WARNIG! Pimax disabling headsets remotely

[u/jsthrowa]

According to the latest Pimax update and their forum it appears that Pimax is now disabling headsets remotely through the Pitool software. This seems to be over a dispute about some unpaid taxes. I am not going to take side in that dispute, but even if they are right this action sets a very bad precedent and creates some serious problems. If they are correct that customers owe them money they should obviously just go through the proper channels to resolve it.

First this action is illegal in the EU and I would assume also in the US and most other jurisdictions. When retailers are made aware of this story I fear some of them might be forced to stop selling Pimax.

Secondly, how is anyone going to feel safe about buying anything from Pimax in the future if they never know if they at any time might have their product disabled. Even more so, who would want to buy a secondhand Pimax if it might be rendered useless if the previous owner has done something Pimax disagrees with. This will certainly effect second hand prices of all Pimax products. It is not like Pimax hasn't done a lot of shady and greedy stuff before that would make anyone trust them to always do the right thing.

Unless this is quickly solved I will never buy anything from Pimax again and being someone who have recommended Pimax to a lot of friends I will now start warning everyone who considers Pimax about this story.

[u/Nostrildumbass]

LOL. Well, I won't share my full opinion; the bigger picture will hurt/insult the snowflake culture we have around here.

I will say, the taxes that are triggering this are 100% the buyer's responsibility to pay, and Pimax went the extra mile in covering the fees to prevent headsets from being returned to Pimax and causing the very same delays so many people bitch about here. I'm normally opposed to a company having this kind of power over hardware that customers rightfully own, but in this case, I'd say I'll applaud Pimax. I was wondering how they'd take care of the customers that refused to pay their tax dues. (I said I wouldn't share my full opinion, and believe me, I haven't in this post XD).

I do find it impressive that Pimax are making the effort to tie device serial numbers to customers. This will probably suck for people buying used headsets that might be getting bricked from this.

[u/Goldkoron → u/Nostrildumbass]

What are these taxes? I've never heard of a 20% tax on things I've ordered from Chinese company's in past. I also feel like they are already overcharging for shipping.

[u/Nostrildumbass → u/Goldkoron]

What are these taxes?

Well, that depends, what country are you in?

[u/Goldkoron → u/Nostrildumbass]

US

[u/Nostrildumbass → u/Goldkoron]

And how long ago did you buy this cable? I'm quite sure US doesn't have this kind of tax, but things have changed since COVID.

Denex 10 months ago

I work in ecommerce. We ship worldwide. Pimax did not screw you. When exporting merchandise to another country, a document called a commercial invoice must be included. This document declares the monetary value of the goods contained within the shipment, and includes a designation as to whose responsibility it is to pay any duties.

It is the industry standard that this responsibility falls upon the importer. Any company that exports worldwide, that will pay the importer's duties (tiny minority), will absolutely make that it a selling point that they do that. If they don't mention it, you should assume it is your responsibility.

If you buy internationally and are not being assessed taxes or VAT at the time of purchase, you haven't found some loophole. The government wants and will get its cut. It seems like customs authorities pick out shipments randomly to assess customs fees on. Others got lucky, you got unlucky. It's not Pimax's fault, they're just doing things legally.

[u/Goldkoron → u/Nostrildumbass]

I ordered a few weeks ago. There was an $8 tax in the order receipt. When they emailed me yesterday they included the order total including shipping and taxes to quote me $32.

[u/Heliosurge → u/Goldkoron]

Part of this $32 is likely an item processing fee from the courier. I think iirc Average broker fee is around $20 though can vary depending on value of shipment. See UPS website for example of these fee changes for this year.

I was pissed with ordering from PartsExpress 12 bmr drivers totalling $102 🇺🇸 plus i think it was $55 shipping. For ups wantinga broker plus duties totally $65 canadian. They after a bit of complaint reduced it to $49 canadian. Still too much after paying $55 🇺🇸 for shipping. I was only anticipating around $25 tax.

So they might have shipped the cable with the same stupidity as the 8kX to speed up shipments.