And yet, I still paid a tariff fee to ZenMarket.
I’ve opened a dispute and seeing if I can get reimbursed.
Anyone else here in the USA seeing similar kinds of empty data regarding valuation / fees on their received package bill of lading?
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Well, I got a response from Zen Market. Very cryptic. And not helpful.
No, I’m not at all hopeful of getting any refund. This really stinks. It certainly looks like ECMS did not have to pay any tariffs.
They’re still collecting tariffs
Any tariffs declared illegal will get refunded on the back end.
I’ve already received 3 from the end of last year.
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Tariffs through something else other than the Japan based buying proxies? I haven’t gotten any reimbursements and I don’t expect Zen Market to send me anything. They are extremely terse and clinical with everything. No favors.
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I can’t answer that yet but I will say that anything I get back I just view as a bonus because at this point there are so many other things that chip away at my serenity.
Also, zenmarket is terrible and it all started at the Chinese New Year.
Everything I’ve said in the past that I love about them is no longer the case by far.
I have a couple items that I really really want but they cannot be bought through Buyee. They can be bought through zenmarket and I REFUSE to use them.
Buyee has really stepped up.
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I believe that it depends on the proxy/carrier.
The US is still collecting tariffs, and a lot of times, the proxy/carrier collects it up front, so it does not delay your packages.
This would be a problem if you were ALSO required to pay tariffs before delivery of the package, but I don’t see any issues with this. Saves lots of problems.
That’s good to know.
Maybe I’ll switch over to Buyee. ZenMarket did away with their 20,000 JPY tier of credit. It’s now 10k then 60k, and then 100k! Ridiculous.
The way Zen Market is handling it, they collect the DDP upfront. And this does make the Customs entry easy. No delays on fees, except for FedEx which may add on their own brokerage fees on top of everything. I refuse to use FedEx ever again. Too expensive with no upside.
But the US tariffs is a huge blunder, creating excessive costs for consumers and pretty much just enriching the companies and carriers. Now ruled unconstitutional, but the administration keeps angling for different ways to charge them. They complain that too much money is lost by Chinese shippers where shipping cost is swallowed by their government and undercutting the competitive prices. So… charge Temu and others the tariffs. The rest of us who get simple small parcels from single parties are being penalized for no good reason.
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What irritates me about the ZenMarket credit, is when it expires.
I had an open orders, waiting for the rest of my items to arrive, when my credit expired and they said Pay Up Now. I still had a few things to buy, so I had to go back to paying up front, when I should have still had credit.
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I usually use DHL with ZenMarket or Buyee. Expensive, but I have far less trouble with them.
I have had to file TSCA Certifications lots of times with FedEx, which delayed everything by a day or two.
I’ve used Zen Group Express, Avia Small Packet, and ECMS… no problems with any of them. In fact, Avia small packet says 2 to 3 weeks and I’ve at times gotten a package in just 1 week.
Because I bought sunglasses on a couple of occasions, that ended up being an FDA restricted item so ECMS and Avia wouldn’t cover it. I had to use FedEx. I had to submit the addresses of each and every manufacturer of each item, plus a “drop ball test” certificate from the manufacturer. All of this is a scam. They don’t care. I learned that all I had to do is fill out the drop ball test certificate myself and add convincing info to it, like for Nikon, looking up the lead testing engineer / director for eyewear and putting his name on it, and a mock “electronic” signature. It passed.
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I’ve found out a few things
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At least 50% of the time with zenmarket and maybe 30% of the time with Buyee, their system inputs an odd tariff code that doesn’t match anything.
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The description and the tariff code IS THE EXACT REASON for any delay or lack of delay of a package.
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If you are shipping either a pen or a pencil and you manually input on each individual item either “mechanical pencil plastic, mechanical pencil metal, or mechanical pencil plastic and metal” and input the tariff code 9608 40 4000,
YOUR PACKAGE WILL MOVE THROUGH CUSTOMS WITHOUT ISSUE 100% OF THE TIME!
I have never had any issues with that. The FedEx thing was due to ballpoint pens being in my shipment and having to fill out the Toxic Substance Control Act (TSCA) Certification. Nobody else has ever asked for this, but FedEx ALWAYS asks.
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I remember your earlier post, clarifying how Buyee lets you override the bill of lading and specify the tariff codes for each item. That’s a good feature, IF you know the right codes. ZenMarket does not permit this. However, in my case it has been problem free 100% of the time. I’d never even seen the codes printed anywhere but I’ve never had a rejection, delay, or additional tariff fee happen with a ZenMarket shipment.
Btw, since ballpoints introduce the “toxic substances” import concern, have you ever tagged a ballpoint as a mechanical pencil? Because I doubt they XRAY items. And if they do that anyway, you’d have to look really, really close to differentiate a mechanical pencil from a ballpoint pen.
Do any of you guys know the financials on how tariffs are paid?
- Buyer pays the DDP fee to the proxy.
- Proxy pays… who? The shipper, who then pays Customs? Or does the proxy service pay the DPP directly to US customs and the tracking number gets logged in the system as “tariff paid?”
- If the Proxy pays the tariff amount to the Shipper, and then the shipper pays it to US customs upon arrival at the port?
Here’s ZenMarket’s response:
"Thank you for reaching out to us and for providing the photo of your shipping label and documentation. Regarding your request, at present, we are not in a position to provide detailed information or a definitive answer regarding potential refunds related to the IEEPA tariffs and the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling, as the situation is still being carefully reviewed.
Should any necessary actions or procedures become required on our side in the future, we will review the matter appropriately and take the necessary steps accordingly.We sincerely apologize that we are unable to provide more specific guidance at this stage, and we greatly appreciate your kind understanding and patience."
So this whole thing remains annoyingly opaque for the buyer.
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