We have just lost £40 trying to send goods to the EU (and I'm angry)

[Justin Smith]

We do not send loads of stuff abroad, but most of it has always been to the EU because carriage further afield is obviously more expensive. We never had any problems whilst we were in the EU.
However, since Jan two orders took weeks to get to the customers and the other two (=50% ! ) are being returned to us amidst arguments about whether the paperwork is in order and possible import duties payable.

We have had to refund both orders (one to Belgium and one to Poland) even though we haven't even had them back yet. This is because one customer has already been waiting since the 12 Jan the other since the 4th Feb. Even if we do get the stock back (and it's in a saleable condition.....) we will have lost about £40 on the carriage. I doubt we will get that back, esp considering contacting the carrier agent is an absolute nightmare at the best of times.

In my view the government should be refunding me that money as they lied to me and said "we have got a free trade deal when nobody said we would !".
The govt should cease those adverts encouraging companies to export because they are arguably deceitful (implying it's going to be easy with all their "free trade deals") and they are a waste of money anyway. We have decided not to bother sending any more stuff to the EU, it's too much hassle.

 

[fisicx]

In my view the government should be refunding me that money as they lied to me and said "we have got a free trade deal when nobody said we would !".

Your problem is the carrier not the Government. The agreement with the EU is zero tariffs and zero quotas. Your carrier has got it wrong.

 

[gpietersz]

A free trade deal is not a customs union.

The government is not being deceitful. Its exactly the same as exporting anywhere else.

@fisicx someone has to pay VAT at some point. I still think you are right the carrier messed up - unless customs at the other end are being really slow to process paperwork.

 

[Mike Foulds]

Whilst I agree that the government is not being deceitful, I do believe that there was a major difference between what the public thought a free trade deal would entail, and what the goverment was actually negotiating.

Because of the word "free", I have had alot of customers believe that whilst they may need an EORI number, they would not be paying duty or vat for shipments to/from Europe, and it's come as a shock to them that they now have to.

For this particular situation, I agree that your carrier has messed up. The documents should have been checked and confirmed prior to collecting, BUT, alot of courier companies still arent doing this. They are collecting goods, trying to get them through customs with paperwork which is unsuitable, and then rejecting and returning at a cost.

If you do look to export again, I would recommend reviewing your paperwork, and seeking help from a customs specialist, or finding an approved template online you can use. There now needs to be MUCH more information present on any invoices for export, and the smallest details can be the most important.

Good luck when you do take the decision to start exporting again.

 

[Import Expert]

A free trade deal does not mean no customs formalities, it means no duty payable if those goods are of UK/EU origin. Unfortunately from a customs point of view shipping something now from the UK to France for example is really no different to shipping something to the other side of the world.

 

[gpietersz]

@Mike Foulds I can understand consumers not understanding, but businesses should know, and carriers, whose business this is, really should know.

Its no different from exporting to non-EU countries always was, and they are not all on the otherwide of the world,. AFAIK exporting to European countries outside the EU customs union like Norway or Switzerland or Russia would always have required the paperwork.

 

[Justin Smith]

@Mike Foulds I can understand consumers not understanding, but businesses should know, and carriers, whose business this is, really should know.

Its no different from exporting to non-EU countries always was, and they are not all on the otherwide of the world,. AFAIK exporting to European countries outside the EU customs union like Norway or Switzerland or Russia would always have required the paperwork.

We do not send that much stuff abroad, possible 2 or 3 a month, if that. Most was to the EU because the cost of carriage to places further away was prohibitive for most orders, That, BTW, was one of the reasons that I though all this crap about "we can now export all over the world (like we couldn't before.....) was rubbish, at least for traders dealing in orders straight to customers with single items.
But we have never, as far as I can remember, ever had an order returned to us from anywhere because the paperwork was wrong. Never.

 

[The Soup Dragon]

Who are you shipping with? We have been advised by our shipping consolidator to avoid UPS to Europe as they are in such a mess. They also said if you do have anything returned it may take weeks and weeks to come back.

We ship stuff internationally and to US Canada down under etc its same as it ever was but to the EU it is fraught with issues when it neednt be

 

[fisicx]

But we have never, as far as I can remember, ever had an order returned to us from anywhere because the paperwork was wrong. Never.

But you have now. And it's not the fault of the government no matter how angry that makes you.

