Comment by gambiting | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gambiting | Hacker News Reader

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>>Unbeatable warranty

They turned from god tier to trash tier after Brexit. Literally the only company that didn't invest in a UK-based repair centre, so when I recently had to send my broken EVGA Black 2080Ti for repair, I was told to ship it to Germany, then got charged £200 in customs duties for replacement shipped back to me. The thing is, there is a way to avoid customs on replacement items following warranty claim - but EVGA doesn't care to fill out the customs documents properly. I messaged them telling them exactly how to fill it out properly so it will go through without charges(we do this kind of thing all the time), they basically said yeah sorry not our problem, we gave you a new GPU for free so why are you complaining. And I'm not the only one with this issue - quick look at their forums shows loads of UK-based people getting charged customs duties for parts sent by EVGA. They just advise to appeal to HMRC for a refund(which is actually pretty difficult to do and can take months), like it wasn't their bloody issue in the first place.

Already made a vow to never buy anything from EVGA again after that, so I'm pretty glad this won't even be a risk now.

That sounds like it's more a problem with your country's ongoing deinternationalization than EVGA being bad. Would you expect a company to open a Russia-based repair center right now?

When a country is deliberately harming its international trade ability, it's not on companies for not playing ball—it's on the country not to pull the ground out from under its citizens and companies doing commerce there.

EVGA did nothing wrong. Your country changed the deal, EVGA chose to not humor it.

Ironically the EU warranty rules are still in place and it feels to me like this would probably break them. EVGA can say "Britain has become an bad place to do business post-Brexit" and leave, plenty of people, especially young people who buy graphics cards, would support it (but probably wouldn't care enough to import their products from elsewhere).

But to stay and then make your customers responsible for unexpected charges when your own product turns out to be faulty, seems like a bad sign.

But that is how repairs and warranties work across international borders? Unless there are trade agreements that say otherwise. It sounds like this person got a new GPU as a warranty replacement, and customs was like, well, this is such and such tariff.

And typically, companies and people will just ignore you if you ask them to do something they think is illegal, like saying an item is gift when shipping internationally. People try to get me to pull this when shipping on eBay to save on the import costs all the time.

There is a tariff code specifically for warranty replacements though, and EVGA doesn't use it because they are incompetent. If they did, no customs duties would be charged. I had to send my other GPU to Nvidia for replacement, they shipped a brand new card for me from Hong Kong and.....no customs charges. Why? Because paperwork was done correctly and indicated this was a replacement. EVGA includes paperwork as if it was a brand new card sold to a new customer, which it is not - and again, I'm not the first person to complain about this to them, but they just refuse to do it correctly for some reason, effectively sticking out their middle finger to all their UK customers(who maybe only bought EVGA to get their excellent support, and instead got.....this).

I disagree, seems like Nvidia actually violated the tarrif code: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/using-outward-processing-to-proc...

"For replacements, you will be charged VAT on the full VAT replacement value."

No they didn't, because the replacements are zero VAT rated. You include the original invoice for sale showing that VAT was originally paid and then the replacement becomes 0% VAT rated on import. So the page is correct, but it doesn't tell you that in most cases for commercial goods the VAT due is 0%. You would be liable for VAT if the original didn't have VAT paid for, or if you couldn't prove that it did.

I don't know what the rules are in UK these days, but in EU you can always deal with the seller (assuming they still exist). That would be guaranteed to be free for you. If they want to import replacement they can do that & deal with the customs.

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL... & https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/dealing-with-customers...

Indeed. Resellers telling you to deal with the manufacturer is such a massive shirking of responsibility

No, I'm sorry, but you are 10000% wrong about this. I hate brexit and everything this country has become, but this is absolutely one hundred percent on EVGA. There is a way to send items internationally after warranty repairs so they don't attract charges, there is a tariff code that you use and declaration that you make, which is something that I told EVGA explicitly, and they still decided to ignore. That's shit customer service.

>>EVGA did nothing wrong.

Yes they did. You can't fill out customs documents incorrectly and then just throw your hands in the air and say "well it's your fault for brexit, what do you want us to do? file official paperwork correctly? Fuck you for buying a £1200 GPU from us I guess".

I'd honestly much rather that they just said "look, we are too lazy to read up how to fill out customs declarions, so we are just going to stop providing warranty services to our UK customers". Would have been more honest at least.

The methods you speak of cost more (in labor) for EVGA. EVGA honoring their pre-Brexit policy and not moving mountains is well within their rights.

It is your country's fault that Brexit happened, not EVGA's. EVGA did what they were supposed to—replace your GPU. You choose to stay in England, as an immigrant, meaning that while you may not like Brexit, you consent to the country's laws.

I'd love to hear how typing in the correct tariff code and adding the original invoice to the customs paperwork costs them more money in labour. Filling out customs paperwork correctly isn't "moving mountains", it's the basic order of doing business. If EVGA doesn't want to do this, then they should stop supporting their UK customers full stop.

Also this isn't a "pre Brexit policy" - if you buy anything from EVGA right now here in UK, are you aware that having it repaired/replaced will incur customs duties due to EVGA's incompetence? You won't have this problem buying any product from almost any other manufacturer, so not disclosing this information is dishonest at best and fraudulent at worst.

