Reply With QuoteGreat watch at a cracking price. I often think about selling mine but it's just too good to let go.
With the duty now being applied to watches sourced from Creation in Singapore they are a much less attractive proposition. However the price of this SRP779 was so low at £172 that i decided to take a risk. I'd held off getting a Turtle because i want to see them all in the flesh before i committed. When i had the 779 easily outstripped its competitors; it's the definitive Seiko watch IMHO.
The duty a was £26 so enough to make this likely to be my last watch from Creation, but for old time's sake i think it is worth recording the experience.
Great watch at a cracking price. I often think about selling mine but it's just too good to let go.
Enjoy. That is a lovely watch. Would just be a little concerned at how often the Stanley knife figures in the pics..... 😉😉
Sent from my SM-G920F using TZ-UK mobile app
I think with Creation it was only a matter of time before the correct charges were applied.
It's a shame as I have bought 4 or 5 from them in the past but, like yourself, I don't think I will buy from them again as I could buy from a UK company for the same prices.
Loving the 779! I bought the 773 from them about a year ago. Still the most comfortable watch I own.
Enjoy.
I picked a snzh53 from creation last year sympathetically labelled as a "measuring instrument" it managed to sneak in under the radar. I guess all good things come to end. Still a nice addition to the collection
I don't mind paying the VAT but it is the fact dhl charged £11 as handling fee. This adds up after a few purchases. Did this not happen in this case?
Regarding the handling fee, the only good thing is if you make multiple purchases at the same time, or one expensive purchase it's the same £11. So if you buy a single £50 seiko 5, then yes, it really stings compared to a Tuna for example.Originally Posted by tim2012
I've no idea. They sent me an email demanding £26; I figured I'd got off lightly.
I bought a measuring instrument from Creation in April and only received the DHL customs invoice 6 weeks later. £120 odd pounds which only made the watch marginally cheaper compared to buying in the UK. I am not complaining but it certainly doesn't look like a bargain as such.
saw one of these today on bracelet - the gold and black one. they're really rather nice aren't they? especially for the ££
Good luck everybody. Have a good one.
For sure the days of buying watches from creation at tax free prices are over , I was stung for tax and handling charge too so overall not such a great price
Not sure how important UK custom is to them, but I wonder if they might twig on and adjust their prices to try to head off a decline in sales as a result of this. Either way, they've had a good run I guess.
I remember fretting when the last watch I bought from them was delivered to work and signed for but then went astray rather than being given to me. One of our service engineers had taken off with it thinking that the 'measuring instrument' was obviously the new Vernier caliper he'd been waiting for 🤔
You are lucky, I bought three watches separately, two from the US and one from Singapore, all delivered by FedEx. I received three invoices with a £12 handling charge on each one, so a total of £36. Two came on the same day and the final invoice the day after. They treat each transaction as an opportunity to charge, which I suppose is fair as each parcel was handled and delivered separately.
not sure they're that bothered. i don't think the uk is a big market for them. in any case, i don't see how they can lower their prices by much more. lastly, i think the main reason uk sales might be down is due to the exchange rate and theres not much they can do about that.
Good luck everybody. Have a good one.
Ouch! They would charge separately for separate transactions. Multiple watches in one transaction from one supplier is basically one invoice and one handling charge.
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Last edited by Evanssprky; 18th May 2017 at 21:42.
I've had my eye on the gold version of this from Creation for a while. Even with the DHL fee, it seems cheaper than anywhere over here is less you use eBay. Am I missing somewhere?
I'd advise having a look at the gold version, not a great description I know but in the flesh it looks a little "odd". Ernest Jones stock them at £379 you don't need to buy it. They also stock the PADI; seeing that allowed me to confirm that matt dials are the only sort i like on a dive watch. It is strange but having originally rejected it as the least favoured option, the more i thought it through the 779 became the only choice. Fortunately it is the cheapest too.
Creation give you a 10% discount on Turtles if you use the code "TURTLE" however after that the duty side is a bit of a lottery. I'm guessing i was lucky.
