Battlefront --Question re the Steelbox

[pcelt]

Your recent comments re this edition seemed to suggest that for international customers these would now be despatched from USA and would involve us in additional customs charges etc and presumably delays in delivery time.

As someone who ordered this version in the first days of availability there was no indication of extra charges etc. If I am interpeting your communication correctly this seems unfair on those international customers who ordered this version based on the assumption that the costs quoted were reliable and delivery would be made from your European store.

Could I please have some clarification--I may have misinterpreted the communication re the steelbox version to European customers.

Thanks

[Glukx Ouglouk]

The Support>Sales Policy page does include a disclaimer about the possibility of custom fees (and delays) for international orders, and it also lists the average delivery time depending on where you live...

edit: also, living in France and having pre-ordered, I never noticed anything about shipping the game from anywhere but the US - which seems rather normal to me, since I'm ordering straight from BFC and BFC is an American company.

[Tim Snoddy]

It is worse than that! I have experienced this before. The post office will refuse to release the item to you until you pay the VAT proabably circa £10 and charge you a fee for paying the VAT on your behalf. The last time this happened to me it was £7.50 fee and this was several years ago. I would never dream of shipping anything into the UK now.

[Bertram]

I almost posted a comment, but I better not. I expect that you want Battlefront to assure you that you read their post right, though I wonder how you can be sure that you interpret their answer correct....

[joebloggs]

You are reading this correctly which now means that if the customs decide to add on VAT it is going to cost approx an extra £8 in VAT and another £12 in UK Post Office Handling fees if it comes through the normal Post Office route. :mad:

I am not sure if DHL charge a handling fee for processing through customs but the UK PO certaily do and make a lot of profit from it.

Some clarification is needed here as this has the potential to turn into a price too far for me. I cannot justify the potential of paying approx $110 for a game with S&H. I'll cancel and just stick to CMSF.

As all other games bought from BF had been shipped from Germany there was no indication that would not be the case here. Telling us now is no good. I do not buy anything that involves me getting hammered by UK customs and the Post Office. Been ripped off by them too may times.

No plan survives contact with the next turn button.

[Fritjof]

I have to admit that I am quite disappointed to read this.

The last discs I recieved from BFC were all shipped via the european depot. Nice and easy.

Don't understand why they can't ship preordered steelboxes to Europe. But there is a lot I do not understand in this world...

[pcelt]

I too would like to know why those preordered steelboxes for European customers could not have been shipped to your European base for delivery. And if it was not going to be clear policy to do this then European purchasers should have been very clearly warned at the purchasing time that extra customs duties etc would have to be paid.

I am sure there are small print caveats and disclaimers in the small print somewhere ---but if it is important enough to draw particular attention in a notice to these other charges at this time --surely morally they should have been made apparent BEFORE we Europeans decided whether to order our steelboxes or not.

[para]

This is very disappointing if true I would do an angry face if i knew how

[Topo]

Sure everything is legal, but I also would have preferred more clarity.

[Fredrik Wallin]

As a customer outside the US, it is up to you to get all and any information about shipping and/or customs fees for the steel box or any other product you buy from outside the EU.

It is hardly fair to be upset at Battlefront over any fees in other countries outside the US.

If you find it to expensive, you should consider the download only version of the game.

The option to this, if you realy want the game and the steelbox is to order it and hope customs won't care or pay any fees.

[Thin Red Line]

On the other hand the dollar is so weak against the euro )

[joebloggs]

Hi,

Found this

•For European customers you order is being shipped from Germany, UNLESS:

◦the order includes a book or poster

◦the order includes pre-order items (those always ship from our main US warehouse)

◦the order includes an item that is out of stock in our EU warehouse

I have pre ordered items from BF before which have been shipped from Germany. No reason to expect anything different this time.

If this is indeed going to be shipped from the US then it's going to cost you a lot more than you thought unless you are very lucky and it slips through customs or you live in a country where the Post Office or carrier don't gouge you on "admin fees". Unfortunately the UK have VATman and Robin(g) PO to contend with. Holy cash cow!!!! Wham, bish, bosh, give us your DOSH.

Just a quick edit to any of those in the US who could potentially be getting the game at 50% less than those outside the US, we don't need "It's your own fault" posts. If your getting the game at the price you thought you were paying then great but there are probably going to be a lot of disapointed people who will pay way over the odds for this game. If I had wanted a DL only I would have bought a DL only but I thought I would support BF and get something that would be worth keeping. More fool me. If everybody outside the US didn't buy the Steelbook Edition then we probably would not have had the announcement that stocks were low. I could be wrong.

No plan survives contact with the next turn button.

[CBR]

Erm so it went from $80 to an extra $20 in VAT and $35 in DHL fee. How many virgins do I need to sacrifice to cancel this money sinkhole?

[para]

Erm so it went from $80 to an extra $20 in VAT and $35 in DHL fee. How many virgins do I need to sacrifice to cancel this money sinkhole?

Grrrrrrrrr Are there any kids around? I want to use a very long string of four letter words!

[phil stanbridge]

You guys could get lucky. I've had parcels arrive from the US without any extra fees. My last pre order was shipped from Germany. I will wait and see what happens, but I want it either way.