 

[Deleted member 59730]

I fear that Brexit will keep on giving evidence that project fear was real.

https://www.theregister.com/2021/02/26/seagate_uk_customer_charged_vat/

 

[gpietersz]

@atmosbob project fear claims:

1. The economy will collapse and there will be soaring unemployment if we even vote leave, even before we actually leave
2. There will be food and medicine shortages if we leave and we should all stock up
3. There will be lorries waiting for days to clear customs and Kent will be a big car park.

reality:

1. Some one had to pay £45 quid more to RMA a hard drive (your register aricle)
2. A lorry driver was not allowed to take his sarnies into Holland.
... etc.

Not really much conformation of the predictions, is it?

The lack of disaster may disappoint EU nationalists, but the attempting to claim minor things like that confirm project fear was right is desperate barrel scraping.

 

[DontAsk]

Who are you shipping with? We have been advised by our shipping consolidator to avoid UPS to Europe as they are in such a mess.

UPS stuff is delayed but nothing too serious and nowhere near as bad as Royal Mail. As soon as RM parcels are handed over to Deutsche Post you lose all tracking until delivered.

 

[Ally Maxwell]

@atmosbob project fear claims:

1. The economy will collapse and there will be soaring unemployment if we even vote leave, even before we actually leave
2. There will be food and medicine shortages if we leave and we should all stock up
3. There will be lorries waiting for days to clear customs and Kent will be a big car park.

reality:

1. Some one had to pay £45 quid more to RMA a hard drive (your register aricle)
2. A lorry driver was not allowed to take his sarnies into Holland.
... etc.

Not really much conformation of the predictions, is it?

The lack of disaster may disappoint EU nationalists, but the attempting to claim minor things like that confirm project fear was right is desperate barrel scraping.

You think, seriously, that this is the extent of business difficulties caused by Brexit ??

 

[Justin Smith]

But you have now. And it's not the fault of the government no matter how angry that makes you.

Not quite sure what your point is F. We don't send loads of stuff abroad, but it must be 100s over the years. We have never had an order sent back because of incorrect paperwork or problems with who is paying any extra tariffs of taxes.
Since the Government's "free trade deal" came into force we have had 2 out of 4 returned.
And if it isn't the government's fault (they negotiated the "free trade deal" after all, then told everyone we had a "free trade deal" so "export, because exporting is great") whose fault is it ?
They are just facts.

 

[gpietersz]

You think, seriously, that this is the extent of business difficulties caused by Brexit ??

It seems to be the worst EU nationalists can come up with.

The point is that the difficulties are nothing like those predicted. Not even close. Project fear was a con.

 

[The Soup Dragon]

It seems to be the worst EU nationalists can come up with.

The point is that the difficulties are nothing like those predicted. Not even close. Project fear was a con.

As was all of the look how much money we will have to spend on this that and the other drivel....................... a con as well

 

[gpietersz]

And if it isn't the government's fault (they negotiated the "free trade deal" after all, then told everyone we had a "free trade deal" so "export, because exporting is great") whose fault is it ?

Its the fault of either:

1. Whoever did the paperwork
2. Whoever failed to arrange to pay the VAT on import

 

[fisicx]

And if it isn't the government's fault (they negotiated the "free trade deal" after all, then told everyone we had a "free trade deal" so "export, because exporting is great") whose fault is it ?

The couriers.

The free trade deal is not a customs union. The gov had umpteen adverts on all sorts of media warning of this with links to a whole raft of advice on what you needed to do from 1 Jan.

 

[Deleted member 335660]

We do not send loads of stuff abroad, but most of it has always been to the EU because carriage further afield is obviously more expensive. We never had any problems whilst we were in the EU.
However, since Jan two orders took weeks to get to the customers and the other two (=50% ! ) are being returned to us amidst arguments about whether the paperwork is in order and possible import duties payable.

We have had to refund both orders (one to Belgium and one to Poland) even though we haven't even had them back yet. This is because one customer has already been waiting since the 12 Jan the other since the 4th Feb. Even if we do get the stock back (and it's in a saleable condition.....) we will have lost about £40 on the carriage. I doubt we will get that back, esp considering contacting the carrier agent is an absolute nightmare at the best of times.

