How Embarrassing-A Lesson In Purchasing A Refurbished Computer From Apple's Site

Well, this is a bit of a lesson that I want to pass along to people who want to purchase a Mac off of Apple's refurbished web page, and something I wasn't aware of. See, I thought that when I ordered my M3 MacBook Pro off of Apple's refurbished site, the price I saw listed, along with Apple Care, would be the price-and of course some sales tax would figure into that.

What I DIDN'T figure into it was WHERE you pick up your order would determine how much tax you would pay. I thought, naively, that ordering directly from Apple's refurbished page would have the total figured into it along with the tax.

I got a bit of sticker shock when I saw the final price for my M3. And the salesman explained why I paid so much in tax.

Anyway, just something to pass along. Live and learn.

I've lived in Japan 30 years. There have been times when a U.S. based seller refused to ship to me in Japan, and in cases when I could not get a family member to accept the package and re-ship to me, I turned to AM Forward, in Oregon (where there is no sales tax, although upon entry into Japan, there may or may not be taxes imposed, based on my declared value for the items being shipped).

I read through their site again today, and it seems they are open to customers who live in the USA as well. Of course, how you manage taxes is up to you, but I just wanted to point out this company does exist.

When I lived in the Caribbean for 7 years, I also used a freight forwarder from Miami, FL Four Star Cargo (which also did mail forwarding, called "The Mailbox"). They would sometimes put the cargo in the mail forwarding spot (same physical address in Miami) and try to charge you mail postage (10x) vs the ocean freight charges. Never had to deal with taxes that I can recall.

Wow, there are five states in the Union that do not charge internet sales tax to residents for internet purchases.

Of course my state isn't one of them lol :D

>> 2112st said:

Well, this is a bit of a lesson that I want to pass along to people who want to purchase a Mac off of Apple's refurbished web page, and something I wasn't aware of. See, I thought that when I ordered my M3 MacBook Pro off of Apple's refurbished site, the price I saw listed, along with Apple Care, would be the price-and of course some sales tax would figure into that. What I DIDN'T figure into it was WHERE you pick up your order would determine how much tax you would pay. I thought, naively, that ordering directly from Apple's refurbished page would have the total figured into it along with the tax. I got a bit of sticker shock when I saw the final price for my M3. And the salesman explained why I paid so much in tax. Anyway, just something to pass along. Live and learn. Click to expand...

Technically you would have had to claim it on your taxes if Apple had allowed you to pay a lower (or no) taxes when you picked it up. Unfortunately, what you tried to do, whether intentionally or not, was a small scale tax fraud. Probably good that Apple simply made sure you paid the correct taxes when you picked it up.

>> wottle said:

I have no problem paying tax-but my understanding, wrongly-was that the full amount that I paid via Apple's site INCLUDED the tax. I did not realize that the amount of tax I paid depended on WHERE I picked up the M3. I thought the full transaction was taken care of via the web site.

>> 2112st said:

Yeah, that's fair. It does seem odd that you ordered online, chose a pickup location (so they knew how much tax was to be paid), paid an amount. Then, when you went to pick up they charged you just for the tax they could have charged you for with the order. I've never heard of that.