We hope everyone’s doing well. We have a short update on shipping for everyone, and some more information for backers in the EU today.
All rewards have been shipped out
We sent out the second batch of PIEs over the last two days. This list covers all of you that have submitted your shipping survey before August 20, and you should all have received an email from us titled: “Tracking Information for Your PIE.” There, you should find a link to track your package.
As you all know, you need to install the PIE app on your phone to make full use of PIE. You can download the Android and iOS versions of the app at these links below!
EU Import Duty and DHL Fee Issue
As we shared with you a few hours ago through the tracking link email, some of you in the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, and France were charged over EUR 40 for VAT and DHL service. This is a huge amount considering the price of PIE and we are doing everything we can to solve this issue.
The biggest reason such big amount was charged is that DHL did not include the shipping cost to the commercial invoice attached to the package. Because of this, your country’s customs used “standard shipping costs” to add to the calculation of VAT. In some countries, this “standard” was as high as EUR 100, and that added an addition of around EUR 20.
Another reason is that your local DHL office decided to use their “Advance Payment surcharge service” and charged you for another EUR 10+.
We realized today that DHL in certain countries send emails to you like this and offer no option to do the customs by yourself. But the fact is that when you contact them, they will let you pay for customs instead of using their Advance Payment surcharge service and fix any possible errors.
We collected all your messages, comments, and emails regarding this issue and sent them over to DHL, expressing serious anger. Our DHL office is contacting your local offices as we speak to find ways to solve the issue, and we will get back to you as soon as we hear back from them.
Until then, here is what we can do, and this may be a faster way to solve the problem. We are going to email everyone who contacted us a copy of your order confirmation, including shipping cost to match your pledge amount to this project. We will start emailing the 13 of you as soon as this update is published. When you receive it, we kindly ask you to contact your local DHL office in charge of customs and forward the document to fix your dues. If you told us that you’ve already paid for the amount, we will still send you the document so you can get a reimbursement.
We will start sending you the documents right away and contact you as soon as DHL gets back to us. Please message us if you have any questions or comments. We thank you for your patience.
Best regards,
Bagel Labs
