Today I received the proofgrade materials pack and was 'gifted’a customs charge of €52,69
Have anyone else had the same/similar charge? Will Glowforge refund these additional charges?
I’ve opened a ticket (#76946) but I want to know if this is a common occurrence?
I don’t want to pay more for the Glowforge when it finally arrives after these years of waiting.
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I’m afraid so,
I had to pay £42 for the proofgrade, and I’m expecting to pay £709 on the pro once it arrives in the UK. All of us who live outside the United States are in the same boat as regards customs and brokerage.
Did Glowforge warn us about this? I can’t afford to fork out 700 pounds on something I have already paid for.
They do warn you that you have to pay any additional fees before you order.
This is normal. Glowforge is not required to pay or refund you for any additional fees that come with importing your Glowforge, or anything that comes with it. This is your country charging you for importing goods.
You have to pay your local country VAT, which can be from 19% up to 25%, depending on your country. The price you payed for Glowforge is without tax.
You also have to pay import fee/tax which is a couple percent of the total price without VAT, but + shipping.
I had to pay 173€ import fee/tax my Glowforge, but didn’t have to pay VAT because my company is VAT registered, so I just account for it in my documents.
Copy paste from the Terms & Conditions.
Except in the case of sales tax for certain locations which are identified when payment is taken, all import duties, taxes, tariffs, and other charges are not included in the Product price or shipping costs. These charges are your responsibility. Please check with your state and country’s customs office to determine if there will be additional costs prior to completing your order.
Edited to find a more relevant text.
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This is always the case when you import something above a small threshold from outside the EU.
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According to other posts here, they have reduced the price of the GlowForge by the amount you pay for fees on the PG materials, to compensate.
I paid ages ago, the kickstarter price, I do not recall any information on a price reduction.
The total price is the same, they just reduce the invoice value of the GF by the invoice value of the PG so it still adds up to what you paid.
That’s smart. Because if they would put free or 0$ for the material, customs would still charge us, just that they would guess the price.
I wouldn’t describe it as smart. It is simply correct. The invoices should match what you paid and the purchase ledger. Anything else is false accounting.
They should also be doing the same with the shipping but I haven’t heard that mentioned. I.e. the price you paid to ship the GF also included the shipping of the PG.
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Still I had to pay 13 euro to UPS extra because they send the proofgrade as a separate shipment.
It was more or less 43 euro in taxes and 13 euro handling per package for UPS.
However the tax on my actual glowforge was lower than expected. So I am not complaining.
What I do want to complain about is that after a week I have no reply on my e-mail ticket about them listing a gift with a small stack of wood as 150 dollar value. They could have simply listed it as 20 $ value, and a gift, which it is.
They reduced the amount you were charged for your Glowforge by $150 to compensate. (Net effect should be zero.) But the Proofgrade ships from a separate location, and it generally ships first.
It’s not technically a gift per many countries’ import regulations since you had to buy a GF to get it. They reduced the value of the GF by that $150 to account for it. You paid less duty & VAT on the GF as a result.
The extra UPS charge due to the extra box is a valid beef but since you could have refused the PG shipment you chose to value it at least what the UPS handling charge was.
[Germany] It looks like I have the same Problem. I must pay 45,56€.
Maybe I don’t take it because it is less expensive to buy the Material in a local store.
I have made a “quick and dirty” excel table to geht the price per m². It look like it ist absolute overpriced.
|m² price|Material|
| 87,52 € |Medium Maple Hardwood|
| 57,76 € |Medium Maple Plywood|
| 21,01 € |Medium Draftboard|
| 49,89 € |Medium Clear Acrylic|
| 84,02 € |Walnut Veneer, with 3M tape|
| 57,76 € |Maple Veneer, with 3M tape|
| 226,86 € |Natural Leather|
The glowforge just arrived with a €575 COD fee, WTF!
All compared to pre-masked and prefinished materials? My original reaction to Proofgrade was similar. However when I priced it vs the cost of local materials, masking (or subsequent cleaning) and finishing time I found it to be reasonably competitive.
Compared to other laser material suppliers in the U.S., it’s also competitively priced.
However, I do use Baltic Birch sourced locally as well as other materials where the pre-masked & finishing advantage is not compelling. I also get my acrylic locally or via Amazon or Rowmark because I haven’t found an advantage to PG Acrylic over other cast acrylic suppliers.
Of course that’s all U.S. based intel so it’s entirely possible you can get similar supplies locally in Europe at a better price and GF won’t find a materials market internationally.
We’ve followed up in email about this and we’re working on it there, so I’m going to close this topic.