Chinese eBay sellers with UK based stock

[MOIC]

I guess I will just have to sneak in their warehouse at night with my 18v reciprocating saw and an axe and do some damage to their stock. I think I should be able to make some damage with a ratio of £500/minute.

In TV show "better call Sal" one of "bad" guys said: "I like to steal from thieves and criminals, because they do not like to go to police and complain about it".

But in reality what if a group of "vigilante's" just go and disrupt their business in their UK warehouse, by blocking delivery/courier trucks accessing their warehouse in "legal/un harmful" way.

There must be something that can be done to stop destroying our great country!!!

Use a 24v saw.

I can think of many reasons to "stop destroying our great country", however stopping UK consumers being able to buy products as cheaply as possible, would not be on the list.

If HMRC cannot or will not do anything, it's best to find other ways to make your business succeed.

Trying to compete with products made in China, that is being sold online by Chinese sellers is very difficult, if impossible, irrespective of how it's done.

They are always 2 steps ahead.

 

[Rene Vatz]

What can you do, same market for freelancers or designers, how you can handle competition for 2-4£ ph, or logo for 7£ or web development for 50£? Fight man, fight. Now it's all about labour and cheap prices.

 

[Pish_Pash]

What can you do, same market for freelancers or designers, how you can handle competition for 2-4£ ph, or logo for 7£ or web development for 50£? Fight man, fight. Now it's all about labour and cheap prices.

Ultimately we in the UK are disadvantaged due to the never ending trending up of property prices. I could compete a whole lot more with the onslaught from overseas sellers, if I didn't have to keep a very expensive roof over my family's head, or a vfery expensive roof over the business premises etc.

 

[beasty]

What can you do, same market for freelancers or designers, how you can handle competition for 2-4£ ph, or logo for 7£ or web development for 50£? Fight man, fight. Now it's all about labour and cheap prices.

What you do is do not compete on price and pick up a web site for ten grand and not loads for a few hundred quid,

If you are in price competition with Chinese manufacturers selling on Ebay
or
Logo designers in Bangladesh

You need your head examined

 

[dooyoo]

What you do is do not compete on price and pick up a web site for ten grand and not loads for a few hundred quid,

If you are in price competition with Chinese manufacturers selling on Ebay
or
Logo designers in Bangladesh

You need your head examined

I am not really in price competition with Chinese manufacturers.

I am in business to make fair living while looking after my kids and family in general. The only thing is that these Chinese sellers have unfair advantage by breaking UK/EU tax laws.

Well anyway, I would encourage you people to buy some more expensive stuff from these Chinese sellers and ask to return it within your 14 days, your statutory right . They are very reluctant to take back goods as most of their fulfilment centres do not take goods back or slap them with hefty fee and they loose money on such a transaction.

 

[Beachbum]

Just a quick update

Trading standards submitted a list of 200+ sellers to eBay and asked eBay to get the sellers to update they business details as they were not declaring their identity, address or VAT number in listings, in compliance with Trading Standards laws: regulations 6(1)(g) of the Electronic Commerce (EC Directive) Regulations 2002 and 5(6)(a) and 5(6)(d) of Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008. However eBay said they will not force sellers to declare their VAT number in compliance with Trading Standards laws until HMRC confirms that they are NEPTs. Trading Standards has sent to the list of sellers to the HMRC NEPTs unit.

However the NEPTs unit have failed to responded.

Since then we have compiled a list of 500+ sellers (UK & NEPTS) with sales of £300,000,000 in 2014. Thats £1.2 billion over 3 years and £200,000,000 VAT. Trading Standard will be reporting this list too.

We are launching our website http://www.vatfraud.org along with a govement epetition after the election - http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/vatfraud
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vatfraud

The website lists the 500 sellers and have case studies on them.

I'll let you know when we launch the petition - we need 100,000 signatures!!!

 

[Herbie_Aftertaste]

Hi guys. It seems change is afoot! We have been selling on Amazon for nearly ten years. Yesterday, out of nowhere, I was suddenly asked to verify my account. All sorts was asked for including names of business owner, passport numbers, copy of bank statement etc etc. A bit of a hassle but no real problem (thank goodness the passports were handy!). Sounds like things might be tightening up?

 

[Beachbum]

Hi guys. It seems change is afoot! We have been selling on Amazon for nearly ten years. Yesterday, out of nowhere, I was suddenly asked to verify my account. All sorts was asked for including names of business owner, passport numbers, copy of bank statement etc etc. A bit of a hassle but no real problem (thank goodness the passports were handy!). Sounds like things might be tightening up?

Whatever is happening its great news - passports nice

I think Amazon are a lot more on the ball than eBay on this. Especially when they provide FBA services to illegal VAT evading traders.

