< Previous Page
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Next Page >
September 16, 2023 - The VAT Spat

In the previous chapter, I recounted how we were anxious to see our cars move northward on the train, in order to move out of the path of an oncoming Hurricane. But I had another reason for wanting the cars on a railcar moving towards us in central Canada.

As you may know if you read the "Lead-up" part of our journey, our dealership - Porsche Centre London - had required us to pay the German Value-Added-Tax for our cars before going on our European Delivery adventure. This was to help ensure that our Canadian-specification vehicles actually left Germany at the end of our delivery trip, instead of being "flipped" - sold on the local market for a profit. This amount - 19% of the total vehicle sale price - was substantial, especially since it was a double amount - one for each vehicle. For convenience I had paid this double amount to Porsche Centre London myself. And now I wanted those two amounts returned to me. I wanted them to add to the money I was gathering for my upcoming house purchase, for which payment was soon coming due.

I could foresee contention. The overwhelming experience Luke and I had had with Porsche Centre London suggested an operating model that could be summarized thusly: "The protection of the interests of the business of Porsche Centre London is paramount, as is reducing our possible exposure to any fees, costs, litigations, or administrative inconveniences. If we feel we have reduced our exposure to all of these to our satisfaction, then we'll consider honoring a customer request."

I saw no reason to expect anything other than a response in line with that kind of an operating model.

It wasn't as if I didn't know what our dealership's Euro Delivery VAT policy was. Christina had informed us about it back in early June: "The VAT will be returned to you when your vehicles land in Canada and delivery is taken from our dealership." However, this wasn't the official Porsche process. Porsche Center London seemed to have tacked this extra wait on top of Porsche's official guidelines. Why? I can't know for sure, but my guess: for their own safety, comfort, and peace-of-mind. The official Porsche line on this, from Porsche's own European Delivery documentation, is this:

The official Porsche line on VAT deposit return (highlighted in purple). (From the porsche.ca website)


You'll notice, of course, that it says "fully refundable when your vehicle has cleared customs in Canada". Not "when your dealership has delivered the car to you in Canada". That had meant that even back on September 2nd, when our cars had been parked in the lot at Autoport in Halifax, I should have been permitted to initiate a refund request. But I had wanted this to be ironclad, so I had waited until confirmation that the cars were moving on a Canadian train, which meant there could be no question as to whether customs had been cleared.

As described on the previous page, I could see (from the Airtag pings) that our cars were on a train moving north from Halifax on September 15th. Therefore, on that same day, I sent an email to Porsche Centre London. Actually, it was a "reply" email to the email from back in June where I had sent them the VAT deposits. I wanted to clearly establish a continuing thread - with history - of conversation about the VAT. Business manager Susan was the to: recipient, with Christina and Sales Manager Tim on the cc: list:

Subject: Re: Car payments and VAT deposits sent

Hello, Susan

Hope you had a great summer. Luke and I certainly did (as I think is well evidenced by the posts on https://www.instagram.com/gtschronicles). Our two 718 GTS 4.0s have arrived in Canada are now on a CN freight train headed north away from Hurricane Lee (thankfully), and on their way to Ontario.

Now that the cars have cleared customs, I'd like to request the return of my VAT deposit money (for both vehicles - mine and Luke's). Would you be able to arrange a bank draft early next week and to send that to me via registered mail? Note that a single combined bank draft comprising both deposits will be fine. Feel free to deduct a reasonable amount for the administrative time and shipping fees.

For quick reference, my address is [.....]

Thanks very much in advance!


A pretty upbeat, pretty neutral, polite message. Perhaps they would simply realize the reasonableness of my request, and, as part of ensuring that a quest to provide the highest possible customer service was achieved, to honor my request.

But no. The response (from Christina, not Susan):

On Fri, Sep 15, 2023 at 4:26PM Christina Mandri wrote:
Hi Andrew,

Thank you for your note. Glad you had a great summer!

We cannot release the VAT deposits until the vehicles have arrived here at our dealership, are PDI'd, and are collected. We will have to wait for them to arrive in order to get those returns underway.

We will be in touch when the vehicles arrive to us.

Warm Regards,

Let me paraphrase, as I saw it: the substance of the reply was "You're asking us to do something that is not our regular process. The answer is NO".

Very well. Not a surprising response, frankly. My next email was this (again, copying Susan and Sales Manager Tim, but also adding General Manager Steve. I wanted to make sure all stakeholders at the dealership read this):

Hello, Christina

Thank you for your response.