To do discovery to find the proper forms, and what they have to fill out in them, and to get their legal department to make sure they're doing it correctly, has significant costs.

You bought your card before Brexit. They're honoring the deal they made with you—not their fault they had the ground pulled out from under them with laws you consented to.

Sounds like a very weak excuse. Millions of businesses manage to fill out their paperwork correctly, but EVGA can't?

>>You bought your card before Brexit. They're honoring the deal they made with you

If I bought it after Brexit I would have had the exact same issue. Would it change how you feel about EVGA's behaviour then?

We kind of can. England turned India into an impoverished country, backstabbed Poland at the start of WWII, raped half of Africa, broke the Middle East, killed most of the Native Americans, not to mention the whole slavery bit. It still has artifacts from all over the world. Oh, and China+Opium. Irish potato famine.

I have nothing against England, mind you, but I do have a problem with the English whining about tariffs, tourism, or whatnot after Brexit. Seriously.

If EVGA were addicting your country to drugs, shipping you off for slavery, and stealing your artifacts, you'd have a case. Complaining about someone not filling out your tariff form the way you'd like is sheer entitlement and hypocrisy. Boohoo.

>> but I do have a problem with the English whining about tariffs, tourism, or whatnot after Brexit

Good thing I'm not British then.

>>. Complaining about someone not filling out your tariff form the way you'd like is sheer entitlement and hypocrisy.

Really? Not filling out customs documents correctly is now anything other than lazy and incompetent? Wow.

> Good thing I'm not British then.

I'm not quite sure what you are. Can you clarify?

Brexit only affects the British. Do you mean you're not English?

For the general public: England is a country. Britain is an island, which includes England, Scotland, and Wales. The British Isles are a set of islands, which adds principally Ireland and the Isle of Man. The UK is a union of several countries, including Scotland, England, and Northern Ireland. Most of the English have nearly as poor a grasp of the differences here as they do of the random former imperial belongings they screwed up. Most assume Britain=England and call the English "Brits."

> Really? Not filling out customs documents correctly is now anything other than lazy and incompetent? Wow.

You mean like randomly drawing maps on a line to divide up the Middle East, without getting anyone local involved? Yes! It is.

Fortunately, it only costs you a couple hundred bucks, and not decades of war.

I have nothing against the "Brits," but each time they do this, I have this image of a rich, spoiled brat yelling at a minimum wage barista for 15 minutes about screwing up an order. Yes, she should have made a DOUBLE soy latte, but get over yourself. Sheesh.

As a footnote, I've met people who make "mistakes" like this precisely because they're annoyed at the "Brits" for any of a variety of reasons. I find it funny.

I'm an immigrant living in the UK. So British laws and decisions like Brexit affect me despite the fact I have no say in them in any way shape or form. But that's beyond the point.

I take the issue with you calling my approach entitled. There's a correct way to do paperwork and incorrect way. EVGA does their paperwork in an incorrect way - demanding it to be correct is not entitlement, because....how can it be? It's like saying that asking someone to follow the speed limit is entitlement.

Or to give another example - it's as if I opened a company sending products to American customers, but never bothered to read up on American customs forms, so my customers would end up getting charged extra duties unnecessarily.

If they complained about it, would you call them entitled?

>>You mean like randomly drawing maps on a line to divide up the Middle East, without getting anyone local involved? Yes! It is.

So British imperial past means that EVGA can simply not bother to fill out their paperwork correctly? That's a leap of logic if I have ever seen one.

>>Most assume Britain=England and call the English "Brits."

I think you actually have a really poor understanding of how it works. English, Welsh and Scottish people are all British, so calling English people Brits is 100% correct. The only citizens of the United Kingdom who are not British are the people of Northern Ireland who are simply Northern Irish, but I'm just not sure how that's relevant to this discussion or why am I explaining this to you.

This is an inappropriate response for HN. Please stick to the topic and contribute in an interesting and constructive way.

"not to mention the whole slavery bit"

Stopping/banning the trans Atlantic slave trade started by other European nations?

Still has artifacts from around the world? Many musuems do and previous owner often took item in battle from another nation.

Wouldn't Americans be more responsible for killing most Native Americans?

Your mistake was to pay the customs duties and receive the goods.

What you should have done was taken them to tribunal for the missing warranty item they owed you.

Very true. Should have done that.

Did you buy it from EVGA? Or a retailer? If a retailer, how old was it? If fairly new then it was very much their problem and not for you to do deal with the manufacturer

From Scan UK - it was nearing 3 years old(in fact it had like 30 days left on the EVGA warranty). I contacted Scan but they said they can't help, they would in the first 2 years but after that it's up to the manufacturer if they still provide warranty or not.

Yeah I feel like the whole 6 year consumer protection has got quite weak recently.

Amazon told me to go get bent recently when one of their own products products broke after 18 months.

I guess it doesn’t mean much when you have to prove the defect was there originally. It seems like one of those laws that sounds good on paper if you highlight small parts in isolation.

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