The beginners guide to chinese carbon wheels

BBH

Tbh bails depends who u buy from, carbonzone are tending to get stung, my brother bought some from eBay from a different seller ?farsports (it was the one mentioned on here quite near my threads about wheels and charges that featured the gloss wheel pics) and didn't get charged anything!!

bails1310

Thanks BBH - I've been in contact with Farsports direct and didnt know they were on eBay - do you have the link at all ?

Read on here some others [including you I think?] got done at customs from Carbonzone.

BBH

Yes mate it was me

Look at page 17 and the seller that christurbo bought from - thats the one my bro bought from I am sure.
His wheels are great and were cheaper than mine and bought with the security of paypal and ebay as well.
Good luck!!

ugo.santalucia

BBH wrote:

Yes mate it was me

Look at page 17 and the seller that christurbo bought from - thats the one my bro bought from I am sure.
His wheels are great and were cheaper than mine and bought with the security of paypal and ebay as well.
Good luck!!

The security of Paypal and Ebay... ehhmm... it's mostly psycological as they're pretty unhelpful. Last year I bought some rims from a guy on ebay (not from China, he was based in London)... they didn't turn up for weeks and he never replied to any message. I contacted Ebay and basically their adivce was to keep trying to contact the guy. Eventually the rims arrived after5 weeks or so (still no message), in the meantime Ebay had done absolutely nothing.

My girlfriend was victim of a chinese scam and the credit card company refused to refund, so all this alleged security is more in words than in practice

BBH

well, that is a truly awful story, sorry to hear - I have always assumed paypal = no sharing of details with company to reduce fraud and also some buying protection if no products turn up?

willy b

Ok, so i've had mine 1 year now. Originally bought them from direct through an ebay seller, as at the time they were not offering clinchers, can't remember the company name though...

Over the year i've done around 1,000 miles on them, maybe more. Mainly in dry conditions, but they have seen some water/rain, i've hit some big potholes and ruts but they still remain 100% true. The only issue i've had is 2 snapped spoke nipples, this was because aluminium ones were used, not stainless steel.

Overall they really are a brilliant set of wheels, light at around 1,600g, very stiff, climb well, and just maintain the speed so well.

ugo.santalucia

willy b wrote:

Ok, so i've had mine 1 year now. Originally bought them from direct through an ebay seller, as at the time they were not offering clinchers, can't remember the company name though...

Over the year i've done around 1,000 miles on them, maybe more. Mainly in dry conditions, but they have seen some water/rain, i've hit some big potholes and ruts but they still remain 100% true. The only issue i've had is 2 snapped spoke nipples, this was because aluminium ones were used, not stainless steel.

Overall they really are a brilliant set of wheels, light at around 1,600g, very stiff, climb well, and just maintain the speed so well.

Couple of mistakes here... firstly 1000 miles is nothing, it's less than 20 rides, not a lot to judge the quality. In the meantime two nipples failed, which is a lot in 1000 miles. So being very happy is very positive attitude from you.
If you want I can replace your nipples with brass ones (steel nipples don't exist), which are more durable and don't seize in. I am based in SW London

willy b

ugo.santalucia wrote:

Couple of mistakes here... firstly 1000 miles is nothing, it's less than 20 rides, not a lot to judge the quality. In the meantime two nipples failed, which is a lot in 1000 miles. So being very happy is very positive attitude from you.
If you want I can replace your nipples with brass ones (steel nipples don't exist), which are more durable and don't seize in. I am based in SW London

True, although 1,000 miles was a complete guess Just added the miles and they came to 3,500 :oops: Agree that 2 nipple fails is poor through, and I wasn't that happy about it, however based on how well they ride and the speed they carry i'll live with that!

Cheers for the offer on that, when another one goes i'll drop you a line!

amaferanga

It's a real shame that most of the Chinese carbon wheels are built using alloy nipples. It saves a few grams, but they break too easily IME. If only you could buy brass nipples in different colours so you could have funky looking wheels that are also durable.

davep123

My only complaint is the grabby breaking surface. Any suggestions??

rollemynot

Is it me or do you never see Chinese wheels for sale 2nd hand - is it because they are so good nobody wants to sell them or are they falling to bits within 18 months so worthless?

kingrollo

Planet x doing carbon clinchers for £399 .......gotta be the best deal going......ends Oct 10 though

ugo.santalucia

They are thought for racing, braking is not particularly relevant... If you brake, chances are you lose the race.
Outside the racing environment, they are a bit OTT

napoleond

Rollemynot wrote:

Is it me or do you never see Chinese wheels for sale 2nd hand - is it because they are so good nobody wants to sell them or are they falling to bits within 18 months so worthless?