From the porsche.com/canada website, it indicates:

"Payment must be made to your authorized Porsche Centre. Full payment includes the purchase price of the vehicle that was negotiated with your Porsche Centre.

Note: German tax laws require a Value Added Tax (VAT) to be paid on all purchases. Porsche Cars Canada Ltd. requires that your Porsche Centre collect the full VAT of 19% at time of payment, in the event that your vehicle is not exported under current Customs guidelines and standards. The VAT payment is fully refundable when your vehicle has cleared customs in Canada."

Note the bolded section (bolded by me for emphasis) in the above quote. Can I have an explanation as to why your dealership needs to hold on to these funds until the cars are physically released to us? Thanks,
...Andrew


I thought that was pretty darn clear. No if, ands, or buts.

Interestingly, a few minutes later, I get a short email from Christina:

Hey Andrew,

I had sent over another note. Apologies if it's stuck in limbo. Would you kindly send me the tracking information for the vehicle?

Best,

Interesting. I put on my best tea leaves-reading thinking cap. What I felt I was going on (between the lines, of course) was that Christina and perhaps the others at the dealership realized that someone (i.e. me) had pointed out a discrepancy between their "house rules" and Porsche's rules. And that now, rather than take me at my word on the status and location of the cars (which, to be frank, I felt they should already have been following themselves and giving us updates, if they were pro-active), they wanted some sort of proof (again, to cover themselves) before even considering giving me my money back. I messaged Luke with my thoughts:

From: Andrew Lavigne - Sep 18, 2023, 11:03 AM
I think Christina got the point regarding the VAT deposits, although she did not have the courtesy to answer my question.

From: Andrew Lavigne - Sep 18, 2023, 11:04 AM
I feel like what is happening now is that they want their own independent confirmation that the cars are in Canada (again, lack of trust - tsk tsk!), and then I imagine they'll work to get me my deposit back.

From: Andrew Lavigne - Sep 18, 2023, 11:04 AM
And if not, I'm going to be quite cross.

I then responded back to Porsche Centre London, directing them to the response Michael Maternicki (which I've posted on a previous page) had given me: "Hi, Christina. Based on his comments, I believe Michael is in possession of the tracking information. He did not share it [the tracking specifics] with me." I also pointed out something Luke and I had noticed in that response from Michael (something that had really annoyed us): He had indeed copied Christina on that "position updated email", and said that he had "cc-d Christina". Well, it turns out that Michael was using Christina's old Porsche of London email - the one that Autocar Canada had mysteriously ditched and replaced with a new email address back in the spring of 2022. If you recall reading this note in the Lead-up report, we had discovered that emails sent to that old address just got silently dropped. Which meant that Christina may not have received that email, nor maybe ANY OTHER EMAIL from Michael at Porsche Euro Delivery for possibly the past eighteen months. Can you believe that!?!? Luke and I had fumed a little about that in our messages around this same time:

From: Andrew Lavigne - Sep 15, 2023, 9:32 AM
I just realized that Michael used "christina@porschelondon.com" in a cc to her

From: Andrew Lavigne - Sep 15, 2023, 9:32 AM
does she have yet another email address?

From: Luke Ward - Sep 15, 2023, 9:33 AM
That's her old one.

From: Luke Ward - Sep 15, 2023, 9:33 AM
You would think they would have their shit together a little better than this.

From: Luke Ward - Sep 15, 2023, 9:33 AM
email both her addresses

From: Luke Ward - Sep 15, 2023, 9:37 AM
Her original one is christina her "new" one is cmandri

From: Andrew Lavigne - Sep 15, 2023, 9:37 AM
I wonder how many emails Michael has sent to her have gone into a black hole

From: Andrew Lavigne - Sep 15, 2023, 5:51 PM
Also it is clear she had no idea about the fact that Michael was involved because of course they still have that stupid old email that goes into a black hole and doesn't respond with a failure-to-send

From: Andrew Lavigne - Sep 15, 2023, 5:52 PM
I wonder how many interactions between her and Michael didn't get handled properly because all the replies from Michael to her weren't seen.

From: Andrew Lavigne - Sep 15, 2023, 5:54 PM
For all we know, it was totally possible to negotiate on the delivery date and we were entirely deprived of that opportunity.

