Unity endorsed ... Ripping people off in other countries!

Something very interesting, costly, and quite annoying happened to me during the past few days, here at Unity, or rather at the endorsed payment service for Unity members known as SWREG.org

I ordered some services from AntonLV for which I received an email with a link to SWREG in order to make my payment. SWREG happens to be located and officially registered in Minneapolis, USA. They claim to have offices in other countries but I can't find any reference anywhere to any physical offices other than in the USA. I on the other hand, happen to be a resident and living in Germany.

Well, when I clicked on that link in order to make my payment the amount being requested from me (due to reading the I.P. from my locale) was almost the same in Euro as it was in USD. The amount was supposed to be for 40.00 USD, and as the screenshot clearly shows the converted rate was 36,70 Euro which in reality is closer to 52.00 USD. Big difference right from the getgo! Anton stated that there would be a "download service" that I could disregard, but guess what ... not from my side of the computer. There was no way for me to disable that extra additional 5,00 Euro function.

To make things even worse, when I attempted to make my payment there was a 19% tax added to the service that I was buying. Now mind you, I've done business with my own legally registered companies in the USA, Germany, and in England ... so I know a little about the legalities of taxation. First of all, in most countries the prices for online services include taxes in the price - if that wasn't so a lot of services would have to be more competitively priced. Secondly, at least 99.9% of the products that you buy online have taxes included already as well, to avoid confusion and legal issues when doing business on a global level. That's really what it's all about, keeping taxation simple on a global level when doing business in numerous countries, each with its very own tax laws. In other words, the taxes being charged are supposed to be strictly for the country in which that company is filing their own tax returns. That's why most countries in the World have tax treaties with each other, to avoid double taxation and confusion. Do you believe that SWREG files taxes in dozens of countries? I sure don't ...

Since SWREG charged me 19% tax which happens to be the tax in Germany, when all was said and done my purchase cost me roughly 73.00 USD as opposed to the 40.00 USD service that I thought I was receiving. Almost 50,00 Euro = 73.00 USD.

SWREG has no business ... doing business like that.

If 10 people from 10 different countries purchased the same service, then SWREG would have to not only charge the correct tax amount for each of those countries, but in addition SWREG would have to report the charged earnings to all of those countries so that the Governments of those countries can duly tax SWREG on the money that was made. And that's exactly why online prices always include taxes in the price of the product ... since it would be far too much hassle to have to deal with international taxation in 10 or perhaps even dozens of countries.

Even worse yet, according to German tax laws, it's not permitted to sell products without the taxable amount that would be added to the price clearly posted to the consumer along with the untaxed price that's being charged. Reason for that is that 99% of all stores include taxes in the price, and the one that doesn't would thereby lull the consumer into believing that those prices are much better, until that buyer got to the cash register. Well, I had no friggen' clue that I was going to be slapped with an additional 19% until that actually happened during the checkkout.

I took screenshots of everything so later on this week I'll be reporting SWREG to the Securities & Exchange Commission, the IRS, and also the German Tax auditing authority. There's absolutely no doubt in my mind that SWREG is scamming taxes off perhaps hundreds of thousands of online payees, amounting to millions and millions of ripped of dollars that are being pocketed by SWREG.

I'm very surprised and highly disappointed that Unity couldn't come up with a better payment method ... or even conduct proper research with purchase testing out of different countries. I've been online since 1991. My wife and I met online in 1996 and we conduct at least 75% to 85% of all of our business (including shopping) online. But this is the first time that I've been pushed to use this highly questionable service. I can't believe that I'm the only one that this "phenomena" has happened to. If you've purchased products or services on Unity out of another country for which you were charged additional taxes, I'm here to tell you that you've been ripped off. Taxes are supposed to be included in the price and if they aren't this needs to be stated blatantly as part of the product description in order to properly inform the buyer in advance!

Do you honestly believe that SWREG is filing income taxes in all of the countries that they're charging taxes in? Please, be for real.