Vinyl Me Please (store, exclusives, swaps, etc)

Jeff Lerner said:
I've been a member since 2016, and I think I'm finally done. I have two months left on my sub, and I was thinking about just swapping for credit the rest of the way, and then re-joining on the 6+3 deal to grab Sly, Willie Live, and ???, but I don't think there is any guarantee those will be included in the free choices, right? And to me the only way VMP makes economical sense is if you do a 12 month sub ($36/month) but then I would have to choose 8 free records and there is no way I can find 8 records that I want from them. I keep thinking, well, with 5 tracks now there will always be at least one record I want, but then in reality I end up swapping for credit a lot because IMO the curation has gone downhill. I used to grab every Classics and now I feel like it's just a bunch of jazz titles that I don't need. Plus I'm running out of shelf space and I want to be more selective in my purchases.

Sorry for the one-man therapy session, curious to hear how others are justifying the continued cost of this membership, or if they're not.
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It also seems like at this point with VMP being so saturated, and not really limited in scope, you can get most if not all of their releases on Discogs for close to the 12 month price as people unload them upon receipt. I still stay in the loop with what they release, but I'm with you in their curation not being worth the price of admission and the last thing I need is money sitting in their coiffeurs as I wait on something I actually want.
 
Jeff Lerner said:
I've been a member since 2016, and I think I'm finally done. I have two months left on my sub, and I was thinking about just swapping for credit the rest of the way, and then re-joining on the 6+3 deal to grab Sly, Willie Live, and ???, but I don't think there is any guarantee those will be included in the free choices, right? And to me the only way VMP makes economical sense is if you do a 12 month sub ($36/month) but then I would have to choose 8 free records and there is no way I can find 8 records that I want from them. I keep thinking, well, with 5 tracks now there will always be at least one record I want, but then in reality I end up swapping for credit a lot because IMO the curation has gone downhill. I used to grab every Classics and now I feel like it's just a bunch of jazz titles that I don't need. Plus I'm running out of shelf space and I want to be more selective in my purchases.

Sorry for the one-man therapy session, curious to hear how others are justifying the continued cost of this membership, or if they're not.
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You can choose 8 albums you know you'll be able to sell for 15ish/album to a local to recoup the cost
 
Question for my internationals.

I have just had an email to say that I owe £50 in customs fees before they release the parcel to me. I suspect its VMP (as SADDLE CREEK LOGISTICS SVCS is the name given) and I suspect its the Tribe Anthology box set that I ordered.

I've never had to pay customs in my 6-years of membership, so my question is whether this is something that should have been picked up at VMP's end or if I do indeed have to pay it?
 
Selaws said:
Question for my internationals.

I have just had an email to say that I owe £50 in customs fees before they release the parcel to me. I suspect its VMP (as SADDLE CREEK LOGISTICS SVCS is the name given) and I suspect its the Tribe Anthology box set that I ordered.

I've never had to pay customs in my 6-years of membership, so my question is whether this is something that should have been picked up at VMP's end or if I do indeed have to pay it?
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Did your invoice from VMP include UK VAT itemised and does it have their UK registration number for paying VAT? If it does then you should be able to use that as proof for customs of UK VAT paid. If it doesn’t you owe the fees.

There’s been a bit of a thing with VMP in Europe where VAT and customs was due but it wasn’t always being picked up by postal providers, even though it was due. They were forced by law to register for EU VAT to sell into the EU last year and our prices have gone up hugely because of the extra VAT charge being taken at source which previously we were getting away with because of lax postal services. By law we should have paid it on every package that ever came in.
 
Joe Mac said:
Did your invoice from VMP include UK VAT itemised and does it have their UK registration number for paying VAT? If it does then you should be able to use that as proof for customs of UK VAT paid. If it doesn’t you owe the fees.

There’s been a bit of a thing with VMP in Europe where VAT and customs was due but it wasn’t always being picked up by postal providers, even though it was due. They were forced by law to register for EU VAT to sell into the EU last year and our prices have gone up hugely because of the extra VAT charge being taken at source which previously we were getting away with because of lax postal services. By law we should have paid it on every package that ever came in.
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Looks like their standard receipt showing the "subtotal" and "shipping" only.

I did a bit of digging and it looks as though we are subject to customs/duties as internationals on the Anthologies due to the value and carrier constraints. My fault for not checking beforehand, I bought the Herbie box a while ago (which was bigger & pricier) and wasn't hit in that instance.