From my own research I've found the big VAT evading Chinese eBay sellers (£1million to £10million per year) have left footprints in Amazon.co.uk but are no longer trading on Amazon

I think one of the issues for Amazon is that they are getting hammered by Customs & Excise when goods are being sent straight to the FBA warehouses from Chinese Sellers with the sellers putting Amazon on the official customs documents.

Perhaps they are being left with hefty import bills.

Company verification is a must - VAT number, VAT Certificate, Company Name, Company Number, company registration certificate, Service Bill, Bank Statement - just whatyou would expect if you walked into a bank and tried open a bank account that £1millions went through...

About time eBay did the same

 

[Herbie_Aftertaste]

Anyone else had to give Amazon information?
Must admit as soon as I was asked my thoughts went back to this thread.
The questions seemed very thorough (hope I wasn't being scammed!).
Ie, names of anyone holding 25% shares or more in the company.
Surely if this is a tightening up of regulations ebay will be sure to follow??
Also...on a similar theme(ish) did anyone notice that the Australian govt is trying to step up efforts to tax foreign companies. Get the feeling that change might be on the way.....probably take years to sort out mind.

 

[Beachbum]

I don't think this is a case of Amazon trying to protect legitimate businesses.

More like protecting themselves against hefty import duty bills & government inspections..

Its obviously starting to hit their bottom line.

It's definitely not because they fell duty bound.

But at least its starting to effect them - so something must be having the right effect

 

[TMGG]

Amazon asked me for all this information months ago. I see competitors even today that do not show a trading address but Amazon told me I had to show mine.

 

[Pish_Pash]

I personally don't think any of this information that Amazon are asking for relates to VAT dodging (or anything that is being asked for by HMRC) ...clearly there's some mandate in Brussels that requires Amazon to dot the i's & cross the t's with regards to establishing/confirming seller identities ....but a seller can simply furnish Amazon with the required documents ...... & then still continue to duck VAT!

it might scare/dissuade a few 'on the side' sellers (where selling is a bit of pocket money)...but I doubt it'll have any impact on those presently making a killing from ducking VAT.

 

[Beachbum]

BTW if anyone would like a preview of the petition website www.vatfraud.org please direct message me with your eBay ID and I will send you a password

It will be interesting to see what you think...

 

[moviezone]

We just completed another test purchase on Amazon (With verified Chinese Amazon sellers - so they have been through the verification) both very large seller both using Amazon FBA warehousing for 95% of their product. Turnover estimate £35K per week per account based on feedback, feedback very good of course since Amazon is fulfilling.

On arrival we waited 2 days and asked for VAT receipt.

1st reply :-

Dear customer,

Greetings from XXXXXXXXXXX and thank you very much for shopping with us.

We are glad to serve you. The invoice we could provide for the purchase has been attached for you. We are unable to provide a commercial invoice containning our VAT number currently. Please check it. If there is anything we can do for you, don't hesitate to inform us.

With best regards,
xxxxxxxxxxx

Our reply :-

Thanks for fast response but there's no VAT or VAT ID on the invoice, the item I purchased was shipped from UK Not hong kong I assume you are Vat registered in the uk when you are shipping from Amazon in the UK.


2nd Reply :-

Greetings from XXXXXX and thank you very much for shopping with us.

Really sorry that we are unable to provide a commercial invoice containning our VAT number currently.

If you have paid the VAT, could you please tell us that how much have you paid for the VAT? We can issue the refund for this part to you. Are you agree on that?

We are looking forward to hearing from you.

With best regards,

==========

So even thought they have not paid the VAT they want rid of me by refunding this element so I go away. Interesting.


What's more alarming is that this particular seller is a manufacture in china, quite a large one and well known in Shenzhen, my Agent knows their company well. They are 20% cheaper than most sellers selling the same ranges. They have a number of live accounts in eBay also trading so I would estimate at the very least a turnover of £50K per week from UK product. They are importing from China to Jersey and then sending to FBA warehouses. (Personal import) rather than "Company" import - low balling the invoice - to pay lower Duty/VAT on import when received in Jersey, they sending the entire box (packed in China ready for FBA) to Amazon. Completely circumventing Tax and VAT.... Joy..

When asked C&E said the last time I spoke to an officer personally - they don't have the time and by the time they reach these people the goods have gone, so has the money and generally they move to a new address to take receipt. But one thing for sure, their account in Amazon remains the same it needs to for FBA verification now this can not be changed so easily these days, mutli accounts will be a thing of the past for rouge sellers.


One of many probably already on the list.

 

[UKVATFRAUD]

Why not make ebay and Amazon liable for any VAT that is not collected, then see how quickly the VAT fraud problem is solved.

 

[Beachbum]

And make the fulfilment houses liable

 

[UKVATFRAUD]

Problem with making the fulfillment houses liable is that they are mostly owned by Chinese nationals, and once they get caught they vanish and re open a week later under another name.

