Buylowest.com update

I have just spent the morning on the phone Federal Express, who refuse to accept that delivering parcels and giving no indication that there may be duty charges levied weeks later is wrong. Apparently the call centre crew have a distorted view of the law when it comes to things like this, because the guy on the end of the phone was basically calling me an idiot, when all I was trying to get them to do was recognise the flaw in the system and fix it. Ah well, I guess that’s what you can expect of large companies – people at the bottom who just don’t care.

Buylowest have dropped off the face of the earth. No surprises there. I am now initiating a dispute with PayPal, because the terms are hidden and they claim Royal Mail as their courier. I’ve paid FedEx the £50, and I don’t expect that to be seen again. It’s such a massive flaw that I can’t claim that £50 from PayPal because it didn’t go through their system, but I can hardly blame them.

In hindsight this is a clever exploitation of a delivery company’s import policy. The customer service rep for FedEx refused to believe it, so I’ll try the head office. It would be so easy for them to stamp parcels coming for outside the EU as having potential extra charges, or to include a little leaflet. At least then the consumer wouldn’t end up caught between a rock and a hard place. I for one certainly don’t relish the idea of chasing my refund from the United States. I’m just not that good at law (and not bothered enough for £50).

This post is an update for an earlier post: BuyLowest.com

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!