The Daily Mirror ran several stories about Chinese eBay sellers taking over the UK iPad Case market. Here are the articles from the Daily Mirror:
- VAT evading Chinese firms are wiping out British business
- These Chinese sellers on eBay should be paying VAT – so why are they listing other people’s VAT numbers?
- eBay insists these Chinese sellers are VAT registered – so why won’t they reveal their VAT numbers?
Before the articles were published, we asked all the Chinese sellers for VAT invoices. Only one seller, persuebing12 sent us a VAT invoice. However the VAT number they used was not registered to them and is being used by 5 other Chinese companies on eBay.co.uk.
All the other sellers declared they were not VAT registered.
Since the articles were published, the Chinese sellers have published VAT numbers that do not belong to them.
Market Share of iPad Case Sellers
Below are the top twenty sellers of iPad Cases on eBay in December 2014. Between them, they made sales of £568,545.00
| Rank | Username | iPad Case Sales | Country | UK Stock | Full Company Name | VAT Number |
| 1 | besdta_top | £77,637 |  |
 |
|
 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| besdta_top declared they were not VAT registered when we purchased an iPad Case. Since the Daily Mirror articles they have changed their company name three times and are now using a VAT number 151403845 – view case study. | ||||||
| 2 | xessoriez | £51,484 |  |
|
 |
|
| Legitimate UK VAT registered company. Should really publish their full company name. |
||||||
| 3 | igiftbox | £44,872 | FAKE |
|
|
|
| igiftbox is not a UK company; they are Chinese. We purchased an iPad case from them and ask for a VAT invoice. The VAT number supplied (117264624) is registered to a Chinese NETPs; LUO LIEFENG. There is another eBay Seller using the same VAT number and UK address; christgift. Their combined sales on eBay.co.uk equates to just under £3 million a year or £0.5 million in VAT. The VAT invoice we received did not have a company name or address on it. | ||||||
| 4 | wedo-bestdeal | £44,552 | |
|
|
|
| wedo-bestdeal declared they were not VAT registered when we purchased an iPad Case, saying “We not able to offer VAT receipt. We don’t add taxes, VAT or other hidden charges.” The seller is now using someone else’s VAT number – view case study. | ||||||
| 5 | mobiles4every1 | £33,552 | |
|
|
|
| Legitimate UK VAT registered Company. | ||||||
| 6 | bhr-mobiles | £30,236 | |
|
|
|
| Legitimate UK VAT registered Company. However they do not display their VAT Number. | ||||||
| 7 | smart-life2010 | £28,136 | |
|
|
|
| UK Seller from Manchester. Told us they where not VAT registered when we asked for a VAT invoice. This seller makes sales in the region of £450,000 per year. This equates to £75,000 of VAT evasion. | ||||||
| 8 | persuebing12 | £27,026 | |
|
|
|
| Chinese based seller using VAT number not registered to them. The VAT number is being used by 4 other separate Chinese Sellers on eBay.o.uk – view case study. | ||||||
| 9 | ppaccessories | £24,164 | |
|
|
|
| Legitimate UK VAT registered Company. | ||||||
| 10 | ulakcase | £21,725 | |
|
|
|
| When we asked for a VAT receipt ulakcase replied “We are not VAT registered. Their annual sales are estimated to be £568,512.00 – that’s £94,752.00 of VAT Evation. | ||||||
There are only 4 legitimate UK VAT registered companies in the Top 10, accounting for 24% or £139,436.00 of sales.
Recent Comments