning.....Happy Day!

Where did read bad reviews? To the contrary, mine and  other members experience with Cousins UK has been nothing but greatly positive. I always had immediate response and action for issues submitted via the online system.

[clockboy]

32 minutes ago, jdm said:

Where did read bad reviews? To the contrary, mine and  other members experience with Cousins UK has been nothing but greatly positive. I always had immediate response and action for issues submitted via the online system.

Agree I have found Cousins really helpful and very reasonable on pricing . 

[Geoffrey]

58 minutes ago, jdm said:

Where did read bad reviews? To the contrary, mine and  other members experience with Cousins UK has been nothing but greatly positive. I always had immediate response and action for issues submitted via the online system.

OK.

I also thought they had a good reputation but they don't rate highly on Trustpilot..   uk.trustpilot.com

Average 2.4 from 5 on 130 reviews.....26% say Excellent, 63% say Bad....customer contact seems to be the issue.

 

I had a question that I really needed to connect with someone about and all I got was a bot response pointing me to the FAQ which I had already looked through and still needed to connect with someone.

Sent an email and got a bot response and queried through their chat/query facility on their webpage and got a bot.

 

The question was simple enough.

We have no mail service to speak of. It can take up to 9 months for a parcel like this to be delivered if it is ever delivered at all. Couriers are expensive and there are huge holdups at Customs on courier parcels with somewhat extorionate duties levied on a line-by-line per item basis.  This is the Third World.

I had a friend travelling to EU.

First purchase from Cousins has to have billing address same as delivery address.

I wanted to enquire about an exception to that so I could purchase from here on my CC and have delivery to an address in EU.

In the end I had my sister in UK order and pay, receive by Royal Mail, redirect with a courier to the EU address, and I refunded her.

I can't say I was happy with the CousinsUK experience but...they do have everything and I got what I needed, though I felt kinda forced to buy from them.

Happy to give them another chance sometime though.

 

 

[jdm]

2 minutes ago, Geoffrey said:

I also thought they had a good reputation but they don't rate highly on Trustpilot..   uk.trustpilot.com

Average 2.4 from 5 on 130 reviews.....26% say Excellent, 63% say Bad....customer contact seems to be the issue.

I'm afraid that could be from people expecting a retail service from what actually is a trade to trade business. You explicitly accept that when opening an account on the basis of self-declaring yourself to buy for trade.

2 minutes ago, Geoffrey said:

First purchase from Cousins has to have billing address same as delivery address.

Maybe you could have placed a first 1 GBP order (there is no minimum) with actual billing address, and accept that it could go been never delivered due to lack of service in the country where you live.
Then place a following order to go to the actual address. I do that without a problem.

 

[Geoffrey]

On 12/18/2020 at 12:30 PM, jdm said:

I'm afraid that could be from people expecting a retail service from what actually is a trade to trade business. You explicitly accept that when opening an account on the basis of self-declaring yourself to buy for trade.

Maybe you could have placed a first 1 GBP order (there is no minimum) with actual billing address, and accept that it could go been never delivered due to lack of service in the country where you live.
Then place a following order to go to the actual address. I do that without a problem.

 

That's a very good point in the first paragraph - I hadn't looked at it that way. Very good point, indeed.

And the second - I will definitely do that next time. I have to order some other bits and pieces soon and will do it that way.