In my view the government should be refunding me that money as they lied to me and said "we have got a free trade deal when nobody said we would !".
The govt should cease those adverts encouraging companies to export because they are arguably deceitful (implying it's going to be easy with all their "free trade deals") and they are a waste of money anyway. We have decided not to bother sending any more stuff to the EU, it's too much hassle.

I sympathize Justin, we are in Spain and have same problems sending to U.K.

The government has been deceitful in pretending it was all easy and going to be just the same as before- it’s not.

The actual courier fees are much the same but now there are admin fees and in our case U.K. import tax (VAT).

Couriers like UPS and DHL seem to have got their act together recently, the latter refunded us when they failed to collect due to paperwork issues. DHL were very effective in collecting fees for delivery from U.K. which only took a week from shipment to arrival.

We are able to add a small increase in prices for auK products to cover fees but earnestly looking for EU alternatives or U.K. companies that have set up EU distribution.

 

[Justin Smith]

Its the fault of either:

1. Whoever did the paperwork
2. Whoever failed to arrange to pay the VAT on import

Well that's one way of looking at it, but to a certain extent it's irrelevant. You cannot escape the facts of the, matter. We never had that problem before, now we have had it twice in a month.
We have ceased sending stuff to the EU because I am not risking it again, it's not just cost of the carrier (assuming we get the goods back that is) it is the massive problems dealing with Parcels2Go who are the agent and the only way we can get the carriage at a reasonable price. Thus we have an extra link in the chain and it makes it even more problematic. Worse still, like a lot of businesses these days, they do not want to talk to their customers, the best you can easily get is to "talk" to an computer, then if you want ages you get an "online chat" with an agent, none of whom have been able to help us.
The long and short of it is I wonder whether we'll ever bother sending stuff to any EU country again because sooner or later we'll have to think, are we going to risk it ? And the answer may well be, no I can't be arsed, my stress levels do not need it.

 

[Justin Smith]

The couriers.

The free trade deal is not a customs union. The gov had umpteen adverts on all sorts of media warning of this with links to a whole raft of advice on what you needed to do from 1 Jan.

Well I can only keep saying, we have sent stuff abroad (EU and non EU) for years, and never had anything back, now we've had two lots back in just over a month after Johnson's "Free trade deal".
And don't get me onto the subject of a customs union, we all know that was hardly ,mentioned, certainly by Leave (I never saw any posters about it, just about the NHS and Turkey joining the EU, which were both economical with the actualité) and even had it been mentioned the vast majority of the electorate wouldn't even have known what a customs union was.

The customs union was non subject, hardly anyone was interested in it, most Leave voters were primarily concerned about immigration, all those foreigners coming over here taking the jobs we don't actually want to do anyway and then paying our taxes for the privilege ! The cheek of it !!! Anyway, immigration was covered by this poster :

 

[The Soup Dragon]

Well that's one way of looking at it, but to a certain extent it's irrelevant. You cannot escape the facts of the, matter. We never had that problem before, now we have had it twice in a month.
We have ceased sending stuff to the EU because I am not risking it again, it's not just cost of the carrier (assuming we get the goods back that is) it is the massive problems dealing with Parcels2Go who are the agent and the only way we can get the carriage at a reasonable price. Thus we have an extra link in the chain and it makes it even more problematic. Worse still, like a lot of businesses these days, they do not want to talk to their customers, the best you can easily get is to "talk" to an computer, then if you want ages you get an "online chat" with an agent, none of whom have been able to help us.
The long and short of it is I wonder whether we'll ever bother sending stuff to any EU country again because sooner or later we'll have to think, are we going to risk it ? And the answer may well be, no I can't be arsed, my stress levels do not need it.

We are finding that by road to EU is a real world of Pain but by air ( extra expense) with full commercial invoice HS codes etc is going well currently with DHL

 

[fisicx]

Well I can only keep saying, we have sent stuff abroad (EU and non EU) for years, and never had anything back, now we've had two lots back in just over a month after Johnson's "Free trade deal".

Yes. But that was before 1 Jan. The rules have changed now. As an exporter it's your responsibility to make yourself aware of those changes. You can get angry but don't direct towards the government. They kept telling you changes were coming, you just chose to ignore the warnings.

 

[gpietersz]

@Justin Smith most voters do not understand a lot of issues they vote on in every general election. Leave voters believed all the project fear nonsense. Lots thought leaving the EU meant leaving the ECHR as well. Lots of other claims since proved false.

