I once did a RoadTest for a product a few years ago, I think it was around £25 ($35 at the time) in value, unfortunately it got shipped from the Newark site rather than from Farnell here in the UK. Suffice to say when it arrived at my door the delivery driver wanted around £18 ($26) in import duties and delivery fees, so from that point on I've never applied to do another RoadTest. Yes, I'd love come back as there's been quite a few products I would have enjoyed reviewing over the intervening years; this oscilloscope being the latest case in point, but if what happened to me before happened again with this item I'd hate to think what the charges would be. To take part now I'd have to have a guarantee beforehand that it would ship from Farnell.
I once did a RoadTest for a product a few years ago, I think it was around £25 ($35 at the time) in value, unfortunately it got shipped from the Newark site rather than from Farnell here in the UK. Suffice to say when it arrived at my door the delivery driver wanted around £18 ($26) in import duties and delivery fees, so from that point on I've never applied to do another RoadTest. Yes, I'd love come back as there's been quite a few products I would have enjoyed reviewing over the intervening years; this oscilloscope being the latest case in point, but if what happened to me before happened again with this item I'd hate to think what the charges would be. To take part now I'd have to have a guarantee beforehand that it would ship from Farnell.
uffice to say when it arrived at my door the delivery driver wanted around £18 ($26) in import duties and delivery fees
That's trash.
Did you get in touch with us to resolve this for you? I'd be very surprised if we didn't reimburse you in some way.
We definitely make sure to send out items where the delivery duty's paid for (I mark that on everything I send out). Therefore, we shouldn't see this problem again, and if we do, we'll definitely reimburse anyone experiencing it.
I have never had any issues with import duties for any roadtest items. The element14 team does an absolutely fantastic job of handling those themselves. Some months ago I had the privilege to roadtest a ~2k$ kit and all I had to do was go down to the gate and collect the package. My experience with roadtests started in 2021 so I can't comment on anything before that, although I am certain they would have handled it if they had been made aware of it.
No one should ever give a delivery driver money for delivery fees or import duties. We pay those. If it comes up, tell us. And we will track it down and see what is going on. We do this a on regular basis.