In all, just disappointing. Maybe, probably, it wouldn't have mattered for our attempted Euro Delivery date negotiations, but then again, time is often of the essence when opportunities arise, and if the interaction between Porsche Centre London and Porsche Canada Euro Delivery had been delayed by even a few weeks at some critical juncture because of simple mistakes like this, we may well have missed out on the possibility of a June pre-busy-season delivery. But of course, we'll never know for sure.

I figured I would give them a reasonable amount of time to scramble around and figure this out (really, it should have taken no more than a couple of hours to verify that the reply I had received from Michael days earlier was authentic, but whatever... maybe more internal debating was going on).

Three days passed with no update. Four days later, on September 19, I asked (via email):

Hello, All

Have you had confirmation to your satisfaction of the presence of the cars in Canada?

...Andrew

No response for two more days.

Normally this would have only been a bit tedious, and I would have let it play out on their terms. But I needed to get the ball rolling on my house purchase payment; I needed to figure out how much I would be pulling from other accounts, investments, and so on. And so I needed to confirm the return of the VAT deposit.

Controlling myself, I sent a charitable message:

Sep 21, 2023, 12:55PM
Hello, Christina, Hello, Tim

Could you reply to this email if you receive it? I'm trying to understand if there is a problem with our email communications.

Thanks in advance!


That seemed to work. Within about fifteen minutes, I got a response. Not from Christina, but from Tim - the Sales Manager:

On Thu, Sep 21, 2023 at 1:16PM Tim Bamford wrote:
Hi Andrew,

Message received. We are following our usual process for VAT refunds; this should be done by the end of the week.

Will let you know when complete.

Well, not exactly usual, since your usual process is to withhold reimbursement until your dealership physically releases a car to a customer, but fine. Also quite noticeable was the absence of any explanation for the question I had directly asked them: why was there a discrepancy between Porsche Centre London policy and Porsche Canada's policy? But whatever. Things were happening, and that's what counted.

You may have noticed that I never mentioned (to Porsche Centre London) why I needed the VAT deposit back in a timely fashion (namely, due to my house purchase). That had been a very deliberate decision. On principle, I wanted to see if I could get my money returned to me strictly on the concept of "these are customer funds that serve only as insurance for us against possible malfeasance, and once there is no further possibility of malfeasance, the honorable thing to do is return those funds to the customer at the earliest possible convenience". If they had continued to balk, I probably would have then mentioned why I needed the money back right away. I was happy that I hadn't had to.

Tim's email had indicated progress but hadn't been specific. And unfortunately, by the end of the week, the deposits were not ready. I decided to make an appeal to do this via electronic wire transfer, rather than couriering pieces of paper around. I really wanted to get this done ASAP, because the end-of-the-month closing date for my new house was rapidly approaching, and I had all other funds lined-up except for the roughly forty-five thousand dollars of the VAT deposit. If no VAT deposit, then I'd need to extract some additional equities, incurring more tax, which I did not want to do. Trying to speed things up, I left a voicemail this time, directly to Tim. Fortunately, happily, I got a quick response from him in the affirmative, and I quickly sent him my wire transfer deposit information.

Finally, on Friday, September 29 - only a day before the end of the month - after a secondary approval by AutoCanada (why oh why...?) - I saw the VAT deposit amount re-appear in my bank account. One day before my deadline. Tim sent a congratulatory response:

Awesome! Glad it's all done, and I thank you for confirming.

We will be in contact re: vehicles ready for pick up.

Have a great weekend.

Again, no mention of how we got here, the pushback received, the back-and-forth, the silences. And to this day, I wonder - have they amended their policy on Euro Delivery VAT refunds?

Anyway, another hurdle overcome. I was quite glad that I initiated that tedious back-and-forth as soon as I had. I never expected it to drag on for more than two weeks, like it had. And if it hadn't been for my house purchase, I probably would have gone with their standard policy, and waited for them to send me back the VAT deposits after we'd picked up the cars.

For those of you out there hoping to run your own dealership: In my humble opinion, do this: be attentive to your customers' specific needs, their specific situation. Work to help them with their individual special circumstances. This doesn't have to mean you expose yourself to unnecessary risk or expense. The situation described above is a good example ot this: Very little risk, lots of upside goodwill benefit.
< Previous Page
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Next Page >
Send feedback or leave comments (note: comments in message board below are separate from those in above message board)
send feedback | homemade custom message board
(Message Board failed to initialize. )
Web Page & Design Copyright 2001- 2025 by Andrew Lavigne. (Privacy Policy)