It is not just the VAT man being ripped off but Royal mail are constantly being defrauded of millions of £ by the PPI double ticket system.

 

[Beachbum]

I think its a combination of things; enforcing existing laws and putting in place a few new laws. But the major factor here is HMRC.

They need to pull their fingers out of their a**es & stop this fraud. Its not exactly rocket science to detect. They have the powers and tools to do it. They should start using them

They need to proactive rather than inactive.

They are the only people who can save the UK economy £billions

HMRC - bunch of muppets

 

[Beachbum]

I've just launched http://www.vatfraud.org/

I'm still waiting for http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/ - the government as usual dragging their feet

Let me know what you think

 

[UKVATFRAUD]

Great web page, let us hope it goes viral so that the British public can understand what is going on, as the majority of UK consumers do not get it or understand it . Yet it affects all of us with public services being cut to the bone and a few Billion back in the hands of HMRC might reduce such cuts.

 

[Beachbum]

We've got a few interesting parties involved now. Having a followup meeting with my MP. Couple of papers, FSB, Trading Standards (very active) are also getting involved.

We are all pointing our fingers at HMRC.

Needs to go viral - so share it on facebook twitter etc

http://www.vatfraud.org/
https://twitter.com/vatfraud
https://www.facebook.com/vatfraud

BTW HMRC have send it...

 

[wrights83]

Hello & just like to say what you're doing is amazing!.

Me & some other sellers on amazon are getting increasingly annoyed with Chinese fulfilment sellers & even UK sellers clearly not paying correct taxes.

Something needs to change!

 

[boring-friday]

just read a lot of the thread. I noticed the amount of tax dodgers within a couple of weeks of starting my own business. Most of my suppliers think I'm Jesus for declaring full value.
I think it must be that the government/hmrc don't care/like people not paying it. I'm no economist but it would be very easy for them to fine online marketplaces and couriers for this. In the US paypal ask for a ssn as soon as you hit around 20k$, easy for them to be made to introduce something similar here. But they do nothing other than odd token fine/jail term for a few randoms.

 

[wrights83]

Exactly! You have to tell suppliers to declare the correct value on the invoice otherwise they automatically undervalue it. According to my suppliers nearly all of their UK customers undervalue the invoice.
If that's true then surely VAT registered businesses are undervaluing their imports. How come HMRC doesn't pick up on this when they do their VAT returns? Surely the figures don't add up i.e. hardly any input VAT compared to output VAT.

 

[Pish_Pash]

Exactly! You have to tell suppliers to declare the correct value on the invoice otherwise they automatically undervalue it. According to my suppliers nearly all of their UK customers undervalue the invoice.
If that's true then surely VAT registered businesses are undervaluing their imports. How come HMRC doesn't pick up on this when they do their VAT returns? Surely the figures don't add up i.e. hardly any input VAT compared to output VAT.

If a UK business is asking their overseas supplier to undervalue, it's surely because they are not VAT registered - if they were VAT registered, there'd be no point in asking the supplier to undervalue - because they can claim all the input VAT back!

 

[wrights83]

Yeh good point.

It's pretty disgusting practise from Chinese suppliers to automatically undervalue imports. sets no good example for new businesses importing goods.

For all the millions/billions of £s HMRC are losing they could employ a whole new division of staff to investigate import values are what they say they are. As soon as a company has imported a certain amount of times it flags up & HMRC should require additional information from the importer.

 

[kevhippo]

So glad I found this thread. Weve been hit with competition from overseas sellers (mainly chinese) either using Amazon Fulfillment or selling on ebay using UK fulfillment centres. None are VAT registered despite there being no threshold for such sellers and all should register for VAT.

I made a couple of personal puchases on ebay recently and realised the sellers were based overseas although the goods were being shipped from the UK and within the UK. One US seller had over £5.5 million in ebay sales in the last 6 months. On one listing alone they had sold £55k worth of items, shipped from the UK to the UK.

Whilst I accept it may be hard for HMRC to catch the large numbers of different sellers what they should do is deal with it in the same way as VAT planning schemes where they outlaw any loopholes. So for this issue they could legislate and make the 'venue' responsible for ensuring VAT is accounted for. So Amazon and Ebay would be liable if they allow goods in the UK to be shipped within the UK with the seller not having a valid VAT registration number. For Amazon to allow imports into their fulfillment centres which are then shipped within the UK is clearly conspiracy to knowingly allow the evasion of taxe. Whilst they are currently requiring more info to verify sellers this process does not include requiring VAT registration numbers from overseas sellers using their UK fulfillment centres. In effect they are allowing goods to be laundered through their own warehouses.

Unfortunately HMRC seem to spend too long hammering those already in the system instead of dealing with the masses who keep themselves out of the system.

 

[wrights83]

The petitions site is open again. lets get this show on the road!

 

[Leather Briefcase Company]

Cannot find the petition.
Someone please post a link!

