Fairphone policy following Brexit

I have been on your website and cannot find any Fairphone policy on Brexit and any changes you might be making now that we are a ‘third’ country. So if a friend buys a Fairphone now will she pay VAT twice?

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What made you think she has to pay VAT twice?

That could very well be the case.
When ordering online from e.g. the USA, I usually don’t get the goods tax-free, even if they are directly shipped overseas. And when the stuff arives, I have to pay tax and customs duties, depending on what I ordered. I always do calculate the amount I will have to pay beforehand of course.

So, in this case the phone might be sold at the regular price, including NL VAT and when it arrives in the UK, the buyer has to pay tax and customs.
Corrected, see the next posting.

That’s the usual way, when buyin “overseas”.
But I am sure, that there will be a provision/regulation for UK/EU trades.
Most likely there won’t be any customs; but you won’t be spared VAT.

Here’s an information leaflet EU-UK RELATIONS: A new relationship, with big changes from the EU; the UK might have produced something like this as well.
In the first box on the left hand side on “Trade In Goods” it says:

VAT and, where applicable, excise duties …

To me this reads “VAT in any case and duties only where applicable”.

EDIT
I stand corrected by @urs_lesse.
Fairphone in fact seems to be selling tax-free!!!
Hooray!

Edit 2:
General info for UK residents.
An info-page of the government can be found here:

According to

https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/articles/115001583886-Shipping-and-additional-costs-of-Fairphone-products

Fairphone will ship phones to the UK without VAT:

European Union VAT is not applicable and therefore not included in the price

However, the current prices for the FP3+ (£ 399) and the FP3 (£ 369) in their online shop for the UK do not seem to reflect that yet. So I recommend you contact Fairphone Support (I would explicitly point out that the prices given seem to include VAT – contrary to the Support article above) to get certainty from an official answer.

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Hi @Geoff_Rhodes

First I’d like to clarify that this forum is not official Fairphone support and no one really knows the answer here from Fairphone’s view. Saying that VAT and other charges can be added to imports although products under £135 pounds are 'supposed to have any such surcharges added at check out.

Prices over £135 can have surcharges added due to extra checks and VAT once it reaches the UK border. These later checks have nothing to do with Fairphone so apart from the VAT the courier has a say on whether to levy fees.

Sadly part of the problem then occurs if the product was not made in the country of sale, i.e. a phone made in China but sold from Holland will have charges due to the manufacturing,

See

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In the UK you can also buy it from e.g. The Phone Co-op (as I did): Fairphone 3 | The World's Most Sustainable Phone | The Phone Coop

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For what its worth just received a DHL parcel in UK from Slovenia (value over £135) upon which paid their 22% local VAT rate and it incurred no further charges upon delivery.

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Yes I read somewhere Slovenia makes changes at source for all goods :slight_smile:

Please can I add my own experience. I purchased a Fairphone 3 on the 5th January and received the phone on the 3rd February. During that time media reports came out about additional VAT being levied in the UK. The new rules say that VAT is chargeable on goods over the value of £135 as stated in earlier posts. The exception is whether a European business is registered for VAT in the UK. I was fully expecting to have to pay the extra and hopefully claim the VAT that I had paid to Fairphone back. VAT is only payable in the intended area of use.
When the phone arrived I was not asked for any other payment which leaves me baffled by the rules. Maybe Fairphone are registered in the UK.

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Hello and welcome to the forum.

Of course you can add your experience.
In fact, it is very much appreciated and welcome, as that’s the way this community works. :slight_smile:
Hopefully you are right and not just lucky :wink: and ther will be no extra charges for FP customers.


Otherwise, there is always the possibilty to buy from a UK reseller.
As listed by Fairphone:

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Some info on VAT requirements ~ for the UK purchaser

An updated article

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My FF 3+ just arrived to my UK address today (ordered 4 Jan). Like Terry_Smith there were no additional charges, much to my amazement after all the horror stories of post-Brexit deliveries from the EU. GB VAT was included by FF when I placed my order.

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Hi Fairphone & community,

Not sure why you deleted my last account and comments seemed a bit rude. I was able to make another with the same username and I was not able to make one with my original email address so you clearly blacklisted it…which is odd/draconian… I’m a prospective buyer and at the moment nobody is able to ship to the UK using your shop on the Fairphone website…

I’ve tried multiple browsers ( Firefox / Safari / Chrome ) as have your Zensdesk support staff. I’ve ensured the shop is set to the UK at the top and I have changed it to every country possible to see if the UK pops up… It does not… ( See screenshots below)

I’d rather purchase through you then large Corp like BT etc…

Thank you,

Gert

Hi @Gert123

First this is not an official Faiurphone account so you cannot ‘buy through us’

When you say you set up an account this would seem to apply to Fairphone shop which uses Zendesk, that is not the same as an account on this user group and although Fairphone host it they have no say in running it and only look in now and then.

I doubt an email address was blacklisted on either account but once an email has been used with a user name you cannot use the same email address to set up a new account, it would create a security flaw if multiple accounts used the same email. If an account is removed completely then it would be possible to use a previously used email, but if an account is just disabled then that email is still current.

Updated

A couple of advantages of buying in the UK is a) It getr’s the phone better known to the locals and helps support b) if you have a problem with the phone you can deal with a local shop rather than just online, which of late is very tardy.

Try this URL

https://shop.fairphone.com/gb_en/

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@anon9989719

My last account was removed unfortunately - which was merely informative to the thread. I could not login nor was I was unable to use my original email address and I could not reset/receive any password reset requests. Then I changed it to alternative email address and the original username Gert123 became available…thus indicating that the entire user profile was removed…Hence the draconian comment sir :slight_smile:

I think they have just fixed the issue - they have also provided a specific link just for the British store as the normal website does not work atm…

Here’s the specific British link - Discover Fairphone 3, Fairphone 3+ | Sustainable smartphones

Re your photo above yes you can set your language and location to the UK but the shipping address on checkout does not currently hold the UK.

I would buy in the UK but I can see anywhere that BT or Maplin offer the two year warranty Fairphone does. And for all OS firmware/hardware issues BT or Maplin are always going to deffer to Fairphone right? Interested in your thoughts on this one.

Have a look with this company, this is who I bought my FP3 from:

On my attempts, I can have the phone shipped to UK via Fairphone too. The currency also defaults to £. Perhaps this is a clue to your problems.

Phone Co-op also appears to be cheaper than via Fairphone itself.

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Looks like you still have Netherlands EN selected.

By the way the link you provided is the same as the one I provided but direct. I’m using Firefox but I don’t think the browser is an issue, just your initial setting is still on Netherlands.

Anyway when you go to checkout you can enter your address.

When doing a screen shot, which is page and language related, please show the whole page including URL

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@anon9989719 @athair_birb

The Image in the previous post was just to show you the cart and the flag - The issue still persists for folks trying to select UK as a shipping address, please see the image in this post. They have provided a work around which is the fair-phone shop address I provided in a previous post.

Ta

It is strange indeed.
I just checked and couldn’t select UK as well.


But there seems to be another possibility:

When you are logged in to the Fairphone shop change to the “Address-book
-> There select the option “add new address

And in that address field, you can enter a UK address.

On checkout it should at least be possible, to select that address, though I did not try, as I did not want to enter a fake UK address. :wink:

I was really trying to find out whether we are still going to be able to get fairphones now that the UK is not in Europe.
I was hoping that Fairphone would pick up my question from this forum and try to add something to the website. Is there a way to get this message to them?