Click & Drop IOSS Mark Missing from Labels

[eyewear247]

I have just had a German customer complaining that he had to pay tax, duties and a handling charge to get his order delivered. 

I have checked and eBay have charged him the VAT at the checkout via IOSS. Upon checking the RM shipping label the IOSS marking is not on the label were as it has always previously been present. 

Printed out a couple of EU labels today and again it is not there.

Have any of you good folks noticed anything like this before.

[4_bathrooms]

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@ett1954 wrote:

What is even more galling he was charged the full VAT rate of 19% when the magazines were originally charged at the correct reduced rate of 7% for printed matter in Germany.

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That would likely be correct outside of RM's mess up. When eBay charges an EU buyer at the point of sale it is supply VAT that is charged. However, when VAT is charged by the buyer's domestic carrier (i.e. at the border) it is import VAT that is charged. The two rates can be different for the same commodity/tariff code.

It is obviously too late to stop anything that has already been sent from being affected. I would suggest sending affected (and potentially affected) buyers the link posted earlier to reclaim the overpayment from eBay. If doing nothing starts costing eBay time and money they might just start taking notice.

[bristol-design-uk]

Hi,

Just for all sellers,  i figured out that IOSS logo gone because Royal Mail silently changed a setting.

Which you can update by going to your CLICK+DROP account, and click on SETTINGS- then CUSTOMS DATA, there update the section where asking for min amount of IOSS order, to £135,

and tick ADD IOSS NUMBER TO THE ORDER box.

[kat@ebay]

Hi All,

The shipping team are in contact with the Royal Mail who are working to find the cause of this issue. We are providing the examples raised by users here on this thread. 

@bzmotman With the order 02-13400-11706 details you have outlined can you also provide the tracking number ?

If any impacted user can provide one label example showing the missing IOSS mark ( please block out any buyer details) that would be really helpful and we can share this with the shipping team.

Thank you,

Kat

[ett1954]

Kat, thanks for your response which indicates that Royal Mail hadn't flagged this issue to eBay as I am currently registering an official complaint to Royal Mail after having personally refunded a German buyer £26 to prevent the return of a parcel for which he had already paid VAT to eBay.

I will gladly send you an example you have requested if someone can please send me an email code verification link so I can log into my account.  Please see the following thread I opened this morning:

How do I request an email verification code? - UK eBay Community

[eyewear247]

Hello Kat.

Please find attached an example for order 22-13374-75341  posted 1st August

[kat@ebay]

Thank you @ett1954 

I  have replied on that thread.

Thank you,

Kat

[kat@ebay]

Hi @eyewear247 ,

Thank you for sharing the example. This is really helpful. I will share with the shipping team so they can continue to work with the Royal Mail on resolving the issue.

Thank you,

Kat

[bzmotman]

2 scans for you. This is the Germany one that relates to the receipt already posted for order 02-13400-11706. 

second message for the other.

[bzmotman]

Second scan

In case Royal Mail think its only Germany related this for the Czech Republic. The order is 11-13385-80647

[kat@ebay]

Hi @bzmotman ,

Thank you for both.

They will be shared with the shipping team while they work with the Royal Mail on resolving the issue. Once there is further updates we will update the thread.

Thank you,

Kat

[bzmotman]

Thanks for this - very helpful. I also noticed that RM have also changed the box regarding HSS CODES/descriptions now allowing them to override my correct details with their own auto suggestions. Explains why I've been seeing that I am apparently always sending lottery tickets.

[brakemasters]

We've overcome the same problem by adding the IOSS value in the settings, however, we're now having problems with France orders over the €150 threshold where VAT has been collected and we're meant to supply eBay's FR VAT number. This also isn't being embedded by Click and Drop, and our customers are being charged VAT again. There appears to be nowhere in Click and Drop to manually add this tax code.

However, I did find this nugget tucked away on a seller help page:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/help/selling/selling/vat-obligations-uk-eu?id=4650

"I paid VAT twice. What should I do if eBay charged VAT on my order and then the shipping carrier charged import VAT on delivery?

In cases where you are charged VAT a second time by the carrier, you can provide proof of overpayment by uploading a copy of the shipping carrier invoice along with evidence of payment. eBay will then issue a refund of the VAT collected by eBay at checkout."

[ett1954]

"In cases where you are charged VAT a second time by the carrier, you can provideproof of overpaymentby uploading a copy of the shipping carrier invoice along with evidence of payment. eBay will then issue a refund of the VAT collected by eBay at checkout." - This does not solve the problem of my German customer who paid VAT to eBay at the 7% reduced rate for books totalling around £7 but was charged customs duty at the full rate of 19% by Deutsche Post due to the IOSS information not being  gathered by Royal Mail together with an administration charge making a total of £26.50.  A refund of the £7 VAT collected by eBay goes nowhere near the additional costs he has been charged.

Still a total silence from both Royal Mail and eBay on who has screwed up although eBay have intimated that they were not advised of the change by Royal Mail which seems very likely.

[atticdiscoveryshop]

Absolute joke this is still going on, fuming with whoever is responsible. I didn't notice for weeks now and i've had a customer refuse to pay the custom fee/tax when they already paid it. I had to refund them. Unacceptable and pathetic.

[eyewear247]

Must be happening all over eBay every day. Most sellers do not read these boards and are not aware they now have to manually add eBay's IOSS number themselves.

It beggars belief that eBay have not put out a warning about this. These unhappy buyers may well decide not to use eBay again.

[ett1954]

The communication from both eBay and Royal Mail is abysmal, and from the reply earlier from kat@ebay  suggests that the two organisations don't even talk to each other.

Changes on programming have to be made - I understand that; but not informing customers and partners of the consequences is bordering on ineptness by Royal Mail. 

As you say, more buyers and sellers deserting the sinking ships.

I have now changed the settings on my Royal Mail account however as far as I can see there is no visual confirmation on labels that the tax collected information has been uploaded for sales I have sent to the US and Australia in the last couple of days.  Only time will tell .... pathetic.

[brakemasters]

It's bizarre that only a select few tax code entry boxes are available in the 'trading names' area of the Click and Drop settings. What about USA? Singapore? France over €150? All VAT collected by eBay but nowhere to enter this during the period where Royal Mail's embedding system is failing.

[eyewear247]

Not sure how you have changed your setting in you C+D account to include the eBay IOSS number. I can only see that it is possible to add it every time.

Also around the same this missing IOSS problem started I also noticed that the pre-filled declaration category now has to be manually selected for sales of goods, even though I have permanently selected in my account settings.

[bzmotman]

I thought that you could add/change/delete the IOSS within the Customs section. The IOSS appears on the top line & I'm sure that in the past I have altered it.

[ett1954]

@eyewear247   Log into your Click & Drop account.

On the top right hand side click on settings which brings up the settings menu.

Click on the 'Customs' setting which opens a page.  On the right hand side under miscellaneous I found none of the boxes checked a couple of days ago.  I entered 135 in the IOSS GBP cut off level box.  This will allow you to tick/check the 'automatically apply IOSS number' box directly below.

I set these a couple of days ago and the settings are still holding although I have yet to receive a sale to an EU country since so I can't verify this 100% by printing a label.  I am assuming in whatever update Royal Mail has recently carried out it has reset to default on eBay integrated accounts.

As an aside, I wouldn't tick/check the 'HS Code and Description auto-lookup' box.  I have heard that this is AI generated and has caused some issues with incorrect codes added.