Newbie with some questions

[Dawnbreaker]

So I have been subscribed to this site for about a year now. I quickly found out that in origin of users and (therefore) content it is heavily UK focussed. From a coin perspective not my primary country of interest as PM coins from Britain are not exactly "easy" to come by in the Netherlands and the BREXIT hasn't exactly made it easier. However I somehow stumbled on a forum on some coin site on  a deal I simply couldn't pass up on from some memorabilia shop in the UK who offered some gold coins up for sale and asked interested parties to "make them an offer". They poured it into some kind of "bidding competition" where after reaching ten unique offers they would start the bidding "war" and after each day the lowest bidder would fall of. I thought of it as a "fun game" and a clever setup and didn't see any harm in playing. So did nine others but I guess a lot of people thought of it as a joke and made a number of lowballing bids. 1 person excluded who made a "serious" offer multitudes higher than all the rest at spot + 20 % kind of level.

And this is where it gets weird.....as that bid clearly was the highest and none of the other participants (including me) seemed to have any intentions in beating that offer. So after each day one of the lowballing "particpants" would drop out of contention and I had already kind of forgot about it until it was 4 people left and I was about to be "cut" from the bidding "war". For fun, I strategically raised my bid to put me slightly above the no.2......and kind of forgot about it again. 

Apparently I ended up being the second bid and the no. 1 bid never decided to pay because of additional VAT and import taxes and more or less cancelled their offer. So now they ask me if I want to receive it. My first instinct was to say "sure" but not having imported gold from the UK before and the reaction of the initial winner about the additional VAT and important taxes are scaring me of a little bit. The coins are legal tender so at what kind of import taxes and VAT am I looking here?     

Edited February 27, 2023 by Dawnbreaker

[watchesandwhisky]

I would not be interested, reminds me of "shill" bidding. Its a tactic where a seller tries to extract the highest price you will pay via a method of fake bids. Personally I would not buy in this way to start with but would reject the offer.

[Happypanda88]

How do you know they are all genuine bidders and not part of a circle to catch unsuspecting gullible players ? 

What gold are we talking about ?  If they are .999 fine gold, then this is investment gold and should not subject to import tax.

If I were you, I would walk away and buy from either reputable local bullion dealers.

[Dawnbreaker]

Thx for the feedback. I understand all of your scepticism hence my question(s) here. Maybe I left out some vital information. It concerns the (regular) three graces 2020 gold proof sovereign set from Alderney and my final "bid" was around € 525 including shipping but excluding import taxes and VAT. If I try to get that from "reputable local bullion dealers" unless my information is wrong my bid would leave me about € 400 short. 
So in my eyes if it was "shill" bidding they did a pretty horrible job. The frontrunner bid well over 1k from the get go but in the end that turned out to be a "faker / flaker". 
So disregarding the proceedings that let to this outcome my concerns are threefold

1) The coin set that I had in mind is completely different from what I will be receiving and the information I used in my decision making process was somehow faulty or incomplete. 
2) I am getting hit by extensive import taxes ad VAT raising the whole thing up several hundred euro's. But as pointed out by @Happypanda88 in my opinion that shouldn't be the case as investment gold is also (largely) exempt in Europe.
3) The whole thing is a scam and what I will be receiving won't be the actual three graces 2020 gold proof sovereign set. In order to guarantee that I have negotiated that a (reputable) third party will hold my payment till I have received and checked the goods. The cost of that will be on me. 

So my main questions here are. 

1) have I overestimated the "value" of the particular set.
2) Am I wrong in thinking there will be little to no import taxes and VAT regarding this product.    

Thank you in advance for replying!

Edited February 28, 2023 by Dawnbreaker
grammar

[Tamcddd]

Yeah I would avoid something like that. 
 

Are you allowed to name them? 

Edited February 28, 2023 by Tamcddd

[Dawnbreaker]

4 minutes ago, Tamcddd said:

Yeah I would avoid something like that. 
 

Are you allowed to name them? 

I understand and normally I would but maybe I should have left out the proceedings leading up to the outcome. Yes, as I said they are weird and I don't really have a plausible explanation for it despite the fact that everybody treated it as a joke / scam.  
P.S. I asked them if they had a bottom price (although they didn't mention it at the start of the bidding war) and they said it was € 500. 

 

[Happypanda88]

@Dawnbreaker have you used these people before or know anyone who has ?

Why would anyone sell precious metals at a loss, way below the market value ?  

Be careful that they are not trying to catch out the greedy punters.

 

[Dawnbreaker]

35 minutes ago, Happypanda88 said:

@Dawnbreaker have you used these people before or know anyone who has ?

Why would anyone sell precious metals at a loss, way below the market value ?  

Be careful that they are not trying to catch out the greedy punters.

 

Thank you for your response,

to answer your questions. No, I haven't used them before nor know I do anyone that have. They seem to mostly sell sports memorabilia. 
I don't know why they are selling it at that price? Maybe it came in with a lot of other stuff and they didn't research properly what it could be worth. 
Maybe they purchased it for € 500 or the pound equivalent or less and they treat everything above € 500 as profit. 
I am aware of a number of pitfalls as part of #3 on my list of concerns and thank you for reaffirming them but I feel like a have taking proper precautions to at least make it somewhat difficult for them if it is "just" a scam. 

That however leaves the two main questions that I asked earlier unanswered.

1) have I overestimated the "value" of the particular set.
2) Am I wrong in thinking there will be little to no import taxes and VAT regarding this product.   

  

[NGMD]

Investment Gold in the U.K. and EU member states does not attract VAT. Silver does.You must ensure the customs declaration is clear or you have to pay. You may have to claim the VAT back if sufficient paperwork is incomplete. The courier will also charge you around €15 fee for this. 

If you won something which is not the same as you thought then be safe- do not complete the transaction. Do NOT carry on. It sounds like a scam and maybe share this persons details for TSF members to give more feedback. Do not believe for one second that this ‘seller’ does not know the cost of Gold.

Buy from here or put a ‘Wanted’ post out to the members.