It's alleged that DHL have the arrangement with customs that leads to the charge so if you take the Post Office delivery option you might well escape. Then again you might not.
PS I just checked the invoice and the declared value of my measuring instrument was £77 customs experts can work back from there.
Last edited by raysablade; 18th May 2017 at 23:01.
I know when I was importing a PS3 years ago the DHL option was supposedly the sure fire way of being stung. Then again, I escaped so who knows!
I've liked the gold because it looks a bit vintage, but everyone I've shown it to says it's horrid.
Might have to give Ernest Jones a try. Good shout!
good catch as I recall it was over GBP250 when these new turtles were first introduced.
for this model, I prefer bracelet to rubber
All the International couriers have an arrangement with customs, they act as official clearing agents and pay the customs duties on your behalf when it arrives , the alternative is to put your goods in a government bonded customs clearing warehouse and it could be weeks before its assessed by HMRC and charges calculated and invoice sent to you before releasing the goods. This is why they charge for the 'service'. ( my wife works for FedEx )
The fall in the value of the pound after the Brexit referendum made Creation's prices go up ~20% straight away; I still bought a Seiko afterwards because it remained a good price with one of their extra discount codes. But the duty was charged (seemingly not related to the actual price, but still a surprise having bought from them plenty of times before). The double whammy means I doubt I'll buy from Creation again in the foreseeable future.
There are some Hong Kong sellers who manage to sell from Ireland or other EU countries on eBay without duty being levied; but I think there's about to be a crackdown on those too.
There's one on eBay that claims to be in Ireland. Given the shipping times though, I've always assumed they aren't.
I've just checked the e-mail confirmation from the purchase of my Alpinist - the seller's e-mail address was 'citywidehk0@*****.com' and clicking on the seller link says they're Hong Kong based. The ad clearly said "*UK*". Clicking on the product link now shows a very variable delivery date of 7-21 June 'from Ireland' - well that's not in the UK anyway... It can't be long before this method of sellers attempting to avoid duty disappears.
I too ordered a watch on eBay from seller "citiwide-online_uk". Listing says watch is based in Ireland, but seller is based in HK. Just got update from Royal Mail that the watch arrived at the Manchester Mail Centre - one full week after I ordered so not best pleased! Not sure how these guys work but seems dodgy indeed.
If the watches actually ship from Hong Kong then I wonder where you stand if you do get charged duty?
Keep an eye on Amazon. I've seen the one in the OP for as little as £197, but then £270 the next day, then back to nearer £200 couple days later.
I'd have thought that if their ad/listing specifically states that the watch is shipped from Ireland, then you could raise a case with eBay, or enact a PayPal chargeback or similar. Of course, this would be after you've had to pay it to receive the watch.
It's quite straightforward really - there are no customs duties on watches, so it's just the VAT + the handling charge levied by the carrier. In this case, £77 x VAT @ 20% = £15.40, add the handling charge of £11 and that gives you your £26 (rounded).PS I just checked the invoice and the declared value of my measuring instrument was £77 customs experts can work back from there.
I ordered a pen from amazon.co.uk last October - fulfilled by a US retailer. I was charged < 20 as handling charge. The same pen from the same seller now shows the price with duty added which is about £ 100 more. I think HMRC have become wise to this route and are looking more closely at parcels. How do they check them all or deal with undervaluing I don't know.
Just used Creation for an SKX007. Super fast delivery, and yes, import duties and handling charges to be paid, but TBH it still worked out cheaper than Ebay/Amazon etc, and even came in the original box and with a stamped warranty card. I think dealing with a reputable seller is worth maybe the few £'s over that they could possibly cost.
I once ordered a cheap monster from amazon. it came in two or three days, from america, and the delivery guy just left it on the doorstep!
Good luck everybody. Have a good one.
Creation has been the watch collectors friend for as long as I can remember. Gutted that they are now catching the majority of watches for shipping and duty charges but they still work out a whole lot cheaper than Yorkshire watches who seem to sell the same gear.