They are so cheap new there is no point selling them 2nd hand, you may as well keep them as spare...

amaferanga

Rollemynot wrote:

Is it me or do you never see Chinese wheels for sale 2nd hand - is it because they are so good nobody wants to sell them or are they falling to bits within 18 months so worthless?

I have a front 50mm clincher wheel (Ultralight hub/Sapim Race spokes) and a rear 28h rim only that I no longer need, but like NapD says it might not be worth my while even selling them. Got the spokes to build it onto a PowerTap as well.

d87francis

Hi all,
first post- I've been a lurker for a long time.
I recently purchased some 60mm carbon clinchers off fleabay from china for £320 including shipping, they were promptly shipped along with an email from the seller attaching another paypal invoice for 80USD letting me know not to pay it, but that was the invoice he had shipped the wheels with marked as a sample. Well the wheels spent over a week in customs in Coventry and I've finally seen the tracking change so have called up to find out hat I have to pay and to my shock it was over £100!

Now what annoys me is that i don't mind paying VAT and duties, but customs have clearly guessed that his invoice was a fake and have made an estimate at the cost of the wheels, one which is too high and I have been over charged!
Do I just take the hit and pay it, I guess it's too late now that parcelforce have paid customs and I owe them?

http://www.dutycalculator.com reckons for the £320 I paid I should be shelling out £67 on VAT and £15 on duty, if I leave them a negative feedback on ebay for not sending with the correct invoice can they then give me a negative?

Sorry for all the questions, I'm a bit f*#ked off really.

BBH

That sucks big style, think you have been unlucky with this. The way i see it is that you have two choices, 1) don't accept the wheels or pay and they will be sent back to the sender and then go for a refund or 2) ring parcelforce and ask why 100 how was that figure arrived at you could always quote the numbers above. It's not your fault as the buyer that the seller put the 'wrong' invoice in the package!!
Good luck and let us know how it goes

nicklouse

d87francis wrote:

Hi all,
first post- I've been a lurker for a long time.
I recently purchased some 60mm carbon clinchers off fleabay from china for £320 including shipping, they were promptly shipped along with an email from the seller attaching another paypal invoice for 80USD letting me know not to pay it, but that was the invoice he had shipped the wheels with marked as a sample. Well the wheels spent over a week in customs in Coventry and I've finally seen the tracking change so have called up to find out hat I have to pay and to my shock it was over £100!

Now what annoys me is that i don't mind paying VAT and duties, but customs have clearly guessed that his invoice was a fake and have made an estimate at the cost of the wheels, one which is too high and I have been over charged!
Do I just take the hit and pay it, I guess it's too late now that parcelforce have paid customs and I owe them?

http://www.dutycalculator.com reckons for the £320 I paid I should be shelling out £67 on VAT and £15 on duty, if I leave them a negative feedback on ebay for not sending with the correct invoice can they then give me a negative?

Sorry for all the questions, I'm a bit f*#ked off really.

so 320. with the 4.8% import tax. then add 20% VAT on to that total. what do you get. 320 + 15 = 335
335 with Vat at 20% = 420 then there is a handling charge by Parcel force. sounds right to me. and you have not mentioned any delivery charges.

remember the costs are add import to NET then add the VAT to that total. then add the handling charge.

benjboy

Hi I have bought 3 sets of wheels from China and not once charged vat must have been lucky..

kamil1891

Same story here.....

I have ordered carbon track wheels from Yishun bikes. Prior to purchase I've asked if I'm going to pay any customs etc. The reply was, don't be worried we are going to put very low vaule on the box and mark it as a sample. I thought, great I would not have to pay anything as that was my understanding. Now it's more than 3 weeks when I've ordered them (they have been in the UK since 27th of Sep) and have been kept in Coventry for that time. I didn't know what was going on until 2 days ago when the tracking shown that "revised charges to be paid". I have immediately contacted Yishun bikes about this and they said that this is fine and the fees are usually on the lower side of 50% of total price, like I should be happy about that!! I'm a student and I've been never prepared to pay anything extra. My complaints were ignored but anyway I want to see what would be the tax after all. If it's low then I will probably pay it and if it's anything over 50 quid then sorry but I will do everything to get the full refund. At least I've paid with Paypal so this should be helpful too. I've been false informed prior to purchase and I've got proof of emails for that so it should be even easier, but we will see...

