Sorry if this is in the wrong forum but not sure where to put it, it does relate to poser but more of the purchase of it,

I ordered a physical version earlier in the month as I had trouble downloading the previous upgrade a while back, I was happy to pay the 33.85 dollars postage for UPS international (this worked out just over 21 pound) but when it arrived there was another charge of 32 pound, all in all its cost me over 50 pound to deliver a small parcel.  The delivery person would not hand it over until he had the money, surely if I paid for international delivery this should have included all the costs from A to B

I have created a ticket at smithmicro to query it but wondered if anyone else had this issue.

If I decide to ever upgrade again I think I will risk the download version and take out the 2 yr extension which is a far cheaper option, for htat cost I could have bought several hair props from here, :(

 oops sorry I didnt mention Im in the UK

This was discussed to death at every release. Your country imposes a tax on delivery and SM cannot do anything about it, nor can they collect it in advance.

was it?

blumin government :(

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2779098&page=2#message_3500933

The poster goes on to say that it is SM's fault for not disclosing this in detail. You can take whatever position you like, but I don't expect any company to explain the taxes and tariffs of over 190 countries which change on a daily basis.

I don't know what the cart says today, but when Poser 8 came out it said this, according to a post in the other thread:

"It does mention it under "Important notes" in your cart as you proceed to check out.
4th note down "Customers requesting a Physical Shipment to any EU country WILL BE RESPONSIBLE for any VAT and Broker Surcharges charged by the carrier - generally 15-17% of the order value – payable at the time of delivery."

Now as far as I can tell, when people see "Important notes" and refuse to actually read and understand them - well ... gee that sucks. Hehehe.

I am not saying you got this warning. But it was there in the previous release.

Thanks BB, I will have a look,

I do understand that SM cannot advise in depth but a small one liner saying that there maybe more charges dependant on which country you live in may have been beneficial.

oh well its all over and done with and I need to concerntrate on getting all excited with my new prezzie (early B/Day present to myself :)

Cheers!

lol. maybe it was but you know how it is when you have been waiting for something and its finally here, (excited stampede springs to mind)

VAT here is 20% now and they charged it on the full 179 purchase price but i only paid around 100 due to the voucher, I aint gonna quibble anymore and put it down to experience

Good for you - I can tell you it is mighty fun, and you'll not regret whatever you got tricked into paying UPS.

I read that whole thread over again, and it seems that it is UPS following the strict letter of UK law, which allows them to collect a "brokerage" fee, a fee for collecting the import duty or something, and it is bigger than the duty, because nothing stops them. UPS are scamming customers in the UK. Apparently Fedex does not do this.

" UPS are scamming customers in the UK. "

they do it wherever they can. see in the thread you linked to where I was screwed in Canada for a $30 fee to collect $9.

Ouch.

yup

my 50% off copy of Vue Easel ended up costing the full 100%. joy.

I cant wait to use it, it's at my parents at the moment as I would have been at work when it arrived, but will get it this weekend, I'm upgrading from poser 7 to poserpro2012, so it will be a big jump and a big difference,   :))))

Similar thing happened to me when a friend bought me a Taylor acoustic guitar for Christmas.  

They're pretty damn expensive guitars to start with but he bought it, paid for shipping and insurance over here from the US.  The Taxman then sent me a demand for £60 in taxes.  That's around $94 US, btw.   

My wife once bought a replica 2-Carat diamond from the US, a very good one which if memory serves me right was about $700 in 2001.  So good in fact that Her Majesty's Customs and Excise (via Royal Mail) refused to release it unless we coughed up £450 import duty....!

I was taken aback by the brokerage, import duty and GST on my copy, too!  I understand that SmithMicro can't do anything about that, but I wonder if it would have been cheaper to send the program in the mail.  UPS delivered it in a HUGE box, given the size of the actual package.  It also took a full week to arrive.

Even though the program is terrific, the experience left a sour taste . . .

