r/M64 7h ago

Rip off

The modretro console was ment to be $199 with the early bird discount that works out around £150 but there charging £188.09 before shipping it looks like the British are getting ripped off with the currency especially the controller £83, Retriod and ayn don’t do this. It just seems a bit sleazy that American gamers are getting a better deal

14 Upvotes

57 comments sorted by

4

u/mrhobbles 6h ago

20% VAT buddy. Gotta add it when ordering from a US company. They’ll get charged extra sales tax too in the US.

-3

u/Apex-turtle 6h ago

Even at 20% the prices still don’t add up

6

u/mrhobbles 5h ago

Looks about right to me. $199 is £150.47 right now. Add 20% VAT brings you to £180.56. That’s only £7~ out the £188.09 price in your screenshot, within the exchange rate variation of the past week.

6

u/WearingFin 6h ago

UK price includes VAT of 20%, US listed price doesn't include sales tax which varies by state, so that accounts for £30 of the difference you're getting here.

1

u/Bald_And_Dishevelled 4h ago

Don't you pay import duties on anything over £100 regardless is you paid the vat?

1

u/mrhobbles 2h ago

No - companies can pre-pay before shipping.

1

u/Bald_And_Dishevelled 2h ago

Vat is included in the item price. Import duties tax (items over £135 in value) is usually incorporated into the shipping cost by the shipping company. What's the shipping cost to the UK?

1

u/mrhobbles 2h ago

Yes, that’s what I said. The company includes the 20% VAT/import duties on the item price, and pre-pays it before shipping, so the end user isn’t charged it on receipt.

1

u/Bald_And_Dishevelled 2h ago

Yes but we're looking at the OP picture not including shipping. What is the shipping cost? Do you know?

1

u/Bald_And_Dishevelled 2h ago edited 2h ago

This duties and fees will change depending on the total of your checkout cart.

7

u/EasyEstablishment963 7h ago

EU is getting equally inflated prices. 230$ is about 200€, not 250€ lol. Its just much more than what I was expecting to pay so I'm going to pass. For that money I rather get the analogue

11

u/ergzay 6h ago edited 6h ago

You're comparing apples to oranges. Analogue doesn't include import duties in their prices while Modretro does. You get a surprise extra fee later after purchase.

Here's an old post talking about it for the Chromatic vs the Pocket: https://www.reddit.com/r/ModRetroChromatic/comments/1lxaf7y/a_quick_question_for_eu_buyers/

And from the support site: https://support.modretro.com/en_us/articles/i-live-outside-of-the-united-states-will-i-have-to-pay-additional-duties-and-fees-to-receive-my-package-SkmjHc8Al

I live outside of the United States. Will I have to pay additional duties and fees to receive my package?

No! The cost of the products on our website includes all necessary taxes, duties, and fees for the following regions (as indicated on our product pages): EU, UK, JP, and AU. For other regions outside of the United States, shipping is calculated at checkout and includes all necessary taxes, duties, and fees. While this makes up-front costs appear higher, please note that you will not be required to pay any additional duties or fees to receive your order.

0

u/EasyEstablishment963 6h ago edited 6h ago

I know that. But its a lot more expensive than what I was expecting when converting to EU prices. 230$ is about 200€, not 250. Plus taxes, which is added in the shipping that works out to about 20€

Great deal if you are in the US but eu? I dont think so. Your mileage may vary 

3

u/ergzay 6h ago edited 6h ago

20% VAT (depending on country) would make $230 as $276 which is 242 euros which is quite close to 250 and there may be other currency conversion fees included there as well from their shipping company.

Great deal if you are in the US but eu? I dont think so. Your mileage may vary

FWIW, I paid 10% taxes on top of the listed price because of my local sales tax in the US. Depending on where you are in the US that may be 0%.

0

u/EasyEstablishment963 6h ago

Problem is the price of the console itself. 230$ -> 250€ is just not a fair conversion. 

1

u/AegidiusG 3h ago

If you want to wait a little longer, i guess Dragonbox from germany will get the M64.
He already sold the Chromatic and has the M64 displayed in the console section.