Be warned!!

bails1310

d87francis wrote:

Hi all,
first post- I've been a lurker for a long time.
I recently purchased some 60mm carbon clinchers off fleabay from china for £320 including shipping, they were promptly shipped along with an email from the seller attaching another paypal invoice for 80USD letting me know not to pay it, but that was the invoice he had shipped the wheels with marked as a sample. Well the wheels spent over a week in customs in Coventry and I've finally seen the tracking change so have called up to find out hat I have to pay and to my shock it was over £100!

Now what annoys me is that i don't mind paying VAT and duties, but customs have clearly guessed that his invoice was a fake and have made an estimate at the cost of the wheels, one which is too high and I have been over charged!
Do I just take the hit and pay it, I guess it's too late now that parcelforce have paid customs and I owe them?

http://www.dutycalculator.com reckons for the £320 I paid I should be shelling out £67 on VAT and £15 on duty, if I leave them a negative feedback on ebay for not sending with the correct invoice can they then give me a negative?

Sorry for all the questions, I'm a bit f*#ked off really.

Carbonzone?

rolf_f

kamil1891 wrote:

I've been false informed prior to purchase and I've got proof of emails for that so it should be even easier, but we will see...

Not really. You knew that the goods were subject to import duties and you knew that mostly people don't seem to get stung for them. And you knew that sometimes they do. You've accepted their initial word that if your package did get stopped, that their valuation would hopefully help you to minimise the duties that you are meant to pay - and obviously they would say that wouldn't they as they don't want to discourage you from a purchase.

Now you've got caught. You should have checked on what the duties were actually meant to be as it is your responsibility to pay them. What you should do is tell customs how much you paid and hopefully they'll let you pay the correct duty rather than their estimate of it.

All your proof of emails will do is tell Paypal that you were complicit with trying to break the law.

This appears to be from HMRC but I can't actually find it myself on there....

Some unscrupulous overseas suppliers openly advertise on the Internet, or on their web-sites that they will deliberately either misdescribe items or under-declare their value in order to evade customs charges that are legally due on importation. You should be aware that although the foreign sender may have completed the customs declaration form on the parcel you are regarded (in law) as the importer of the goods and responsible for the information on the declaration, and any customs charges that may be due. This means that if you purchase goods from these suppliers and the declaration is found to be false or misleading you may be liable to financial penalties or criminal prosecution. Furthermore the goods themselves will be liable to forfeiture. It is in your own interests to ensure Customs declarations are completed properly.

negativelycra

NapD, i bet that hifi you flogged in 2011 came from either larry or ed

kamil1891

Rolf F wrote:

kamil1891 wrote:

I've been false informed prior to purchase and I've got proof of emails for that so it should be even easier, but we will see...

Not really. You knew that the goods were subject to import duties and you knew that mostly people don't seem to get stung for them. And you knew that sometimes they do. You've accepted their initial word that if your package did get stopped, that their valuation would hopefully help you to minimise the duties that you are meant to pay - and obviously they would say that wouldn't they as they don't want to discourage you from a purchase.

Now you've got caught. You should have checked on what the duties were actually meant to be as it is your responsibility to pay them. What you should do is tell customs how much you paid and hopefully they'll let you pay the correct duty rather than their estimate of it.

All your proof of emails will do is tell Paypal that you were complicit with trying to break the law.

This appears to be from HMRC but I can't actually find it myself on there....

Some unscrupulous overseas suppliers openly advertise on the Internet, or on their web-sites that they will deliberately either misdescribe items or under-declare their value in order to evade customs charges that are legally due on importation. You should be aware that although the foreign sender may have completed the customs declaration form on the parcel you are regarded (in law) as the importer of the goods and responsible for the information on the declaration, and any customs charges that may be due. This means that if you purchase goods from these suppliers and the declaration is found to be false or misleading you may be liable to financial penalties or criminal prosecution. Furthermore the goods themselves will be liable to forfeiture. It is in your own interests to ensure Customs declarations are completed properly.

Well, I've been not trying to brake the law. I didn't know to be honest what can I expect in terms of custom fees not to say I didn't know that they exist. I have never ordered before from China or anywhere that would make me pay those. Therefore, I've asked if there are any additional fees etc. I've been told that no so where I've been wrong ? If I was told to check duty fees etc then I would do that and probably went to planet x for my purchase as the final value would be more or less equal and I would get the wheels a lot quicker.