I haven't received my disc yet in the mail (I'm living in Canada now), so from what I've read I probably will get hit with this fee as well. Not looking forward to it. This is why now I never use UPS but there was no other option at the time of order. I decided to go with the physical disc this time because I had difficulty downloading back when Poser 8 came out. I'm probably not going to go with physical disc next time around.

it seems mr taxman is a greedy B%$%^&er

its actually making me think twice about buying outside the UK now, only problem is if you wait for amazon or the likes to get the software you will be waiting an age,

Many people get around paying all of that extra postage by having someone buy the Software in the U.S. and then have that friend or family person ship the software overseas. The shipping cost is cheaper and you don't have to pay those large fees because the software isn't being shipped from a business or company. 

If you know someone in the U.S. then you can check out how much it would cost to ship something of the same weight to your country.  If it's sent by the U.S. postal system then the shipping should be fairly inexpensive like maybe $10 - $20 depending on the weight.

It's one of those loop holes that makes it really beneficial to have friends and family overseas.

...or just download the electronic version.  I know it's nice to have that shiny box on your shelf (gathering dust), but do you really need it?  I asked for the electronic version of Pro 2012 on Monday at about 1430hrs and I had downloaded, installed and was rendering with it by 1800hrs, including all the content, and I have the worst/slowest ISP in the UK.  No import duty, no waiting in for the courier, and no shiny box!

It would be nice if there'd been a distributor somewhere in the EU. As it is, you're insane if you buy the tangible version and not the downloadable one. The customs can and will flay you...

AT Least you don't need to pay import taxes or VAT on the downloadable version. 

Quote - I cant wait to use it, it's at my parents at the moment as I would have been at work when it arrived, but will get it this weekend, I'm upgrading from poser 7 to poserpro2012, so it will be a big jump and a big difference,   :))))

 

You gonna love it. 8-)

Quote - Good for you - I can tell you it is mighty fun, and you'll not regret whatever you got tricked into paying UPS.

I read that whole thread over again, and it seems that it is UPS following the strict letter of UK law, which allows them to collect a "brokerage" fee, a fee for collecting the import duty or something, and it is bigger than the duty, because nothing stops them. UPS are scamming customers in the UK. Apparently Fedex does not do this.

UPS scams us in Canada too!  They don't tell you that you can go down to their office and fill out the short page for duty and taxes yourself. Instead they do it for you and charge you extortion rates for having done it.

I remember I bought Poser 5 Demystified back when I first got Poser. It was a Poser course on VHS tapes.  The price was something like $69.00 USD.  When it arrived here, UPS left me a card stating that they tried to deliver and that I can call to arrange delivery again and that I owed them $76.00.  I called them back and told them that I had already paid for the product.  They told me that it was for taxes and duty and a brokerage fee.

I wanted the videos so I paid the money. The $69.00 course ended up costing me about $160 or so between UPS's charge and high currency exchange rates.

Another time I ordered a stethescope from a company in the USA. I figured it was cheaper even with the exchange.  Colour me flabbergasted when UPS showed up at my door asking for $90.00!!!!!  It was almost 100% of the value of the stethescope I bought!

I refused it. Called the company back and told them I had refused it. They were nice enough to refund my money including shipping.

Now Fedex on the other hand has their brokerage fee built into their fee.  Had I had that Poser Demystified course sent to me via Fedex, it would have cost me $21.00 total to have it shipped to me. That included duty, taxes and brokerage fee.

Vancouver Canada tried to do a class action lawsuit against UPS for extortion rates.  It was thrown out of court.

http://www.sbncanada.com/blog/ups-brokerage-fee-class-action/

So they can continue to charge large sums for doing something that takes about 30 seconds to do.

Now when I order anything online I always ask what shipping method they use. If it's UPS I ask for another shipping company. If they won't ship using another shipping company, they don't get my business.

I'll take USPS over UPS any day!!!

I agree.  Maybe we should contact SmithMicro and ask them to use USPS instead.

I got lucky and only had to pay $16.25 Canadian when I picked up my disc today.

Quote - I got lucky and only had to pay $16.25 Canadian when I picked up my disc today.