How are SkyWatches for shipping? I've never used them but I have heard positive things about them.
I think next time someone travels to Japan/Asia - to post here and place orders to bring back to the UK.
Very well volunteered. I shall PM you my list!
Skywatches very good, good tracking, and take a week to ten days to arrive. Had a parcel Monday from them, and a few in the recent past. No duties yet. Postage is free as per Creation, extra with boxset, just over £4. Bizarrely, you can order three watches at a time with boxsets for the single payment of four quid, but add a fourth watch and it jumps to twenty odd.
I just wish they would take all the out of stock watches off the site, can take ages trawling through them.
There's been no crackdown. As far as I can see, the issue with Creation is that they now need to declare correct values to ensure that watches are properly compensated by DHL.
Plenty of other far east vendors of all sorts of thing still misdeclare values and thus get through untaxed, just as Creation used to.
Border Force (who inspect imported items on behalf of HMRC) don't check most things or detect most undervaluations. They mostly rely on what the customs documentation states and only physically check relatively few items. Border Force is only charging the correct VAT on items from Creation because Creation is now declaring them more honestly than previously. Creation is still very unusual amongst far eastern vendors in doing this.
Last edited by markrlondon; 24th May 2017 at 21:56.
I bought a turtle from them back in Feburary. I got the standard tracking number details from DHL, and when I went in to view it I saw there was a charge against it of £3.55. There was no mention of there being any outstanding charge on the tracking email that they sent me, so if I hadn't gone in to look at the tracking then I wouldn't have known about it.
I paid up, thinking "Hmm, that's not happened before" and thought no more about it. The watch arrived promptly as expected and I never had another bill for it.
I think it may be that if you pay the VAT charge before it gets into customs then you won't get hit with the DHL processing fee. Not sure though, but I've heard people say that if you pay VAT in advance then you won't get the fee.
I'm not sure why the bill was only £3 though. I didn't check the shipping label when it arrived so I don't know how much it was declared for, but this thread has just reminded me about that payment I had to make.
I had a similar experience with an incoming international DHL item a few months ago: I found a small fee similar to yours listed on the DHL tracking website. In my case, however, I decided not to pay it unless I was actually invoiced for it. The item was subsequently delivered on time according to the tracking info and I was never billed (I would have long since received the invoice by now if there was actually going to be one).
I was surprised that (a) the amount was so low, (b) there was no mention of a DHL service fee, and (c) and that I was never properly billed.
I relate this experience for information only. Personally I recommend paying the appropriate fees although I think it reasonable in general to wait until one is properly invoiced.
So... I might have been able to get away with not paying that £3.55?? Dammit - that's pretty much a whole pint of beer!
Crackdown was the word used in the press around the time of the 2016 budget:
Guardian story on eBay and Amazon sellers who avoid charging VAT.
A different crackdown. The crackdown referred to in that article does not apply to foreign vendors like Creation who ship directly to customers from non-EU countries. The crackdown in the article only refers to foreign vendors who ship via warehouses within the UK, meaning that (a) they should be registered for UK VAT but are not and (b) they can be effectively caught because they have a UK presence and stock that HMRC can physically get hold of if necessary.
There is no evidence that HMRC or Border Force are making any new or special effort to track down foreign vendors who do not have a UK presence.
I commented on this point here recently: http://forum.tz-uk.com/showthread.ph...=1#post4322197 and http://forum.tz-uk.com/showthread.ph...=1#post4323224. The message at the first link is particularly worth reading as it refers to a NAO press release on this subject which makes it clear that foreign vendors with no UK presence are not being targeted.
Last edited by markrlondon; 25th May 2017 at 17:32.
I'm in the same situation...ordered Friday, arrived Manchester today.
On their order confirmation it states no duty payable on their UK held stock.
If I get charged anything I'll pursue it via PayPal.
Last edited by TikTokTrev; 25th May 2017 at 17:57.
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