u/HoidsRoommate

See my previous post about this here: Previous Post

As you can see in the first screenshot, TBB has confirmed they will not be reimbursing or offsetting these extra costs. They claim Royal Mail assured them there won’t be extra local handling fees, and that our only option under consumer law is to cancel our order for a full refund.

Why this is wrong

Royal Mail does not dictate national border policies. When a parcel enters the EU with an electronic IOSS mismatch due to a missing backend tariff, local national post offices (like DHL, PostNL, La Poste, An Post, etc.) automatically hold it and slap on their mandatory fixed clearance/handling fees to process the difference. We are being set up to pay both the €3 fee and the heavy handling penalty.

The handling fees differ for each country.

Under Section 19 and 28 of the UK Consumer Rights Act 2015, we have the explicit legal right to enforce delivery of our product and claim compensation for direct financial losses caused by a supplier's delay. A retailer cannot force you to forfeit a premium item through cancellation just to clear themselves of liability for the compounding costs of their own scheduling breach.

Relevant Consumer Right Act Sections Section 28 Section 19

I have formally notified them of the above and that I will escalate this matter to Trading Standards (UK) and the European Consumer Centre (ECC) if they refuse to cover these costs.

Just sharing this so other EU buyers know exactly where TBB stands right now, and how you can legally push back using UK consumer law if you're facing the same doorstep penalty's if you ordered a set of The Echoes Saga.

Just wanted to share the official response I got from CS regarding the upcoming €3,- EU customs duty. Since the delays pushed the shipment from April into July, it triggers these new rules.

As you can see, TBB has confirmed they will not be reimbursing or offsetting these fees for EU customers, stating it is 'beyond their control'.

Just a heads-up for fellow EU buyers, as this means we will likely face not just the €3 duty, but also the mandatory local postal handling/clearance fees at our doorsteps because of the supplier's delay.

For people that are unaware

Because we already paid in full, our orders are registered under TBB’s IOSS system as "all taxes paid." However, since the supplier delay pushes the shipment into July, the automated EU customs scanner will flag the parcel because the new €3 duty is missing from the electronic declaration.

Customs will then hand the blocked package over to your local postal service (like PostNL, DHL, An Post) to collect the €3 shortage. Because your local post office has to manually process, clear, and hold the package for this discrepancy, they will slap on their mandatory fixed postal handling/clearance fees. Depending on your country, this adds an extra €6 to €13 penalty on top of the €3 duty, entirely due to the IOSS mismatch caused by the delay.

Edit: This is specifically meant for the people who ordered the Echoes Saga set, not the EU tariffs in general. As the Echoes Saga was originally supposed to ship in April.

To anyone saying they are not obligated to pay for this, yes they are according to the UK Consumer Rights Act 2015

Relevant Sections Section 28 of the UK Consumer Rights Act 2015

Section 19 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015

My intention of this post is not to argue though, it is simply to inform other EU Customers that the Broken Binding does not intend to compensate them for what they should, so that they can make an informed decision on however they want to deal with this. As Broken Binding apparently is not going to be clear about this, unless asked directly

The Echoes Saga has yet again been delayed. I have e-mailed them to ask what they intend to do with the now extra costs due to the tariffs of €3,- being imposed on an order that originally shouldn't have had it. And if they will pay EU Customers for those.

I decided to e-mail TBB for some clearing up on delays and the possible extra costs for EU customers (the €3,- tariffs) when orders placed before July 1st get delayed and shipped after July 1st.

So the shipping page got updated again and they added a little explanation on the delays. As shown in the screenshot above.

So it sounds like not only Malice is delayed as they mentioned before, but now Valour is too. So even more delays. Then, still no expected shipping date on Of Blood and Fire apparently.

Personally, I ordered A Time of Dragons 3 as well, which even with the delay was expected to ship at the end of April, but that is not even mentioned here.

I'm so confused how they can keep delaying things more and more lately.