You likely did your own customs forms when you picked it up?  If you go to UPS and fill out the form yourself, you aren't charged brokerage or the COD fee for them to collect that brokerage from you, or the taxes they tack onto both of those amounts. So it would be considerably cheaper.

Quote - It would be nice if there'd been a distributor somewhere in the EU. As it is, you're insane if you buy the tangible version and not the downloadable one. The customs can and will flay you...

AT Least you don't need to pay import taxes or VAT on the downloadable version. 

True, but for most of us in the UK, broadband is pretty lousy. It's never anywhere near the "Up to" speed they advertise. It's not helped by the fact that once the data goes from the local exchange to our homes, it's travelling along really old copper phone lines! :)  Only limited areas use optical fibre lines.

There ARE actually persons setup to take your packages and ship them overseas for you. My friends work for FedEx and they see this happen every day.

Then again, there are just plain old stay-at-home parents that do this kind of thing for extra cash. Usually you end up paying the shipper 5-15% of the item cost and you pay for shipping. Simple and MUCH cheaper than using UPS or similar courier.

Fedex has been doing this for years for shipments into Canada. I have only ever ordered one product that was shipped via Fedex. I always used US Postal Service if it was an option, and if not, UPS was a good second choice. As far as I know, UPS didn't start this "scamming" until recently, though perhaps I just got lucky with the way merchants handled the customs declarations. It's annoying to see that UPS is doing this too.

I found it interesting that after I ordered Photoshop CS5 earlier this year, Adobe offered me physical shipment of the CS5.5 extended release for free when it came out. It arrived via Fedex, and I was waiting for a huge charge, but because they had given me the software as a free upgrade, the value of the disc was listed at about $7 (the cost of the blank discs plus the manual, I'm guessing) on the customs forms, so I didn't have to pay anything.

I ship product to international customers, and every once in a while I get someone who wants stuff shipped via courier. I always let them know that it will, indeed, be faster to do so, but that, in the end, they may find they've doubled the cost of their product. Canada Post and USPS may be slow as molasses when it comes to getting things through customs at times, but you cannot beat their prices.

Here in Brazil we have to pay an import tax even when using regular mail, and the tax is a whooping 60% of your product's value for anything above US$50. If its receipt is attached (to the box, visibly), it will charge 60% of that receipt. If there's no receipt, customs will open your package, check what it is, google for it and charge you 60% of probably the highest price they can find online for it. If it's a gift, you have to hope they will accept it to be a gift (generally will charge you the 60% if it comes in a sealed box).

That's why I mostly don't even enter online contests with physical prizes. Not even when Wacom had my very desired Cintiq 21x as a prize - I'd have to pay over US$1500 to be allowed to receive it.

You can buy it on Amazon UK ...I think it works out cheaper

when you consider the tax and postage from US.

hi Steph

its not on amazon at the moment, think poser9 is due for release shortly, so there would be a delay  

ill probably go with the download version next time i upgrade considering the physical copy didnt come with a paper manual like poser6 did (which was from amazon way back in 2005 when i first got the programme)

Quote - hi Steph

its not on amazon at the moment, think poser9 is due for release shortly, so there would be a delay  

ill probably go with the download version next time i upgrade considering the physical copy didnt come with a paper manual like poser6 did (which was from amazon way back in 2005 when i first got the programme)

Oops! sorry about that...I saw it there but didn't check too carefully as I already have it. I didn't realise it is only for pre-orders. I only get downloads now as I have been stung twice by the tax , postage and an admin fee from  DHL or whoever the buggars where at the time.. a painful sting it was for sure and I went back and did it twice..lol

yeah i certainly wont be doing it that way again,

i just checked again over at amazon and poser9 is due for release on the 10th, i think its not even an upgrade (it doesnt indicate but cant be 100% sure)  for 114.99 quid, thats cheap! i mean thats too cheap? lol

SM has it for 249.99 which converted is 161.39 GBP so thats like 46.00 cheaper and NO postage

cant even find poserpro2012 on there