Sage Kobo Sage in EU countries w/o an official retailer

[pavelh]

While it is easy to get Kobo Sage in countries where Kobo sells its devices either via its own store or an official retailer, it is not so easy in the rest of EU, which includes my homeland. If you want Sage and suffer the same problem, here are notes on my solution...

WHERE TO BUY IT:
-The list of stores (UK web site for the sake of english, but note that UK is not in EU any more): https://uk.kobobooks.com/pages/where...ign=WheretoBuy
-There are some stores that ship to more than one country, but the only store that seems to ships all over EU (most notably to my country) is LDLC.com. I have never heard of them before but they seem to be pretty big.

WARRANTY:
-In EU you get 2 years warranty unlike US where you get (generally?) 1 year warranty only.
-Obviously you need a proof of purchase.
-In a country with official Kobo retailers and support (and Germany, which is an exception - there is no official local retailer, but Kobo provides support there) Kobo provides a TNT Pickup appointment for the defective device. TNT picks up the device at your address, sends it to us and then we send you the new device. In Switzerland, Kobo may ship the replacement device to you before requesting the old device.

You have to contact Kobo (e.g. their support chat) and they will send you return labels or make a pick up appointment. In general shipping costs are covered by Kobo, but that only applies to the country where you bought the device from an official retailer. If you buy it in Switzerland, Kobo will (only) cover the shipping costs from/to a Switzerland address. There is no way that you can pay for shipping from/to another country. The only solution could be using a friend who lives in the country that Kobo provides support to and have the defective unit shipped to your friend and then from your friend to you.

LDLC:
-I have bought Sage in this French store and it arrived to me in my country via DPD 5 working days after dispatch from France. It might have been 4 days if it wasn't for a mix up at a local DPD. That's bloody fast if you ask me :-)
-LDLC.com has an international web site (see the bottom of the main page for a link), but it seems that their on-line chat help is only available in French. It can be started via a round bubble icon at the bottom right of the "aide" page. The icon did not display on the English "help" page for me nor it did on some French help pages I would expect it to be displayed at, but once I located it, I just bookmakred the page and it was always there. Obviously you can use a web translator to communicate with LDLC help and I did so twice and sorted everything out. They were quite patient, nice and helpful.
-The one thing I disliked about LDLC website is that you can pay only through PayPal or bank transfer. The PayPal payment used on the web site requires a PayPal account and I didn't want that so I payed via bank transfer. It took three working days for the bank transfer (EU payment) to be complete :-/
In case you do the same and your bank asks for the address of LDLC (some banks do this for security purposes and it is a good thing), here is the data:
name: LDLC.com
street: 2 rue des Erables
city: Limonest
country: France
LDLC also asks you to note the number of your order on your bank transfer so I just added it into the "note" field even with a French phrase to be nice to them :-)
note: Le numero de commande: 111111111111 1A

LDLC & WARRANTY:
In the event of a problem with the device, you may contact Kobo directly, but you will need an intermediate address they can pick up the old device and send the new one to (see above).
You may ship the device back to LDLC at your cost and they compensate it in the form of a voucher. They may require a low cost shipping service and will require a receipt to cover the compensate the costs via a voucher.
The cost of shipping the new/repaired device to you is included in the warranty and is covered by LDLC.
The return address (as of now) is: 38070 St Quentin Fallavier.

Hope it helps someone
PH

[Sirtel]

I bought my Sage from LDLC too (with PayPal).

Off-topic, I've had a PayPal account for more than 10 years, use it often (including several subscriptions) and never have had any issues. Just from curiosity, why would you not want to use it?

[pavelh]

:-)

re: paypal
I always pay with my card. I never really need paypal so I am cautious about giving away my phone number (in case of unsolicited commercial calls), which is a prerequisite to paypal account. If I need it I will go thru it, but I just never do.


PH

P.S. Also paypal promises heck of a protection, but I was once scammed on ebay and neither ebay nor paypal (a friend with a paypal account payed for the item) helped at all. In fact they appeared to do everything in their power to prevent me from getting my money back.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by pavelh

:-)

re: paypal
I always pay with my card. I never really need paypal so I am cautious about giving away my phone number (in case of unsolicited commercial calls), which is a prerequisite to paypal account. If I need it I will go thru it, but I just never do.


PH

P.S. Also paypal promises heck of a protection, but I was once scammed on ebay and neither ebay nor paypal (a friend with a paypal account payed for the item) helped at all. In fact they appeared to do everything in their power to prevent me from getting my money back.

Thanks for satisfying my curiosity.

I have gotten my money back from PayPal the one and only time I requested it. But I guess I may have been lucky.

[Lynx-lynx]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

I bought my Sage from LDLC too (with PayPal).

Off-topic, I've had a PayPal account for more than 10 years, use it often (including several subscriptions) and never have had any issues. Just from curiosity, why would you not want to use it?

Because they sell your data

[Lynx-lynx]

Thank you @pavelh for your very informative post.

I am in a kobo country (Australia) but the ereader sale site has stuffed up badly and neither visa nor mastercard works - and they don't know why.

Quite frankly they couldn't sell a fk in a brothel imo.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Lynx-lynx

Because they sell your data

Everyone does. And giving your card number to many different companies over time is way more unsafe (IMO) than using PayPal.

[Lynx-lynx]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Everyone does. And giving your card number to many different companies over time is way more unsafe (IMO) than using PayPal.

I don't trust or use PayPal, I use visa.

Your choice

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by Lynx-lynx

I don't trust or use PayPal, I use visa.

I've used PayPal for years without issues. Our Visas (on the other hand) have been hacked into two or three times. (We've always been able to recover the charges, however.)

[Lynx-lynx]

Originally Posted by rcentros

I've used PayPal for years without issues. Our Visas (on the other hand) have been hacked into two or three times. (We've always been able to recover the charges, however.)

I ditched PayPal here maybe 4 years ago when they changed their policy as to who they would sell the data to.


Have never had a problem with mastercard or visa

[Nikoz]

Another thing about paypal, if you're buying in another currency than your own (for example in this case, if you're in an EU country that doesn't use the euro) their exchange rates are an absolute scam (you lose something like 4%). You're better off using bank transfer to get your bank's exchange rates, and waiting a few days. Also there is now instant transfer withing the EU (usually it costs €1) but it works only if your bank and the recipient's bank have it, might be worth checking.
As for ldlc, it's legit and a big tech/computer company, you can order there without worries.

[benbook]

"if you're buying in another currency than your own" -
In such a case you can set up Paypal to use the original currency, by :
- when Paypal shows you the amount to be paid and the currency used you can tell Paypal to let your card issuer handle the currenct exchange. Problem is this is done per transaction.
- or, in a well hidden (google will help you there) page in your Paypal settings, you can tell Paypal to always let your card issuer handle currenct exchanges.

[mathil]

LaFeltrinelli store (Italian official Kobo retailer) ships all over the EU. Pretty sure their website doesn't have a English language option though.

[pavelh]

FYI
I've had issues connecting to LDLC.com from my PC recently so I contacted them from my cell phone and here is a what they wrote to me:
I regret to confirm that our site is subject to a geographical access restriction at our discretion and indefinitely. For the time being, we will not be able to assist you in this matter, I regret it.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by pavelh

FYI
I've had issues connecting to LDLC.com from my PC recently so I contacted them from my cell phone and here is a what they wrote to me:
I regret to confirm that our site is subject to a geographical access restriction at our discretion and indefinitely. For the time being, we will not be able to assist you in this matter, I regret it.

Hmm I can connect to LDLC just fine from my PC.