Just a note to warn you that I recently bought a guitar from DV247 that when it arrived (6 days!) I had ‘duty’ to pay and I was asked to pay it by credit card over the phone or it would not be delivered. I paid and let DV247 know immediately, they have now basically said they cant refund as I have no receipt!
Be aware if you order from DV247 are shipping from the EU that this can happen…I will stick to ‘real’ UK companies in future, lesson learned!
Yeah, DV247 don’t always make it super clear where their stock is coming from. I’ve found buying from them before that stuff they say is in their Romford warehouse is often then shipped in from the EU.
Did they just slap you for the duty charges (probably about 3% of the item value) or did they mug you for VAT as well?
Well, UPS wouldn’t (or couldn’t) tell me what it was for but it was only £18 on a £300+ guitar so I am assuming duty…it was ‘pay by credit card over the phone’ or we take it away!
The worst thing is DV247 wont refund me as they cant get the info of UPS- like its my problem they screwed up!
I will never use DV247 for anything.
I used to before they got sold, but there was some very sketchy stuff around that time and I’ve heard a few horror stories which mean I don’t care what the price I will use someone else.
Yeah, that’s just the standard import duty.
I mean, technically it’s up to you to pay it, but every company seems to be doing things slightly differently. It’s not difficult for a company to tell you what the score is, but I feel like some of them are just keeping their mouths shut to avoid losing trade or to avoid extra costs.
Yeah, well worth avoiding,
I ‘bought’ a couple of Doepfer modules a year or two ago, ordered and paid for them then they were endlessly delayed and then about 6 months later I got a message saying it had taken so long that my payment was no longer valid so they then farted about with refunding/reinvoicing me and then delayed the modules by another few months at which point I told them to go fish and got the same modules, cheaper from Thomann in a week with no messing about or additional taxes or charges.
Well they advertise as a UK company- UK phone number, warehouse in Romford, VAT registration etc…they told me there should be no import duties, they just won’t refund me until they get conformation from UPS…but that was almost a months ago. Given it was their error and a small amount of money you would have thought they would have just refund then sort it out with UPS…
Yeah, it’s pretty dishonest.
I learned years ago that stuff showing as being in stock in Romford was actually being shipped from Germany. It’s all the red light I needed to make me avoid it after we parted from the EU, but your story just confirms this.
It’s dishonest and yet they haven’t updated their practice of bullshitting from the sound of things. Thankfully £18 isn’t a big amount on top the purchase price, but it’s not the point.
Posts like this will hopefully make them take notice, or at least let them know a lot of us won’t buy from them until they sort out this issue, or sell gear stupidly cheap to make the hassle and expanse worth it.
Hmm, how is ordering from Thomann?
I just preordered the Roland SH-4d from them and I don’t want to have to pay import duty or VAT. Should I cancel my preorder?
I’ve ordered from Thomann a few times, no issues or fees to pay.
They seem to take care of everything at their end.
Same, I can’t say the same about dv247
If you’re buying from outside the EU, be prepared to pay 
I ordered a bunch from them.
Got a Prophet 6, no problem.
But then bought a Syntakt, and had to pay UPS. I got the bill months later too, after I received the Syntakt.
I’m in the US.
I felt compelled to leave the only Google shopping review I’ve ever left over DV247 about 18 months ago.
I’d ordered a Glorius desk, paid in full, thinking it was coming from Romford, on a 3-4 day delivery service.
After 3-4 weeks of hearing nothing and no communication from Dv247 I rang them… long story short, I rang them 4 times and got given the same ‘it’s on its way’ bullshit. When I requested tracking that they couldn’t give me I escalated it and ended up speaking to some real arrogant prick in Germany who was acting like it wasn’t a problem… it went on… I opened a dispute with PayPal as a last resort and got the money back after their review.
About 3 weeks after all this, the desk arrived at my home and I had to refuse the delivery… DHL were also trying to collect import duty and VAT from me too.
Vowed after this that I’d never use them again.
To be fair, as bad as DV247 are now, it’s still another story of the shitshow that is Brexit.
Thomann are excellent and IIRC they take care of everything.
They also take care of you if you have a problem.
I stopped using them when they closed all the shops with no notice and sacked everyone. There was a branch in Southampton I would use at the time that was handy to pop in and try stuff or pick things up.
I had the same problem with MyVolts. Shown as a UK company, with UK stock… arrived from Europe.
Had I known, I would have ordered from an actual UK stockist and is why I haven’t ordered from MyVolts since
Same here. It took so long to receive a psu from myVolts, that I just asked for a refund.
And the reason I even ordered it was because I got misleading info from Thomann about if the Syntakt was dual voltage (it is).
It’s a bit gutting really. I remember when digital village had a store in Cambridge and I got my first midi controller, tapco s5 monitors and a copy of logic 5 audio for pc from there.
Feels like romance is dead.