This is being solved. We are just prioritizing the units we have to “feed” more devices completely. If we start shipping UK ones and we stop in the middle because the cables didn’t arrive and if by any chance you are affected by this delay, you will probably ask why. This is simply a management of expectations. We are doing our best and a lot of devices are arriving and departing. But we can’t pack/assemble more than it’s humanly possible, as well as we can’t go around the waiting times for every single part of the Dwarf (including accessories) that sometimes during this past year and something had months of waiting.
Just as an example, there were parts of the device that we already received quotes to be shipped in late 2022. Of course, this is unbearable and we needed to find alternatives (a lot of times those alternatives are paid with more $$$)
If I order food at a restaurant and its available do I then not get my food because later on it will run out ?
I think our expectations are valid and shouldnt be submissed so quickly by yourselves.
Once again guys : KickStarter and others are crowdfunding platforms, not reduced price stores. When putting our money into it, we are taking a risk to support a project and help an idea for a product to become a reality, because we can’t find any equivalent on the market and we think it will bring something special.
If you want the safety you get when buying from a retail store, you can just wait for the dreamt product to hit their shelves. That may take time though, and may come at a high price as well, or never happen at all.
Both approaches are perfectly fine and I understand the frustration. I’ve been waiting my Dwarf for a long time, and I’m not a pro musician relying on it for my living. I also already have a Mod Duo, which keeps me happy in the meantime, and also make me appreciate how special and great Mod products are.
Also, I would be very annoyed to see Mod Devices go bust as it would mean a dead project, no more software updates, no more super cool products. I really think we all need them to succeed. Times are hard at the moment. We will see better days.
Also, remember almost the whole software stack in the Mod Devices is open source free software. Which means that even without the device, you can ALREADY benefit from MOD team’s work by using the Mod UI and many plugins for free on a Linux computer (for instance). Whatever happens in the future to the Mod Devices company itself, they would have left something behind for the whole music community to benefit from. It’s not like any of the proprietary solution you can already buy and also is one of the reason the Mod guys went down the crowd funding route. They wanted to build a community around their open source solution.
@Azza said everything in the first sentence. Crowdfunding is not pre-orders. That is a common misunderstanding and who says that this is not correct is not me, but the platforms themselves:
When you support a project in crowdfunding, you are doing exactly that…supporting. Not placing an order or pre-order.
We couldn’t at all control these delays as certainly a lot of our British backers couldn’t control the result of the Brexit.
We are doing our best to avoid and compensate for this situation, but in the end it is totally out of our scope. We can’t say the British government that they should not charge you taxes or charge you less.
Grabbing this analogy of yours, for the matter of fact, the “food” was actually not available at that time. The maximum you can consider is that you did a reservation at the restaurant.
We will ship all the crowdfunding devices. So at least we can assure you that your reservation will be fulfilled.
I do understand your dilemma. I have been very supportive and not5 made a fuss about anything MOD have had to do to survive this awful covid disruption.
However, had I received it in the UK before 31 Dec 2020, would I have had to pay any import fees? I saw nothing to indicate that I would have to pay import fees during the whole process of pledging via Kickstarter.
I have found out the following from UPS.
HMRC regulations are that if the goods are shipped after 1st January, they will be taxable, even if ordered prior to Brexit. The importer (purchaser) will need to take this up with their supplier. Alternatively, they can pay the taxes and see if HMRC will issue a refund with an explanation and form C285.
The reason (my) charges (£91) are so high is because the invoice sent by MOD Devices states the value of the goods is 400 euros which is 340 GBP, not the £235GBP I actually paid. To challenge the charges now we would need to go through uk customs and provide an amended invoice stating the actual cost of the goods.
I would hope MOD would be only too happy to help their Kickstarter funders who have been so patient and understanding by providing an amended invoice so we can claim back the significant extra cash we have paid.
I don’t agree with much of the tone of the posts above, but if it is possible it would be nice to have the value on the package reflect the amount supporters supported.
It may be that is the normal procedure and something was overlooked this time (mistakes happen).
Selfishly I would love the MOD to be sent as a gift as a thank you for support, as kickstarter is not a shop, but that might be outside the law 
.
Trusting you to use good judgement.
Keep up the good work MOD team, we are cheering you on!
My tone? If so, I am a bit naffed off about this because I don’t want to give £40 unnecessarily to my awful government, I would rather it go to a charity of my choice.
To get technical, the value of the item given should be the Transaction Value, except under specified circumstances. This is the so called “Basic principle” for customs valuation under WTO trade.
Transaction Value is defined as:
The price actually paid or payable is the total payment made or to be made by the buyer to or for the benefit of the seller for the imported goods, and includes all payments made as a condition of sale of the imported goods by the buyer to the seller, or by the buyer to a third party to satisfy an obligation of the seller.
Thank you for this, Robbie. Therefore, MOD need to reissue the invoices to us early birds to enable us to claim back the excess tax we have paid. Please MOD.
No dilemmas here. We can’t be more than thankful for your support and understanding during all this situation and not only.
I don’t know how was exactly the Brexit situation at this moment. As far as I remember no one really knew what was in place and really happening. Anyway, not really important to discuss this now. The time is gone and it would be impossible due to the situation that we (and the rest of the world) were leaving at the time.
The problem is that everyone got in a dilemma trying to understand what was going to happen and even when it got in place no one really knew what was in place. We just start seeing the estimated fees when creating the labels and (honestly) was really shocking! But unfortunately we can’t control it.
Again, you didn’t do a pre-order on Kickstarter, you supported the project. The value of what you received is actually higher than 400€. We need to declare that value because that is the insured value by UPS while shipping in case something happens. Really recently we had problems with delivers of packages from UPS and up to today, there’s still one device missing. This value helps us not losing all the value of the device in these cases.
We are still planning and evaluating ways to compensate the UK backers, but right now we are more focused on shipping the devices that are so late. Please keep patient and we will discuss this and find something in the future.
This is a suggestion that theoretically makes great sense, but in practice, we can’t do it. And yes, we tried it before. Even when we send a device for a reviewer that will return to us, we need to declare the value both when we ship it and when we return it. And we pay the customs on both ways.
This may have been true 10 years ago, but it is increasingly at best … optimistic. For example, the EU VAT Committee published their paper on crowdfunding activities in 2015. This found that where there was a reasonable direct link between a contribution and a reward, that it was not a donation but a transaction sale of goods or services.
That’s right. But the donation only turns into a sale of goods when we ship those goods. Up until there, it’s a contribution. As far as I know, this has even influence in our accounting.
So, in order words, a crowdfunding pledge is a contribution to a project until that project is able to ship your “reward” for that contribution. At this point, your reward turns into a actual sale.
So you agree, at that point, you can provide an invoice of sale to the backer?
It’s not really about me agreeing. Yes, we can provide the invoice after/when shipping the device. They are not yet all processed, but we will need to create those invoices for all backers, regardless if they request it or not. We need to do it for accounting purposes.
My Dwarf arrived yesterday - approx £65 to pay, which seems about right with the usual handling fees and Tax. Which brings the total just under Thomann and a bit slower on the delivery side !!! ; ) but at least I get a few free plugins and a voucher.
Interestingly it was COD with UPS, I had no idea it was on its way. Luckily my mother in law was house sitting and messaged me otherwise it would have gone back somewhere.
So all those waiting in the UK just make sure you dont spend all your money as you never know when it might turn up.