 

[dooyoo]

Have you guys seen this article???

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...and-Paypal-users-face-huge-tax-crackdown.html

First lines from there:
"Online sellers who use Ebay, holiday letting websites and other internet retailers will face one of the "biggest tax crackdowns in history" under government plans to obtain details of millions of online transactions.

HMRC wants to collect "bulk" information from internet companies to target thousands of people who fail to declare income they make online, costing the taxman billions of pounds every year............"

Wonder how they would get Chinese sellers!?!?!

 

[Beachbum]

Just to let you know we have submitted the petition and waiting for it to be approved.

I will update you with the link when or if it gets through

https://petition.parliament.uk/help#standards

 

[Beachbum]

Wonder how they would get Chinese sellers!?!?!

They haven't got a chance of getting any money out of them even if they are caught.

HMRC are showing a REACTIVE chasing game & will always be behind curve. The horse has already blotted with all the cash.

About time they came up with a PROACTIVE solution for once

 

[TMGG]

They may not get the overseas sellers but at the very least stop them operating. Let's not forget that plenty of Brits are also evading tons of tax too and that has been going on far longer.

 

[Beachbum]

The petition is now live
Stop the £billion VAT Fraud on eBay & Amazon by Chinese, NON EU & UK businesses
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/105270

Please sign it and share it on facebook, twitter & everyone you know

 

[switched-on]

in its pursuit of more data-gathering powers HMRC have recently launched a consultation document titled, 'Tackling the hidden economy: Extension of data-gathering powers' which closes on 14th October 2015.

The rationale for HMRC's desire to be more intrusive is the hidden economy. In 2012/13 the Revenue estimates that the tax gap; the difference between actual tax receipts and the tax that would be due if all taxpayers played fair, as a direct result of the hidden economy stood at £5.9 billion – 17% of the total tax gap.

google 'Tackling the hidden economy: Extension of data-gathering powers'

 

[Mister B]

Great thread and a great cause. We're being hurt badly by the foreign sellers and action needs to be taken.

Petition signed and shared on facebook.

Mister B

 

[GraemeL]

The petition is now live
Stop the £billion VAT Fraud on eBay & Amazon by Chinese, NON EU & UK businesses
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/105270

Please sign it and share it on facebook, twitter & everyone you know

It up to 409 now. 10,000 required!

G

 

[Michael Kart]

We are in the same situation, currently having a really tough time on eBay/Amazon due to Chinese sellers operating out of the UK via fulfillment services. I have read the whole thread and my conclusion so far is this:
1) in a way I'm fighting a lost battle: sure, the Asian sellers are not paying the correct VAT, but even if they did (or rather WHEN they do) the situation would not change much. We should all agree that what they do is taking a middle man out of the equation (myself). While this whole thing does not comfort me at all, I see it as a relentless drive of a human race for efficiency and I applaud such evolutionary development. It was just a matter of time. If you think about, the end customer gets better priced products - full stop!
2) from the practical standpoint, rather than going warehouses and smashing things up (as someone has suggested on this thread), or sit still and wait for the bankruptcy to come, I'm currently thinking of employing a much more sophisticated approach to separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. I trust if the mountain will not come to Muhammad, then Muhammad must go to the mountain. Here is what I think:
a) scan all categories on eBay and root out those sellers who have non-UK business address and offer the UK based deliveries
b) for each individual get their entire list of items on sale as well as historic records of sold items.
c) work out a precise turnover (looking at feedback would only give me a half of what I need) + make some projections based on the trend.
d) report to HMRC, media, etc. by naming and shaming with precise numbers and estimates.

As someone has pointed out here, HMRC would only get involved if they have a "business case". Without an estimate of the scale of this disaster there is no way for them to know how big the issue has become. Well then, this can be quite easily worked out for them if they are so incapable of doing it themselves (with all their glorious accesses to eBay/PayPal/Debit cards - you name it). Let's roll up our sleeves and brainstorm! Happy to take your suggestions and/or donations to retain an IT analytic guru to get this off the ground. The one who does all such analysis for me charges £300 per day (which was well worth it as what he has done for me in the past no Terapeak could ever have dreamed of). Spoken to him the other night, he reckons that this whole idea would probably cost around £1-1.5k

This might sound bitter, I know, but I'm in favor of level-playing field. As I pay my dues 100%, why should let my business fail just because someone cuts corners by underpaying their dues? Methinks this bout ain't lost....yet

 

[Mister B]

It's not being bitter at all Michael, as you say, all we want is to play on a level playing field. Just think of what the government can do with the additional revenue...

409 signatures so far, if each coughed up £10 to a battle fund, then there's almost £5k to fund some research.

I'll gladly contribute.

Mister B

 

[japancool]

This will not stop sellers who dispatch from outside the UK into the UK and underdeclare the value of the goods.