I bought some items from an online artist based in Canada. The first purchase was for just under £200 and I paid about £45 in customs tax for that. Fine.
After my first purchase (but while it was still in transit), I looked at her Instagram and the seller had done various posts about how her business is struggling to survive, 'artist poverty is real', '30% off with code 'help me pay my electric bill' etc. I thought all this seemed a bit 'unusual,' (also possibly a bit 'tone deaf' as she lives in a huge, beautiful house by the sea and does her art full time so she can be a SAHM - not a choice many women could make)! But I thought fair enough, she's being honest; I genuinely love her art and good for her living her dream. I wanted to support her business if I could.
So I bought another item for £280 which had previously been listed at about £450 (I think). She was doing a sale across all her work.
I couldn't have afforded it at £450 and also the higher customs tax would have been a bit much for me, on balance.
Anyway, both packages didn't arrive for ages and it turned out they were being held at the post office, pending customs charges. The first package, as I said, required a £45 customs tax payment. However, the second package, required a customs tax payment of £95! I asked how that could be possible, when I had paid £280 for the item. Then I saw that the unexpectedly high customs tax was because the seller had stated the value of goods as £450 (or the equivalent in Canadian dollars).
I messaged the seller and told her that surely it's standard practice to state the actual transaction price on a package for customs purposes.
Thst was it. She was straight into "What do you expect me to do?" etc. Then went into the woe-is-me 'artist poverty is real' and how could I be devaluing her art in this way. She got very personalised very quickly. She said she will never devalue her work again because I had done that for her! She said I was essentially asking her to defraud customs. She basically said she wished she had never sold me anything because I don't value her art!
Ffs I had spent over £600 on it (with the tax). I was talking about labelling for customs tax - I believe it should be the transaction amount stated, not some previous price. How is that in my control?
In summary, she became very unprofessional with me and then blocked me.
I had left her a really positive comment on Instagram as well - before all this!
Apologies for the length.
WIBU?
Also, should I leave her a review stating my experience?