Like most EU nationalists you are picking on a few leave slogans and posters and ignore the fact leave was right about all the big issues.

The issue of whether we should remain in the customs union post Brexit or not has been argued over, and almost all leavers wanted to leave the customs union in order not to be subject to EU regulations. It has been discussed to death but you seem not to have paid attention.

You have apparently been able to export outside the EU, and exporting to the EU now needs the same procedures as exporting outside the EU used to be, so why can you not cope with it? You may not have understood the difference between a free trade area, despite being a business that exports. You should have paid attention to all the "things are changing" ads and emails. You cannot possibly have not seen them.

It sounds to me that you messed up and are ideologically inclined to blame the government and Brexit for your mistakes.

You are lucky you did not make the same mistake with an export to somewhere further away or you would have been a lot more out of pocket on the carriage.

 

[Deleted member 59730]

The point is that the difficulties are nothing like those predicted. Not even close. Project fear was a con.

The real con was Brexit. An Idea based on lies.

Every day another story of the great con which was derided as project fear. One of the UK's major industrial sectors, the arts, are seriously hit by restrictions to tour in Europe. That is everything from symphony orchestras to artists. Fishing hasn't turned out the big success either.

Every day it keeps on giving.

 

[gpietersz]

The real con was Brexit. An Idea based on lies.

As I pointed out earlier, all the major remain claims turned out to be lies. Leave claims have been mostly right.

 

[Deleted member 59730]

As I pointed out earlier, all the major remain claims turned out to be lies. Leave claims have been mostly right.

Well there is another one!

 

[GraemeL]

Do we really need another thread churning over the past? It doesn't do any good. It's happened. Best to direct energies into working out the best way forward.

 

[Interestedobserver]

I feel we should start up a "Gofundme" page for Justin - we need to do something to take his anger away

 

[Justin Smith]

@Justin Smith most voters do not understand a lot of issues they vote on in every general election. Leave voters believed all the project fear nonsense. Lots thought leaving the EU meant leaving the ECHR as well. Lots of other claims since proved false.

Like most EU nationalists you are picking on a few leave slogans and posters and ignore the fact leave was right about all the big issues.

The issue of whether we should remain in the customs union post Brexit or not has been argued over, and almost all leavers wanted to leave the customs union in order not to be subject to EU regulations. It has been discussed to death but you seem not to have paid attention.

You have apparently been able to export outside the EU, and exporting to the EU now needs the same procedures as exporting outside the EU used to be, so why can you not cope with it? You may not have understood the difference between a free trade area, despite being a business that exports. You should have paid attention to all the "things are changing" ads and emails. You cannot possibly have not seen them.

It sounds to me that you messed up and are ideologically inclined to blame the government and Brexit for your mistakes.

You are lucky you did not make the same mistake with an export to somewhere further away or you would have been a lot more out of pocket on the carriage.

I don't think you are understanding me, we did nothing different with the EU orders than we have ever done with the orders we send all over the world. Unlike before Jan 1st we had to fill a load of extra paperwork in which was a PITA but we did so. It is possible one might have had a wrong code on but both of them ? And why would we just have made that mistake with those orders and not with any of the others we sent out, e.g. to the US ?

BTW I disagree with you over people voting for leaving the customs union, I didn't meet any Leave voter who even mentioned it and even fewer who knew what it was. The fact is Leave won because they played the immigration card and most of their votes came because of that. Ironically I actually know a few Asians who were in favour of Brexit because they thought it would make immigration from the Indian sub continent easier (as opposed to easy immigration being focused on those from the EU). All this nebulous guff about who makes our laws etc was of minimal consequence to most Leave voters. It was the leaders of Leave who were more bothered about all that kind of rather obscure stuff.

 

[NickGrogan]

Not quite sure what your point is F. We don't send loads of stuff abroad, but it must be 100s over the years. We have never had an order sent back because of incorrect paperwork or problems with who is paying any extra tariffs of taxes.
Since the Government's "free trade deal" came into force we have had 2 out of 4 returned.
And if it isn't the government's fault (they negotiated the "free trade deal" after all, then told everyone we had a "free trade deal" so "export, because exporting is great") whose fault is it ?
They are just facts.

If a parcel is returned because of incorrect paperwork, how can it be the responsibility of any one other than the person who sent it?

