Un backer ha mirabilmente riassunto per punti tutti i passaggi di questa faccenda.
Soprattutto la parte sulle spedizioni sarebbe da scrivere su di un cartello in legno massello da sbattere in testa alla Jasco e AJ...
VAT RULES
The way VAT is charged as part of the customs process has changed on 01.01.2021 for EU and UK. Before that, crowdfunding was considered as donation and you received a gift for it. So different computation rules for VAT and other customs charges were applied (in contrast to e.g. a purchase). There was nothing illegal about that, and I woldn't even call it a loophole. Let's look at an example:
A backer could donated 100$ without receiving anything, obviously not a purchase. Another backer could donate 10$ and receives a T-shirt (net worth 10$), and would have to pay 20% VAT on that, so 12$ in total. A third backer donated 1000$ and received the same T-shirt. No sane person would ask him to pay 20% on the 1000$ he donated, but only on the material/production value of the goods received, so only 20% of the 10$.
But now, that is exactly what changed. For customs and taxes, crowdfunding is now officially considered a pre-order, even though we still have the risk of not receiving anything and have no consumer rights that are normally associated with purchases, so the new rules don't really make sense, we now have Shroedingers preorders (that are purchases and aren't). Since the 01.01.2021, the third backer has to pay 200$ VAT for a T-shirt!
This is only a high level overview, and there are other side effects, but my post will already be too long to fully discuss this here. You can find the official text from the government here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publi...s-goods-sold-to-customers-from-1-january-2021
The VAT regulations surely are not Jascos fault, and from now on, every new KS campaign will have to deal with it (and they already do so).
Important is, that there was a cutoff date on the 01.01.2021, and the government and customs made clear that not the date of shipping was relevant, but the date when the payment was issued. So those new rules only apply if the payment was finalized after the end of 2020!
EU-FRIENDLY
Jasco used the EU-Friendly-batch together with this text on their campaign page: "This project is EU friendly. Rewards bound in the EU will ship from within EU. NO EXTRA CUSTOM CHARGES!"
Some people stated that VAT is something totally different from customs charges, but that's not entirely true. If you buy something in retail, you pay VAT, that's totally normal for us. However, If you ship goods from within the EU as clearly stated on the campaign page, no VAT is applied, since that is already dealt with on import into the EU. And if you import goods into the EU, the sender has to pay VAT, and VAT is collected as part of the customs charges. According to the german customs, customs fees consist of VAT, import fees and handling fees, VAT is even included in the formulas to compute the exact charges to pay.
And that is exactly how every other campaign that I ever backed handled things if they used the EU-friendly-batch. They never explicitely stated VAT, but all of them handled it. They did not break any laws to do so, but have hidden it in the shipping costs or paid them themselves to be attractive to potential backers from EU. The EU-Friendly-batch always meant the same thing, for all campaigns that I ever backed, without exception: you pay for shipping in the pledgemanager and then are set and have not to deal with any further charges or unexpected bills.
Well, ith one Exception! Jasco wrote in their latest update from 20th of march 2021, after sh't had hit the fan: "We understand that EU and UK Friendly badges can mean something different to backers coming from other projects. Every company handles VAT differently. For Jasco Games, this means that the product will be shipped from the manufacturer to a center within the designated region to avoid additional customs charges due to crossing multiple regional borders."
They simply redefined the meaning of the batch for themselves 3 years after they advertised their campaign with it! So, the campaign never was truely EU-friendly, Jasco just pretended it would be.
And besides: According to the laws, Jasco would have to clearly state VAT already on the campaign page, before we had to pay anything, if the backers would have to pay it, since hidden costs are prohibited. If not explicitely stated, VAT is already included in the nominated price. And KS campaigns who have backers pay for it since the 01.01.2021 do exactly that in their campaign descriptions. Just Jasco thinks they can ignore this part of the laws and make backers pay for it years later without clearly stating it during the campaign where it was just advertised as "EU-friendly".
DELAYS
Delays suck, and if the rewards would have been shipped earlier, we wouldn't have a problem. However, Some of the delays were due to COVID and not Jascos fault. Another portion of the delays were "good" delays that were used to enhance the games quality. I always tell creators to take all the time they need to present a finished and high quality product instead of rushing out some unfinished crap just to stick to their deadlines, so I really don't hold Jasco accountable for those delays. But some of the other delays wold have been avoidable and imho Jasco just showed a certain amount of incompetence there.
But delays are pretty common on KS projects, and while this campaign was at the longer end of the turnaround time, I have seen worse. You have a right to be upset about that, personally I accept most of the delays for what they are. Of course it's a bummer if after that long wait you don't just receive a great product but get a Jackhammer slammed in your face...
But imho the delays aren't the real problem here.
SHIPPING
Before mass production starts, a creator receives a preproduction copy of everything and has to finally agree on it. At this time the exact number of boxes, their dimensions and weight are known, and companies can use that data to get final shipping rates while mass production is done, so at that point KS campaigns usually ask for shipping in their pledgemanager. I backed 147 campaigns so far, and it's always handled like that. You pledge, and a few weeks after the campaign ends, you go to the pledge manager and pay for additional stuff and shipping, and you're done. Jasco is the only company I ever supported, who handled things differently. They did not charge for shipping up front, but just delayed the payment as long as possible. Various backers, including myself, have been ranting about that for months now, because it looks obfuscating/sketchy and is completely intransparent. We were told that we will only know the exact amount we'd have to pay when our games are already in the final distribution hub, ready to be delivered to our houses, so it was not possible to add further stuff in the pledgemanager while keeping an eye to the shipping rates, we were completely blind. And I have never seen any other company deal with shipping charges in this intransparent way. Even after mass production was finished, when the parcels were moved from the factory to the harbour, when they finally where loaded on the boats, while they were on the water, when they arrived at their final harbour and were passing the customs, Jasco did not give us any final shipping rates and did not allow us to pay for it.In fact, the games for europe are in the final distribution hub for a month now, and Jasco still does not allow us to pay for shipping!
