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Brooklyn electronics company Adafruit hit with surprise $36K tariff bill: "pay in one week" (boingboing.net)

submitted 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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When DHL delivered mail to Adafruit Industries last week, it wasn't a typical invoice but a gut punch: a $36,126.46 customs duty bill that had to be paid within seven days.

The bill comes from Trump's multi-layered tariffs that can stack up to 170% on certain electronics components. For Adafruit, a company that supplies makers and engineers with specialized electronic parts, this creates a perfect storm.

These components were ordered months ago before tariff changes, can't be sourced elsewhere due to intellectual property restrictions, and must be paid for immediately — not after sales are made.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 18 hours ago

I often hear good things about AdaFruit, so it made my terrible experience with them all the more disappointing and unexpected.

I won't launch into the full story, but I had placed what was to me an expensive order. One item of the cheapest things I bought was missing a part. Their customer service folks were so dismissive and unpleasant, they made me try to resolve the issue with their supplier (iirc piminori or something along those lines), they insisted that there was no way this could happen because it would never have passed their quality control team, that it wasn't their responsibility to make it right, etc. It was such a bad experience that I've never returned.

So honestly, I have no sympathy here. From my perspective, this sort of thing could not have happened to a more deserving company.