 

[2JP]

it is the massive problems dealing with Parcels2Go who are the agent and the only way we can get the carriage at a reasonable price

It sounds to me like you have found the problem. If your sales are insignificant to EU then perhaps increase your carriage prices to EU so that you can use one of the more reliable couriers direct. Or, as you have mentioned, stop selling to EU. How much would sales be affected?

I empathise but it was always going to be the cheaper carrier routes that would wobble the most with any changes, and changes were inevitable. I suggest your anger should be directed to the carrier agent or operator. Or perhaps you could lobby for increased regulation towards greater service performance regarding how parcel operators function.

 

[gpietersz]

@Justin Smith Either someone screwed up (you or the courier) or EU customs are more pernickety than the rest of the world. Maybe some EU customs officials are nationalists who are angry about the the UK secession and out to make life difficult for British exporters.

The government did publicise the free trade deal, but they also publicised the fact that things were changing with regard to exporting to the EU. I have seen numerous ads and got numerous emails on the subject.

You can add one more to the list of Asians who you know voted leave. I even registered as an overseas voter to do so. I do not see the irony in thinking it would make immigration from outside the EU easier - the new points based system does precisely that.

The difference between remainer and leaver views in immigration is whether you favour European over non European immigrations (which has more than a hint of racims in itt) and whether you favour skilled or unskilled immigration. It was not as important an issue to leavers as remainers like to imagine. Here is the evidence that it is about roughly equal to sovereignty in the proportion of people voting for it: http://csi.nuff.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Carl_Reasons_Voting.pdf

On top of that it has become a lot clearer that the EU is becoming a federal state since 2016 - even the EU itself has argued it should be treated as a nation state since then.

 

[Aniela]

If a parcel is returned because of incorrect paperwork, how can it be the responsibility of any one other than the person who sent it?

The truth of the matter is that is a rather simple issue caused by Justin or the courier doing something wrong on the paperwork, likely by accident more than anything.

Justin (as from his other posts on this forum) just has some personal vendetta against the government, so everything is always their fault. He's not interested in the truth.

 

[scstock]

The main problem we are having is getting our customers (retailers in the EU) to pay the Import VAT. They get sent an email by DPD with a link to pay it, but either it is being ignored or going into their spam folder.

When we asked DPD if we could get hold of a copy of the email that goes to the customer so that we can make sure it gets to the right person they first told us "oh it doesn't come from us it comes from the Customs people in that country"

We have a copy of one of their emails which clearly shows it as coming from DPD with a bloody great picture of one of their vans on it!

Thankfully we have someone on the ground in Belgium so we are in the process of setting up a Branch over there. And paying Belgian tax on those sales of course.

 

[Justin Smith]

The main problem we are having is getting our customers (retailers in the EU) to pay the Import VAT. They get sent an email by DPD with a link to pay it, but either it is being ignored or going into their spam folder.

When we asked DPD if we could get hold of a copy of the email that goes to the customer so that we can make sure it gets to the right person they first told us "oh it doesn't come from us it comes from the Customs people in that country"

We have a copy of one of their emails which clearly shows it as coming from DPD with a bloody great picture of one of their vans on it!

Thankfully we have someone on the ground in Belgium so we are in the process of setting up a Branch over there. And paying Belgian tax on those sales of course.

You may have stumbled on the answer here (apart from the fact we've left the EU, obviously) !
The orders were both booked through Parcels2Go via Hermes, but in both cases (I think) DPD were supposed to deliver them at the other end.
One of our customers was told that his parcel had been returned to the sender because the E Mail address they were supplied with (to request the additional tax, which, of course, was not required before Brexit.....) was Parcels2Go, not the customer's and therefore the customer did not get the E Mail. Now, the next step is what annoys me more than anything. Rather than put a few minutes into trying to sort the problem (by even phoning someone up.....) they just sent the order back. All this because all they do is rely on an automated E Mail to request payment of tax ! That is unacceptable even had it been in the UK, but the fact it was at the end of a relatively expensive delivery chain (and they're not bothered because they've been paid) makes it thoroughly, nay appallingly, bad service.
So, particularly as one cannot even phone up Parcels2Go, which is also appalling customer service (but common these days), I'd be amazed if we got the delivery charges back because everyone will be blaming everyone else.
The conclusion remains the same, we never had these problems before, either inside of outside the EU, but we shall not be sending any more orders to the EU if it risks all this ****. They're not particularly expensive orders anyway (because if they were they'd be bulkier and therefore too expensive to send, even to the EU, but certainly further afield) so in terms of effect on our profits it's not worth bothering.