Guess I need to suck it up, take it as a lesson learned, and pay. Fortunately, it was discounted so not as eyewatering as it could have been.

Screenshot 2023-06-15 at 11.58.04.png
 
Selaws said:
Looks like their standard receipt showing the "subtotal" and "shipping" only.

I did a bit of digging and it looks as though we are subject to customs/duties as internationals on the Anthologies due to the value and carrier constraints. My fault for not checking beforehand, I bought the Herbie box a while ago (which was bigger & pricier) and wasn't hit in that instance.

Guess I need to suck it up, take it as a lesson learned, and pay. Fortunately, it was discounted so not as eyewatering as it could have been.

View attachment 175208
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Yeah them having to add our VAT to everything coming here, meaning 23% on top of the advertised cost, has made me even more picky about what and how often I’ll buy there, they’ve got to absolutely whack it out of the park.

Everything over I think £150 is due the customs fee, which is 10% here and last I checked it was the same in the uk, but seriously everything from zero technically has VAT due on it, it’s just often not picked up by local postal carriers.
 
Selaws said:
Question for my internationals.

I have just had an email to say that I owe £50 in customs fees before they release the parcel to me. I suspect its VMP (as SADDLE CREEK LOGISTICS SVCS is the name given) and I suspect its the Tribe Anthology box set that I ordered.

I've never had to pay customs in my 6-years of membership, so my question is whether this is something that should have been picked up at VMP's end or if I do indeed have to pay it?
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Not sure about the UK but in Canada we get hit with duties on the Anthologies. I think it is the way they ship them now. Your mileage may vary

Edit: meant to add that is seems like regular ROTM shipments don't get hit with duties here, but this has stopped my from even considering signing up for a year. I think 8 'free' records would be tempting customs gods
 
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Selaws said:
Question for my internationals.

I have just had an email to say that I owe £50 in customs fees before they release the parcel to me. I suspect its VMP (as SADDLE CREEK LOGISTICS SVCS is the name given) and I suspect its the Tribe Anthology box set that I ordered.

I've never had to pay customs in my 6-years of membership, so my question is whether this is something that should have been picked up at VMP's end or if I do indeed have to pay it?
Click to expand...

Joe Mac said:
Did your invoice from VMP include UK VAT itemised and does it have their UK registration number for paying VAT? If it does then you should be able to use that as proof for customs of UK VAT paid. If it doesn’t you owe the fees.

There’s been a bit of a thing with VMP in Europe where VAT and customs was due but it wasn’t always being picked up by postal providers, even though it was due. They were forced by law to register for EU VAT to sell into the EU last year and our prices have gone up hugely because of the extra VAT charge being taken at source which previously we were getting away with because of lax postal services. By law we should have paid it on every package that ever came in.
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In the beginning vmp used to underdeclare value so mostly one was not hit with customs and when vmp was rather kind and refunded it.
In the last couple of years the eu waved the value threshold so VAT is always due and collected most of the time. For the first anthologies ( i never ordered one, but as far as i remember) the additional shipping fee for intl also included an up-front payment of vat and customs, but they seem to have changed that
 
Jan said:
In the beginning vmp used to underdeclare value so mostly one was not hit with customs and when vmp was rather kind and refunded it.
In the last couple of years the eu waved the value threshold so VAT is always due and collected most of the time. For the first anthologies ( i never ordered one, but as far as i remember) the additional shipping fee for intl also included an up-front payment of vat and customs, but they seem to have changed that
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Yeah and after brexit the uk did that too, reverting from £20 to £0.

We actually had a two year period during Covid, because this all happened in and around then where an post, maybe because of volume, maybe Covid staffing issues, maybe both, just didn’t bother checking any overseas parcels. That’s stopped the last 18 months and everything is charged now.

Royal Mail is a streaming hot mess of what type of company not to privatise, how not to privatise it and why the public sector is always going to be much better than the private for providing public services. I think it’s hit and miss whether they bother and more often than not it miss.
 
Does anyone have the VMP exclusive of this? I went for six months to try the new rock track and grab a couple bonus records I've been wanting (Dylan and the two Clem Snide). But I see this in swaps and have enjoyed streaming it, but curious about the pressing quality.
Screenshot_2023-06-15-14-50-13-54_b842316e563230167e12cc31f5ffaf19.jpg
 
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