BuyLowest.com

Now I know it’s probably my fault for not paying more attention and checking every last facet of a website’s policies before committing to buy anything, but I was a bit shocked at buylowest’s policy of hiding the VAT and duty charges, and shipping everything from the United States.

I bought a GPS from them, paid the postage and have now been requested to pay over a quarter of the value to FedEx. Also beware - FedEx don’t tell you about the charges when the item is delivered - they just invoice you afterwards.

Now I may appear at this point to be a bit naive - a closer inspection of the site reveals prices with “Exc VAT” before them, but (at least in the UK), we think about tax so infrequently that the idea of completing a payment and not being given the true total is completely alien.

In case you’re wondering, buylowest.com do have a terms and conditions entry saying they do not pay VAT, but that is hidden well away on the bottom of the privacy page, and you do not have to visit the page to complete a transaction.

Needless to say, buylowest have now started ignoring my e-mails (and the phone number they provide is bogus). Obviously they deem it straight and fair to pretend to be a British company on the web (complete with London mailing address) when they actually have no representatives or operation here, and are just capitalising on most people’s lack of interest when it comes to terms and conditions.

Buyers, beware!