Claiming a VAT refund.

[lilybow]

Hi,
I wish to buy computer parts for a close relative who lives in Asia and I was wondering if I could claim the VAT back on the purchase? I'm a British citizen but I'll be taking all the parts out of Europe.

The idea is to buy all the parts from Scan and take them with me when I fly to see them in 2 months time.

What I was wondering about was if any hardware problems were to arise, Scan can't do anything about it because the parts will be 6000 miles away and you can't bring them back to the UK can you?

For example, if something happens to the gpu could it be brought back to the UK, have the problem sorted out and then sent out again?

Some advice would be appreciated.
Thanks

[leepen@scan]

Hi lilybow,

Unfortunately, as you are resident in the UK you wouldn't be eligible to export VAT free. This would be mainly for people visiting the UK and exporting goods. Only if you were an EU resident and leaving the country for 12months would you be able to claim it back... further details can be found here;

https://www.gov.uk/tax-on-shopping/taxfree-shopping

If a non-national ordered whilst visiting, we'd issue a VAT claim form which would allow you to claim this back when leaving the country.

If there were issues with the hardware, yes, it would need to come back to ourselves (usually, some items are direct warranty but in europe) in order to be repaired/replaced.



Hope this helps


LP

[lilybow]

Thank you.

[jag272]

Out of curiosity Lee, and I guess for future reference should anybody find the thread in future. I believe for RMAs you guys usually provide specific postage instructions so that you guys pay the postage but in a way that won't cost too much. However in the past there was also a thread about somebody ignoring that email and posting the item themselves for what was, for you guys, an excessive postage cost (over £10 IIRC).

Wondering what would happen then with the RMA process if a fault was to develop, based on the previous issue with the person paying their own postage and not getting refunded all of it, I would assume Scan wouldn't be able to pay for international shipping for RMA (I may be completely wrong here, just a guess), so I'm wondering quite how the situation would be handled? Would the item first have to be posted back to lilybow, for example, who then requests the RMA and Scan provides pickup instrucitons for lilybow's address?

If you're too busy to answer, or prefer not to disclose the info completely fine by me, reading the thread just made me a little curious, and while it hopefully won't need to happen, might help lilybow and others down the line too.

[leepen@scan]

It's all dependent upon circumstance jag272. Nature of the fault, onus of the manufacturer or retailer... I don't want to set any terms here as we prefer to treat each case on it's own merit but you are correct, we do offer collection services for faulty hardware. These are chargeable if no fault is found however.

I'm never, EVER too busy to answer - this is what I'm here to do!

Okay let's say for example, you take some hardware to France. The hardware fails, and we (scan) are responsible for the RMA - we can offer collections throughout all of Europe nowadays - so we collect the item, confirm the fault, replace the item and ship it back.

If this was outside Europe however, we could not offer collections nor responsible for return carriage as you would have taken the items outside of the coverage area for warranty. We're not out to get you or anything, we want to help at every turn that we're able to but must adhere to the T&C's of each respective warranty, which is changeable dependent upon what is purchased and from which manufacturer.


Have I missed anything? Let me know if I can help any further


LP

[jag272]

Very thorough answer Lee, thanks. Good to know it's done on a case by case basis too, so that if any particular circumstances could make it easier that they might be followed up, though off the top of my head I can't think what such circumstances would be.

So in the case of lilybow, assuming the hardware fails while in Asia, if the item was to return to lilybow in the UK before the RMA is raised would it therefore be collected and investigated or would the warranty be invalidated as soon as it had left Europe (or the relevant manufacturer's coverage area). I imagine in cases unlike this were lilybow has already stated intentions, that keeping track of such movement like that would be very hard to manage, and even harder to prove even if you believe that to have happened.

Ofcourse that would still involve lilybow or the relative paying to ship back to the UK, at which point it's probably the same cost to send it directly back to Scan as it is to send it to a relative anyway, so all that really achieves is giving Scan an additional charge, therefore this question might actually be completely irrelevant.

It's unlikely I'll ever actually need to make use of the information, but I always think the more you know the better. Besides, while I haven't needed to use your customer support for anything yet, it's also reassuring to see the extent of coverage anyway.

[leepen@scan]

Taking hardware out of the country doesn't immediately waive warranty. It just means that the hardware has to be brought in to the correct region to be dealt with.

99% of the time this is going to be an EU repair centre should the faulty item need to be sent to a manufacturer (in the case of non-straight forward replacement - I think this is what you're referring to, correct me if I am wrong please).

So yes, the item would be returned to the correct warranty region, then processed as normal here at SCAN, we'd then send out the replacement item.

If we had stock of the item then a straight replacement would occur as normal - to a UK address (this can be EU if requested also if suitable).

You're always welcome to play Spanish Inquisition - I am a big believer in sharing or applying information. If you're not doing one of those things with knowledge, it's being wasted!

[jag272]

Ahhh so using lilybow as the example again, the item would go back to lilybow who would then have to arrange to have it sent to their relative in Asia one way or another, as the address the item is sent in from is outside of both UK and EU addresses. That being either arranging their own postage or taking it along next time they visit or what not, doubly so I imagine as on your own systems lilybow's address would be registered as the standard delivery address, unless otherwise requested directly.

I think that answers all my questions regarding the matter, thanks for the information. Always helps to know the inner workings a little bit I think.