I don't say that Jasco tried to scam us, but I do say that this behaviour was highly unusual and totally intransparent and lead us to the current situation!
If Jasco had dealt with shipping like any other company on KS that I am aware of, we would have paid long before the end of 2020, so the new VAT rules would not have applied. In fact, other KS campaigns changed their pledgemanager deadlines to allow for backers to pay before the cutoff date, like e.g. here:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1449412950/stormsunder-heirs-of-ruin/posts/3061683
Jasco talked about the upcoming VAT changes in their october 2020 update, and even if their focus back then was the brexit, they were clearly aware of the upcoming changes, and they also told us that the final production was in full swing in october 2020. The production took longer than they anticipated back then, but at that time, they had all the data needed to come up with shipping rates, like all the other campaigns. But instead of allowing us to pay for shipping before the end of 2020, they kept delaying it until the VAT hammer hits us now.
So while Jasco isn't responsible for the VAT rules or the delays (at least not for all of them), they are fully responsible for the odd way of handling shipping, even though they were aware of the VAT problem and could have completely avoided those costs for us by just doing things like all the other companies on KS did it. Since the beginning of the year, I received 5 large deliveries from KS crowdfunding campaigns, and all fully paid before the end of 2020, and none of them had those insane VAT charges applied to them. If not for Jascos way of handling this whole situation, none of us would have to pay those charges now.
REFUNDS
Ever since we started to complain about Jascos odd and intransparent way of dealing with shipping, they answered "Pledges are fully refundable up until final confirmation of the shipping charges, so if you do find the shipping cost to be too high, you will be able to either modify your pledge or receive a refund." (like in this update from augist 2019:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1821440755/street-fighter-the-miniatures-game/posts/2588125)
But be aware that for Jasco "fully refundable" does not mean that you get 100% of your money back. They answered to recent refund requests "As of our recent update, refund requests are on freeze as products are in transit to the different regions and will be honored after the fulfillment phase (probably sometime May or so). At the time of processing, refunds may take up to 7-10 business days to reflect and crowdox/KS take a 10% processing fee for reversals."
Those partial refunds are quite common on KS, but I have seen 100% refunds in rare occasions (in which the creators admitted that they screwed up).
THERE'S STILL MORE
as mentioned before the games are in germany for a month now, but Jasco still does not give us shipping rates. In their last update from the 20th of march, they told EU backers: "We would like to address a serious situation that occurred earlier this week and caused delays for the EU region. The fulfillment center reported to us that their team was distracted from their work due to multiple backer inquiries on the status of orders and accusations of them delaying delivery. Please do not email the fulfillment center directly."
Maybe, just maybe, we wouldn't have to hunt down every bit of information ourselves, if Jasco would provide them to us. Just some food for thoughts...
WHAT ABOUT AJ AND CAPCOM?
Streetfighter the boardgame is a licensed IP product, and Jasco had to ask for approval for pretty much anything they did. Some of the delays stemmed from the slow approval process. I can't imagine that Capcom approved of this mess. Other backers said we should inform Capcom since their franchise is tainted by that. Feel free to try, but I honestly think that they will not do anything about it.
Some backers also reached out to the Youtuber AngryJoe, who initiated this whole project and is heavily involved in all this. I have no way to verify that, so take it with a grain of salt, but according to a backer, AJs response was: "People need to calm down about 'hate' for SF in Europe. That is not our fault, get mad at the VAT in Europe. That is a VAT tax, that is not our thing. I don't control VAT taxes. VAT is BS, if you get mad about that you clearly do not know much about taxes. There is nothing we can do about it. We are not forcing it on you because we are as_holes, it is just something that exists over there. I hate it as much as you."
If that is true, that would make him a giant hypocrit, since his whole YT channels deals with companies who treat their customers just like what happens here right now in his game campaign...
WHAT CAN WE DO NOW?
You can just pay and wait for the game to arrive.
You can ask for a refund at
community@jascogames.com, even though it will not be a full refund.
You can try to report the campaign through the report button on the bottom of the campaign page, if you feel the way Jascos interpretation of EU-frienldy was deceiving.
You can try to reach out to Capcom and AJ, but don't expect much.
You can make other influencers talk about the situation and how Jasco handles things and treats their customers. Personally, I'd love to hear the king of averages opinion on that, since he is honest but ttries to stay fair and look at various viewpoints (which is kinda hard for those of us who are directly affected right now).
However things will turn out, I will never support Jasco or AJ again, even though I was interested in the Mortal Kombat game before.
CAVEAT
I realize, I mixed up the terms EU and UK quite a bit. In general, everything above is true for UK. The EU und UK agreed to the same changes as of 01.01.2021, but the Eu postponed at least some of the changes to VAT to july 2021. More infos can be found here:
https://www.avalara.com/vatlive/en/vat-news/eu-2021-e-commerce-vat-package.html
So it's hard to tell to which degree EU backers are hit by the same shenanigans until Jasco finally reveals the costs they want to charge them (which Jasco promises to do for a month now)
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