 

[Aniela]

You may have stumbled on the answer here (apart from the fact we've left the EU, obviously) !
The orders were both booked through Parcels2Go via Hermes, but in both cases (I think) DPD were supposed to deliver them at the other end.
One of our customers was told that his parcel had been returned to the sender because the E Mail address they were supplied with (to request the additional tax, which, of course, was not required before Brexit.....) was Parcels2Go, not the customer's and therefore the customer did not get the E Mail. Now, the next step is what annoys me more than anything. Rather than put a few minutes into trying to sort the problem (by even phoning someone up.....) they just sent the order back. All this because all they do is rely on an automated E Mail to request payment of tax ! That is unacceptable even had it been in the UK, but the fact it was at the end of a relatively expensive delivery chain (and they're not bothered because they've been paid) makes it thoroughly, nay appallingly, bad service.
So, particularly as one cannot even phone up Parcels2Go, which is also appalling customer service (but common these days), I'd be amazed if we got the delivery charges back because everyone will be blaming everyone else.
The conclusion remains the same, we never had these problems before, either inside of outside the EU, but we shall not be sending any more orders to the EU if it risks all this ****. They're not particularly expensive orders anyway (because if they were they'd be bulkier and therefore too expensive to send, even to the EU, but certainly further afield) so in terms of effect on our profits it's not worth bothering.

You seem to have some serious issues.

This just appears to be a genuine mistake somewhere along the process. Nothing more, nothing less.

I would agree the delivery company should pay for any returns costs for sending it back to you, if they mistake was caused on their end.

The no-phone support by Parcels2Go is not appalling service. It actually makes complete sense. They offer 24/7 live chat, so just use that. If you're so angry that you have to use live chat to talk to a company, rather than using the phone, you need to get with the times.

Things move on. People like you were most probably angry when they had to stop writing physical letters to companies and use the phone instead.

 

[Gill Courage]

I think the problems are with the couriers, rather than anything else. So far this year I have sent 4 shipments (ours tend to be high value and often quite large).
Hermes - lost it on the way to Scotland.
Parcel Force (Via Interparcel) - 3 weeks to leave the country and 3 weeks to clear into Germany.
Fedex (Via Interparcel) - 3 days to get to Belgium, clear in and be delivered.
TNT - 8 days groundshipped to Bulgaria, cleared in and delivered.

I do my own commercial invoices, having shipped to/from the USA for many years. They seem to be in the right format................
So the story seems to be, " When it absolutely, positively, has to be there"

 

[The Soup Dragon]

I think the problems are with the couriers, rather than anything else. So far this year I have sent 4 shipments (ours tend to be high value and often quite large).
Hermes - lost it on the way to Scotland.
Parcel Force (Via Interparcel) - 3 weeks to leave the country and 3 weeks to clear into Germany.
Fedex (Via Interparcel) - 3 days to get to Belgium, clear in and be delivered.
TNT - 8 days groundshipped to Bulgaria, cleared in and delivered.

I do my own commercial invoices, having shipped to/from the USA for many years. They seem to be in the right format................
So the story seems to be, " When it absolutely, positively, has to be there"

I did a parcel to Holland by road couple weeks ago took about 12 days by TNT. Got a repeat order this week from them and sent DHL by air less than 24 hours delivered

 

[Justin Smith]

The no-phone support by Parcels2Go is not appalling service. It actually makes complete sense. They offer 24/7 live chat, so just use that. If you're so angry that you have to use live chat to talk to a company, rather than using the phone, you need to get with the times..

This is BS. Companies use Live Chat* because they want to save money it's certainly not to give better service. Every man and his dog knows that. It is crap service, but cheaper for them. The only people who think it's better service are companies selling live chat software.....
For instant real time two way communication which a company cannot ignore you cannot, repeat cannot, improve on a phone call.
Ironically, the fact the carrier does not use personal contact but relies on automated E Mails etc was what has caused this, do you not understand what has (probably) gone wrong here ?

* (it's not "chat", it's a soddin' computer which goes through FAQs and tries to find the answer off that, usually unsuccessfully)