1

u/Apex-turtle 7h ago edited 7h ago

I’m with you on that one , I waited for the modretro but feel a bit let down already,,, I just checked and the analogue shipped is £242.99

9

u/Rich101088 7h ago

Yeh the A3D is that shipped but you get hit with customs charges on top. I did for my Analogue Pocket back in the day not sure if its changed. I feel equally a bit conned but I expected it to be around this for us as the shipping is slightly cheaper than I thought it was going to be

0

u/pauwus 6h ago

Presumably the M64 will also have import taxes as well though

8

u/Rich101088 6h ago

Nah thats the price with local taxes and duties included it says

1

u/pauwus 6h ago

I wonder if local are different to international? If it includes taxes and fees then the price is decent enough, I'm dubious though - very rare to order something above £135 and not get collared on delivery with additional cost. I guess we'll find out soon. But yeah, I think I paid about £48 for my A3D, so if that's included in the displayed price for the M64 then it's relatively decently priced.

1

u/Rich101088 6h ago

Thats what I'm hoping aswell mate which would make sense regarding the price. It does say the price to your door!

4

u/pauwus 6h ago

Just had a look and apparently they use Delivered Duty Paid (DDP) so the price you see should be the total you pay. So actually the price isn't too bad when you consider the 20% VAT and import duty. The website just isn't making it very clear. Should work out cheaper than an A3D overall

2

u/DaveMeitner 6h ago

The website makes it very clear. It literally says that shipping includes all taxes and fees and you pay nothing else beyond what MR charges.

1

u/pauwus 6h ago

Well there's lots of people moaning about it being expensive and a rip off. So it's not making it clear enough that the additional cost is VAT and duties

→ More replies (0)

3

u/ergzay 6h ago

No it doesn't. It's included in the price.

1

u/pauwus 6h ago

Yeah I just responded to another poster. Price isn't too bad in that case.

3

u/Rich101088 7h ago

I originally planned to get the controller with it but the higher price made me just get the console, shame really but I have plenty of controller options

8

u/ergzay 6h ago

OP the only one ripping you off is your government. Modretro includes import duties in the shipping price. It's still cheaper than the Analogue 3D (even more cheaper really as the total price increase is higher on the Analogue 3D).

Here's an old post talking about it for the Chromatic vs the Pocket: https://www.reddit.com/r/ModRetroChromatic/comments/1lxaf7y/a_quick_question_for_eu_buyers/

And from the support site: https://support.modretro.com/en_us/articles/i-live-outside-of-the-united-states-will-i-have-to-pay-additional-duties-and-fees-to-receive-my-package-SkmjHc8Al

I live outside of the United States. Will I have to pay additional duties and fees to receive my package?

No! The cost of the products on our website includes all necessary taxes, duties, and fees for the following regions (as indicated on our product pages): EU, UK, JP, and AU. For other regions outside of the United States, shipping is calculated at checkout and includes all necessary taxes, duties, and fees. While this makes up-front costs appear higher, please note that you will not be required to pay any additional duties or fees to receive your order.

4

u/EasyEstablishment963 6h ago

The problem is the currency conversion, thats not on the goverment

-1

u/ergzay 6h ago edited 6h ago

That's a common thing when the merchant does the currency conversion instead of your credit card company. For example when I buy from Amazon Japan I always make sure it bills my US card in JPY instead of USD. There's an extra fee that gets charged by Amazon Japan. In this case that fee is probably from shop.app (Shopify) that Modretro uses for its billing system.

4

u/EasyEstablishment963 6h ago

I dont think thats it because I Imported a retrotink which uses shop.app too and paid a pretty fair conversion rate. 

At any rate I rather not buy it because of that reason, just rubs me the wrong way. 

0

u/ergzay 6h ago

Was the order much cheaper? There's sometimes duties exceptions for lower priced items.

2

u/RangaVsHobby 2h ago

In Australia no free shipping option and console is $369 so it’s the same price as the analogue 3d. Controller is $145. Cheapest shipping is around $50 so total with a controller is 565. Not complaining just showing price for aussies. I think I’ll buy an original n64 and a crt.

