Ebay seller vat liability?

[tight fart]

Buying an new electronic item (£220) from an eBay seller with 30,000 plus feedback, the listing states ships from Wigan GB.
But there's no vat on the item, can they drop ship from China in to a distributor in Wigan then send out again from there to avoid the VAT.

[Simpo Two]

Any import of that value would/should get done for VAT and import duty on arrival.

Maybe the price includes VAT? Anyway, it's their problem not yours.

[Super Slo Mo]

No, in a nutshell. Goods shipped directly from China to the customer will be advertised without vat, duty or the handling fee often levied by the shipping company but you as the customer are quite likely to get hit by at least the vat, if not the whole lot.

[hedgefinder]

I have had this several times when filing vat returns this past year.
There seem to be a lot of these companies selling on ebay claiming stoick in the uk with quick delivery, then when questioned about a vat invoice they either claim to be a chinese company or not vat registered...some of these ebayers with feedback in the 10s of thousands for £200-400 products..
I one seller ( who claimed to be vat registered in uk in their listing) who actually refunded me the vat figure as they refused to supply a vat invoice..

I am a little more careful now when buying for my business as its obviously more cost effective for me to buy from a properly vat registered supplier.

[Super Slo Mo]

Makes it a little interesting as a legitimate business trying to compete.

[Mr Pointy]

There's plenty of Google links to VAT issues on ebay:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/01/02/brit_ipad_...
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/vat-evadin...
https://www.accountancylive.com/millionaire-ebay-t...
http://blogs.mirror.co.uk/investigations/2010/12/e...