Banjo-Tron wrote:I've just been catching up with this thread, the sets are looking nice and I hope they start shipping soon. Regarding the respective costs of ordering these sets from Kapow, Captured Prey etc. I would like to point something out. I ordered the 3 FP Insecticons from Captured Prey, and the price including postage to the UK was decent.
For their part, Captured Prey had these guys out to me swiftly, although that was not the end of the story because I was hit with a customs charge, which came to about £40. Part of this was VAT, and another part was a 'handling fee'. I also had to pay for the charge and go and collect the parcel from a depot which was about 8 miles away, during business hours to boot. If I had bought these guys at Kapow, then I would have saved myself money, hassle and a round trip.
I'm not trying to attack Captured Prey here or any other US retailer but they are fastidious in marking up their items correctly (which they legally should), so you will most likely have to pay for VAT and an additional charge on top of that, which is bullshit, and just the way the greedy UK system works. I have ordered quite a lot from Hong Kong retailers such as Yahobby and because they do not disclose the contents of their parcels accurately, I have never had to pay any charges on them.
So, for me, I now always order from Kapow and absorb the charges upfront rather than face the inconvenience of having to, in all likelihood, pay later. If items are not available form a UK retailer, then I'm afraid it's Hong Kong all the way - this is nothing to do with the service form US retailers which is great, but ironically they are the least attractive for me to business with because they declare their items properly! I also quite like paying up front, because at least then you know the money is spent, and you're not hit by a group of orders coming in on the same month which screws your finances.
the potential for customs charges when importing (especially from outside the EU) is always there. However, I've only once encountered this. Granted when I did, it was a most inconvenient possible situation, with the package being held on Tuesday, as per the tracking info from the US, but me not being officially informed by Parcel Force until the Friday, then their online system giving me a date of Tuesday to go and collect the thing, which was being held in a different town.
I managed to arrange transport and get their on the Saturday to pick it up, but the VAT I was due was around a quarter of the fee I was charged. All told, I came out being around £40 down off what I would have been ordering from Kapow on that one thing. But that was on an order from TFSource, whom I am able to pre-order things with well in advance, but can keep the money in my account earning me interest rather than having to pay months in advance for a product that may or may not be released.
assembling a Neo-G1/TF:TM cast. Please PM if you have (or know of) the following at a reasonable price: Classics or Henkei Astrotrain, Sunstreaker, Sideswipe, or 3rd Party iGear Ratchet and Ironhide.
Also looking for Universe Repugnus and Overbite, Frostbite and Longhorn and any Webdiver toys.
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PM ME PLEASE!
), and that just looks AMAZING!