My mistake for not checking that prior to purchase myself but in all honesty I would never expect all that fuss that is going on now and I've presumed that Yishun bikes know what they are doing. Anyway, looks like I will be trying to get the refund anyway because the information I've been provided with were misleading. Lesson learned though.

d87francis

nicklouse wrote:

d87francis wrote:

Hi all,
first post- I've been a lurker for a long time.
I recently purchased some 60mm carbon clinchers off fleabay from china for £320 including shipping, they were promptly shipped along with an email from the seller attaching another paypal invoice for 80USD letting me know not to pay it, but that was the invoice he had shipped the wheels with marked as a sample. Well the wheels spent over a week in customs in Coventry and I've finally seen the tracking change so have called up to find out hat I have to pay and to my shock it was over £100!

Now what annoys me is that i don't mind paying VAT and duties, but customs have clearly guessed that his invoice was a fake and have made an estimate at the cost of the wheels, one which is too high and I have been over charged!
Do I just take the hit and pay it, I guess it's too late now that parcelforce have paid customs and I owe them?

http://www.dutycalculator.com reckons for the £320 I paid I should be shelling out £67 on VAT and £15 on duty, if I leave them a negative feedback on ebay for not sending with the correct invoice can they then give me a negative?

Sorry for all the questions, I'm a bit f*#ked off really.

so 320. with the 4.8% import tax. then add 20% VAT on to that total. what do you get. 320 + 15 = 335
335 with Vat at 20% = 420 then there is a handling charge by Parcel force. sounds right to me. and you have not mentioned any delivery charges.

remember the costs are add import to NET then add the VAT to that total. then add the handling charge.

I'd forgotten they charge VAT on top of duty and then with Parcelforce's extortionate admin fee I've only been overcharged by £11.
Hey ho, I still can't wait to test them out and they are still a bargain compared to buying the branded equivalent here, however I now have to wait until the end of the end of the week before I can afford the charges. I just hope they were careful with them when they unpacked and repackaged them.

Thanks for your help all.

d87francis

Also I see the velo plugs are quite popular but I've always been a fan of velox cloth rim tape. I think I'll give this a go first as it's only cheap I was thinking the 17mm?

amaferanga

kamil1891 wrote:

Well, I've been not trying to brake the law. I didn't know to be honest what can I expect in terms of custom fees not to say I didn't know that they exist. I have never ordered before from China or anywhere that would make me pay those. Therefore, I've asked if there are any additional fees etc. I've been told that no so where I've been wrong ? If I was told to check duty fees etc then I would do that and probably went to planet x for my purchase as the final value would be more or less equal and I would get the wheels a lot quicker.

My mistake for not checking that prior to purchase myself but in all honesty I would never expect all that fuss that is going on now and I've presumed that Yishun bikes know what they are doing. Anyway, looks like I will be trying to get the refund anyway because the information I've been provided with were misleading. Lesson learned though.

I think anyone ordering stuff from China should expect duty and VAT on top of what they pay. It's NOT the sellers responsibility to help you waive import costs, though they do often try to help by making false declarations on the parcel. Then if you don't have to pay duty/VAT see it as a bonus. It sounds like customs have perhaps caught onto the methods of Chinese sellers and have started querying the customs declarations.

It was my understanding that the fees are not negotiable anyway. So once you've received the letter from Parcelforce advising you of the fees, that's it. Either you pay it and you get your parcel or you don't and you don't get your parcel. As for claiming for a refund through Paypal - good luck with that, but I don't think it'll get you anywhere.

ugo.santalucia

These are for the most exactly the same thing Planet X sells for 400-450 pounds... except for the logos. Rims are the same, hubs are the same and spokes are the same or similar. I don't really get the point of going through all the hassle of ordering from China a product which is ready available at a very similar price in the UK.
I do buy components (mainly hubs) from Taiwan, but only when nothing equivalent or similarly priced is available in Europe. There is too much faff involved, in case the goods need to be returned, plus the custom lottery...
I don't understand why one has to put himself through this unnecessarily

gabriel959

Hi ugo,

If you are referring to these http://www.planet-x-bikes.co.uk/i/q/WPP ... r_wheelset they are £500 (so £150 or more) and also heavier than the ones that you can buy from China.

I wouldn't buy either in any case too much that can go wrong with them - too little time!

Cheers,
Gabriel

ugo.santalucia

gabriel959 wrote:

Hi ugo,

If you are referring to these http://www.planet-x-bikes.co.uk/i/q/WPP ... r_wheelset they are £500 (so £150 or more) and also heavier than the ones that you can buy from China.

I wouldn't buy either in any case too much that can go wrong with them - too little time!

Cheers,
Gabriel

Not just those... there are plenty of clinchers and tubulars, of all sorts of depths... that they periodically slash in price, sometimes down to 300-350... all these carbon wheels are much of a muchness, they are all the same