When buying a card on Ebay from the US it says you have to pay a customs charge can you pay for the just the card and tell seller to send the card at a marked down value to avoid such high fees or does Ebay make you pay the charge upfront along with the card price?
That’s against the law unfortunately and most sellers will be reluctant to do this. It’s just another annoyance for us UK buyers unfortunately, all the good stuff is for sale in the US!
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You are asking the seller to commit a crime and while many will do it, many will not. You should always assume the seller will NOT mark down the item before paying. Asking AFTER paying also puts the seller in a tough spot since you have their feedback held hostage and even outside of the fraud aspect, marking down means they can’t ship fully insured if they wanted to
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I gave you a like cause us UK guys always get effed over. US always gets the best stuff, and for cheaper, with no extortionate import taxes to pay
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For e4 members, regulars, and friends I always mark whatever they want.
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Just avoid sellers that use GSP if you don’t want customs charges. Single cards usually slip through just fine when shipped in regular envelopes. Asking a seller to mark down is indeed asking them to commit fraud.
I never ask an ebay seller to mark down but make note of those that do without asking.
I personally avoid GSP for other reasons but the guaranteed customs charges do suck. (I can go on a rant on how GSP uses the literal worst delivery companies on the planet like yodel, getting stuff lost more often than any other delivery company, but I can write books filled with bad experiences on that so I’ll refrain)
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Many sellers will happily declare a lower value, but don’t be upset if they wont. And also please note that you might still be asked for the actual receipt for customs especially if its a parcel/package and not just a small envelope.
Also if the seller is using the GSP then you will pay customs charges on checkout automatically no matter what.
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If I ever bought an item above 150€ internationally off Ebay, there would be no way around GSP or at least mentioning that threshold to the seller.
Every other time I bought an item above 150€ not using GSP/Ebay, German customs first held the item for one to three months, then charged me 19% plus another 19% tax, plus 16€ for delivery, making a 150€ purchase cost 236€. If I didn’t just buy stuff for my collection, those 3 months would hurt as well.
Through GSP, the second charge is “just” 24% and the items usually arrive directly at my door.
Wow, and a lot of US ebayers were mad when it went from tax free purchases to 7% lol. Having to pay an additional 57% is nuts
Yes… and since the GSP should adhere to national law, it’s probably the whimsical customs employees that decide which category Pokeman cards fall into, since it’s 19% + x% (the 19% already charged) for >150€ items; for shirts it’s 19% + 12% for example.
Yeah every time US people complain about sales tax we Europeans think like “that’s cute”
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Rofl, thanks Sini, this made my day. 
Sad part though, is that it’s true. I’m glad I don’t have it as bad as @burnedos describes above, but it’s still pretty bad sometimes. I once had to pay ~350 USD import fees for a 1650 USD purchase from Japan. And almost any package from the US with a value above 22 euros will have at least 15 euros import fees attached. It wouldn’t surprise me if all money I’ve spend on import fees in the ~6 years I’m buying internationally is well above 3k USD tbh… Talk about waste of money… 
Not to mention the shipping costs from most US eBay sellers is already at around 18-22 USD to begin with… I’m glad sellers like TCA Gaming and some other members here are charging a normal 1.50 USD shipping fees towards Europe, without using that rubbish eBay forwarding system that most US eBay sellers use, IF they even ship internationally at all. 
Anyway, sorry to go off-topic. To be more on-topic with the actual question: when I purchase something on eBay from a seller from the US there are two types of import-related purchases. One is where it states the import fees when you put it in your cart. In that case it usually also states there won’t be any additional import fees on arrival. I personally prefer these kind of auctions, since then I know the full price I’m paying beforehand. But as far as I know you can’t ask the seller to lower this import charge, since it’s done automatically by eBay. I think it has to do with that rubbish forwarding system I mentioned above, but I’m not sure. The higher you win something for, the more import fees you’ll have to pay.
Another type of import fees are those you have to pay on arrival. Usually if the import fees aren’t mentioned when I make the purchase from a US seller, I will have to pay import fees (for purchases above 23 USD) on arrival with about 75% certainty here in The Netherlands. I’m not entirely sure where it’s based on though, since it also happens packages way above the 23 USD threshold are just delivered without having to pay anything. I think it mainly depends on what shipping service (DHL, USPS, etc.) was used, but I’m not entirely sure.
Greetz,
Quuador
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