[para]

You guys could get lucky. I've had parcels arrive from the US without any extra fees. My last pre order was shipped from Germany. I will wait and see what happens, but I want it either way.

At any cost?

[phil stanbridge]

At any cost?

hehe, well lets be realistic. It's only a small parcel. It's not going to break the bank is it. I've got my fingers crossed - our local postie cant be arsed with duty forms and things like that - he tends to cross the forms out, and shove the parcel/letter through the letterbox.

[Moon]

Actually, ALL pre-orders (as of the beginning of this year) are being shipped out of our US warehouse. This was already the case when we opened the pre-orders for CMBN, nothing has changed, and when you pre-ordered, this info was available already as well in a number of places (including the terms).

The main reason for this change is European customs. They have started to badly delay our stock transfers for some reason last year. Transfers which were taking a couple of weeks now took a couple of months. This makes is impossible to plan and timely execute the release out of two warehouses. And we cannot simply print up the same stock in the US and Europe because that would explode costs for both.

Hence the policy change, that pre-orders now ship out of the US, always. SCWW1 and Korea have already been handled like this.

The reason for the footnote in the recent announcement is to let European customers know that there will be no Steelbook editions shipping out of Europe at all, not even after pre-orders close. We simply run out of stock, and even if we don't totally sell out, there is no point to transfer the small amount of Steelbooks we still have left.

Also, as someone in the thread also points out: we do not make customs laws. Your country does. We have to comply with US export laws (which prevent us from stating a lower value for customs purposes than what you paid), and you, the customer, have to comply with your local laws. I know that the UK has some kind of very silly law (I am surprised that people don't rebel against it) which charges a flat "handling fee" on top of the import VAT. That's insane. I know of no other country that does that. In most cases, what you will end up paying (at most) is your country's VAT.

Martin

[Erik Springelkamp]

Actually, ALL pre-orders (as of the beginning of this year) are being shipped out of our US warehouse. This was already the case when we opened the pre-orders for CMBN, nothing has changed, and when you pre-ordered, this info was available already as well in a number of places (including the terms).

Still a bit of a disappointment.

I completely missed any mention of the change in shipping policy.

Well, most goods directly shipped from the USA arrive at my door without customs charges, so I will keep my fingers crossed.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Hmmm, well, let us see how it arrives. Usually Dutch Customs seems to not make a fuss about such items.

*knocks on wood*

Though I'm not overly pleased to learn that as a pre-order customer I am at risk of extra charges. Seems wrongheaded to me, whatever the realities at your end are. Doesn't seem worth it, in hindsight.

Serves me right for not reading all the small print, I guess, But I just figured you guys would be shipping out of Germany as usual.

Can I take it that you guys are selling more to the US market then the EU? Otherwise it would appear to make sense shipping everything from Europe, eliminating a lot of differing import rules in one go.

[timtemple]

As a customer outside the US, it is up to you to get all and any information about shipping and/or customs fees for the steel box or any other product you buy from outside the EU.

It is hardly fair to be upset at Battlefront over any fees in other countries outside the US.

Im afraid it is fair to be upset with battlefront. They clearly had an option to dispatch from within the EU and have done so before. Why would we think they wouldnt this time. They have had our money for a month and then on the eve of the release make it plain ie not just inside the small print - that it will be shipped from US with possible extra charges . Very Poor. No more pre-ordering for me.

[TheGreatRadish]

I take full responsibility for not reading the conditions properly, I was far too excited. Not BFC's fault.

However, that won't change the fact that I'm not happy and this is the last pre-order from me. On top of that, I paid full whack for a steelbook and now I don't even get that. Almost $100 for this, maybe more if HMRC catch it. If I could cancel I would. Very poor show.

[womble]

I'm pretty sure that the 'shipping from the States' thing was what stopped me preordering it. I have no idea how I noticed that they were shipping the steelboxes from the other side of the Pond, or even whether I just assumed it, but HMRC can whistle for any import duties, and Royal Mail can kiss my bepimpled behind before I let them get 'handling fees'.

[Latimer15]

I take full responsibility for not reading the conditions properly, I was far too excited. Not BFC's fault.

However, I too am somewhat disappointed that Battlefront didn't make this a little clearer. At the time I pre-ordered, I foolishly assumed it would be being shipped from Europe as usual. No more pre-orders from me, I've been stung before by customs etc.

[Battlefront.com]

We've been shipping all preorders out of the US only since last year. It's a Battlefront wide policy because it's no longer economically possible to have preorders in both US and Europe at the same time.

As all of you know, what each government does and doesn't do with Customs Duties is outside of our control. It is also impossible for us to know what the policies are for each country or have some understanding of how regularly they are enforced. This is the responsibility of the customer to be aware of.

There's a mention of this in our general sales policies, however obviously we should make this clearer than it is. In future we'll make sure this is noted on the preorder webpages.

If anybody wishes to cancel their preorder, especially you poor sods in the UK, please email sales@battlefront.com with your order number and your order will be cancelled.

Thanks and sorry for the misunderstanding.

Steve

P.S. I lived in London for a while and I was hit with a huge fee for shoes I bought and had shipped from the US. Very unexpected. We Americans are spoiled because duties are almost never imposed on anything but big priced items (like a car).