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Sending kit to EU for repair, postage guidance sought

nmtjb

nmtjb

pfm Member
I'm sure this has been dealt with in other threads but could anyone please provide an idiots guide to sending fairly hi-end kit to the EU (in this particular case Belgium and Germany) for repair/servicing?

i.e. what are the correct forms and descriptions to use to avoid excessive charges based on insured value.

Both items (a cartridge and a pre-amp) are going to small, specialist manufacturers who would benefit from advice as what to do for the return leg.

I've already been informed by a dutch cartridge company that they won't be dealing with UK in future, and given that its going to get a lot trickier in the coming months believe it would be best to get them sent sooner rather than later.
 
Can't talk about the preamp, but I recently had a cartridge retipped by Holistic Audio in The Netherlands and would recommend them to any body. BUT, getting it back was a nightmare, it was returned by UPS next day delivery, it sat in a depot in the West Midlands for a fortnight without communication to either myself or the sender, it was then returned to Holistic Audio. After they made enquiries and much form filling another attempt was made. It too sat for a further fortnight someplace before eventually comping to me. Supposedly next day delivery took neatly 6 weeks and cost a total of 105 Euros.

My contact Kilian couldn't have done more to help, I was in touch every day after the original return to him, he chased UPS daily and informed me at every step. I would certainly use them again but as he said he will not use UPS again if it could be helped. What ever you do tell the people you are dealing with not to pay for next day delivery, if it's going to sit in a depot anywhere you are wasting money, standard delivery will get it to you in the same time.

Good luck.
 
It is very likely that the pre amp can be serviced here in the UK by specialists such as myself (other engineers are available:D).
 
The biggest stumbling block will be the carriers. They are STILL learning.

Bottom line, if you think that you do want to send it outside of the UK, you need to state wherever possible that it is going for repair, not export, and when returned, that needs to be so too. You WILL have to pay around 25% on the repair and return shpping costs, on receiving back into the UK (if over £130 or so................blah, blah, blah.................), unless it gets missed by customs.
 
Went through this recently. Sent some kit back to France. Dealer managed shipping from the UK to FR, and back again. No problems and no Sunlit Uplands charge. Just paid for shipping.
 
Speak to the manufacturer before you ship it to them for repair - they can send you the correct form for customs via PDF and you simply fill it in.. it’s called a temporary importation.
 
Kirk said:
Dealer managed shipping from the UK to FR, and back again. No problems and no Sunlit Uplands charge. Just paid for shipping.
Click to expand...

How would you know details of what you paid for? You just paid £X to the dealer, who, extremely unlikely, did the deal out of the goodness of his heart.
 
Thanks all, for whatever reason I've not received any notifications of your responses all of which are very useful, so apologies for late reply and I'll follow up now, and repost on how I get on.

The carriers mostly aren't geared up yet it seems. Response just now from DPD international:

"Hope you're well today. Unfortunately we are not currently able to declare items to Customs as being sent for repair. This requires specific Customs clearance procedures which we are not able to support at the moment.

You will need to find a solution that allows you to declare the shipment to Customs as a temporary export. At this time we are only able to clear parcels into the EU as permanent exports, which may incur import charges. I'm sorry for any trouble this has caused you.

Please let me know if you need anything else.

Had the same response from UPS and Transglobal and spent around an hour on phone to HMRC, spoke to someone in C&E who didn't have a clue, said he'd transfer me to the VAT dept. then dumped the call.

Kilian has effectively stopped taking UK orders for repair it seems:

"The export/import issues due to Brexit are getting worse as UK customs holds many parcels. Some are even opened.

We are currently in a hot debate with UPS customs and frankly we have a meeting scheduled to see if we should rule out the UK at the moment as

the time and cost involved in echt shipment holdup (or sometimes return!) is crippling our business.

Of course this is a very difficult and sad decision but we're a small team, dealing with repairs from all across the globe and we build our own cartridges as well so such daily holdups with the many emails/telephonecalls/paperwork needed create an impossible situation for us."

All quite frustrating, especially in respect of the pre-amp which the manufacturer has kindly offered to service and upgrade to latest spec for free.
 
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