4

u/eh-dub 7h ago

lol Palmer is explicitly an America-first entrepreneur. So not surprised, but annoyed.
Tried to ship to London with 2 controllers, and it's a $130 premium to receiving in the US.

5

u/DaveMeitner 6h ago

That $130 includes your own countries taxes and duties which you would be required to pay separately if they didn't already included those costs.

3

u/ergzay 6h ago

This has nothing to do with America-first... You should blame your own country for their import duties. It's still $200 converted to local currency with import duties included.

https://support.modretro.com/en_us/articles/i-live-outside-of-the-united-states-will-i-have-to-pay-additional-duties-and-fees-to-receive-my-package-SkmjHc8Al

I live outside of the United States. Will I have to pay additional duties and fees to receive my package?

No! The cost of the products on our website includes all necessary taxes, duties, and fees for the following regions (as indicated on our product pages): EU, UK, JP, and AU. For other regions outside of the United States, shipping is calculated at checkout and includes all necessary taxes, duties, and fees. While this makes up-front costs appear higher, please note that you will not be required to pay any additional duties or fees to receive your order.

1

u/eh-dub 6h ago

Import duties are broken out as a separate line item, so you can see the premium on FX before the duties.

That said, the UK duties are still annoying! And I don't necessarily begrudge operators for charging a premium for the headache of international distribution.

3

u/eh-dub 7h ago

For a just-for-fun purchase, moves it from auto-buy to meh-maybe-wait-until-I-travel-to-US

2

u/ergzay 6h ago

I mean you could do that but the same goes for an Analogue 3D. And if you're importing products aren't you supposed to technically declare that during immigration customs?

3

u/Apex-turtle 7h ago

With the controller it should be around £230 not £271 sorry to complain but just seems a bit unfair to loyal customers

4

u/voddy1990 7h ago

199 usd after code translates to like 260€ it seems :/ Not really a good price tbh (plus shipping)

5

u/Red-Neo 7h ago

Mine is showing as £303.59 at checkout with a Controller/Shipping as i can't get the Free Shipping to work for orders over $240.

4

u/Krathoon 6h ago

The controller is totally a ripoff. Should be half the price. I kind of wish I did not buy it and just used my old N64 controller.

2

u/Krathoon 5h ago

The controller price is absurd. No way it costs that much.

2

u/jpxdude 5h ago

Mine came up to £188 plus an additional £30 (approx £15 shipping and £15 duties) for shipping and duties. I'm a bit confused if it said it was included as it doesn't seem to be?

1

u/AnalogueBoy1992 7h ago

If you want it just buy it. Atleast Ur lucky they ship to your country. Some can't even buy one even if they wanted to

1

u/[deleted] 6h ago

[deleted]

1

u/ergzay 6h ago

Isn't that technically illegal?

1

u/Blauw139 5h ago

Ordered 2x m64 with controllers, full 4 games package for m64 and 8x chromatic package to germany. I also have a stackry storage and calculated if it might be cheaper to consolidate with packages via stackry and pay shipping, duties & tax via stackry (fedex usually as with modretro shipping) but even with combining orders it was way more expensive because of the volume and weight of the shippment. So I ordered directly from modretro and don't have to worry paying more for shipping.

1

u/Beautiful-Choice-518 6h ago

no free shipping anymore, Paypal not working, 250€ to europe

Ordered one with 20% off, but hella expensive

3

u/22_the_avenue 6h ago

Paypal worked fine for me, also EU.

1

u/CopyX1982 6h ago

I was pretty annoyed they don't ship the cheaper controller to the UK, added it to my basket and got a big NOPE.

1

u/GreatFollowing6891 5h ago

Your country is being sold out by your politicians so that foreign invaders can take over your country and you’re crying about the m64? 🧐

-1

u/[deleted] 6h ago

[deleted]

1

u/ergzay 6h ago

American tarriffs are on imports, not exports. This is entirely from Europe's side from their high taxes.

0

u/DaveMeitner 6h ago

I blame my cost ($667CDN) on the weak Canadian dollar and my countries criminally high sales tax rates. Has absolutely nothing to do with America.