To expect shipping to cost £20 if I am charged £20?

[OhChristmasTEEOhChristmasTEE]

I know I am not BU, but I know this board gets the most traffic:

I purchased a small clock for DH from an Amazon Marketplace seller called JACME DISTRIBUTION for about £5. I confess right off the bat that somehow I missed that the shipping would be £20 and by the time I realized it was too late to cancel the order. When I queried why so much, I was told they only use a courier to Ireland and Northern Ireland and that was how much it costs.

Okay, no problem, my mistake. Its a very cool clock that talks.

However, when I received the package it was not shipped via a special courier, but by Royal Mail and cost the seller £2.37.

I raised another query with them on this, saying I really should get my £17+ back. They told me too bad so sad, you knew the fee.

So they just made an additional £17 off of me.

I have left negative feedback and also raised a complaint with Amazon.

But, by the power of Mumsnet, no one use this Marketplace Seller. Please.

Wealso refund (we have an Ebay shop) if difference ismroe than £1, we factor packaging into the actualcopst anyway (rarely sell other than BIN)

I agree that the most crucialpart here is they stated courier then changed to RM, I think Amazon willact on that

Op, did you purchase a £5 clock or was it a more expensive clock that you got for a fiver and the seller added the extra cost to the postage to get around paying fees but ultimately charge you the same overall cost?

Sorry for the delay in responses, I was having dinner and putting a small baby to bed.

It was a £5 clock. Amazon Marketplace is not like EBay, there is no auction.

So I paid £5.90. I did not, I totally admit, see the £20 delivery charge. I ordered the clock with some other things that were free of delivery charge, directly from Amazon, and, wrongly, assumed there was no delivery charge on any of it.

Before the clock arrived I realized my error and tried to cancel the order. It was too late.

When I queried the cost of delivery, I was told (and I am quoting from the email here) "Due to you being in Ireland our shipping cost are drasticly more as courier charges are expensive from the U.k"

When I explained I was in the UK, in Northern Ireland, I was still told the same thing. That it was coming by courier as I was not on the UK Mainland.

When I got the delivery confirmation it said it was being sent by Royal Mail. I queried the charge again. They once again told me that £20 was the standard delivery charge outside the UK Mainland.

I let it go until the package arrived and I saw the actual charge.

I wouldn't mind £5 figuring the cost of the envelope and fuel to the post office. But £17 extra is just ridiculous.

I do not know if it is legal or not. But it sure as hell is unethical.

well i think it's dishonest of the seller. Their manifesto is i'm gonna rip people off and if they don't spot that, tough.

i'm pissed off with an amazon seller right now too. an american one who charged me 12 dollars to send a paper back book (not available here) and i KNOW that a small parcel takes about 4 to five days to arrive from america. i can't understand why it has taken 8 weeks so far. i haven't left feedback yet as she swears blind she's posted it. but i bet she sent it 3rd class cattle wagon class. and charged me more than 1st class would cost.

i haven't left feedback yet. i'm too blardy nice.

Ohchristmas, they have given you false info, if the item had not even arrived when you tried to cancel, it cannot be 'too late'. You can cancel the order unconditionally at anytime and up to 7 days after you have received it. (and they should inform you of this)

docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:c8vsMyPb6eIJ:www.oft.gov.uk/shared_oft/business_leaflets/general/ oft698.pdf+distance+selling+regulations&hl=en&gl=uk&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEEShrURviIB4yHgozc9K48P8KfoRbVTX R-Difkg8J4fJi1CJkEOCoLBIbYvY1a3Ne34B7KejMJ8Unuk3aGWdtljpS4aFOEB9z7ZJ9L3tiwCYZK0nuu2X6sHNP5J6g5SEQE Iv7G7&sig=AHIEtbQVYRNkAlUMrPB2TTjQGm9X_sqJZQ

The link is the law and what your rights are. Good luck.

What they told me, Claw, was that it had already shipped so I couldn't cancel it.

At this point, I want the clock. I just also want my money back!

A lot of sellers tell you a load of rubbish!

I recently ordered a few things from Amazon, i sent one back and the seller tried to charge me a 'restock fee' of 15% and minus p&p, hence the above link!

I quoted the Office of Fair Trading and the DSR at him and hey presto, i got a full refund including p&p the next day.

Personally i would email them and state the DSR requires that your precontractual info include details of delivery arrangements and seen as the information you supplied was incorrect and the item was not via courier, but via Royal Mail costing £...., i would like a refund of £17 immediately, otherwise i will take the matter to the Office of Fair Trading.

yeah do it for the rest of us!!! they take the biscuit some of those sellers.

a restock fee!?!?!??!!?!??!!?

I just got another message from them saying 'you knew the shipping amount, deal with it'.

I have too much to do in the next few days to deal with this as we leave for the US on Sunday, but I may pick up when we get back after the holidays.

Actually that last email made me so mad that I went ahead and told her I might raise a query with the Office of Fair Trading and that they were breaking DSR.

We'll see what happens next...

if the postage had been £4 for a £2.67 stamp, then it's fair enough.
it takes about 20 minutes for me to take a packet to the post office, which in wages terms is about £1.97 (on minimum wage), anyway. (if i paid a member of staff to work and they went to the post office for me).
and the cost of sellotape and paper (or jiffy bag) and printing out the order conf and address, and the time it takes to wrap the packet.
that's not an unreasonable charge.

£20 is definitely unreasonable and you should put in a complaint against the seller.

Do raise the query when you get back. You agreed to her using a courier. You didn't agree to her charging you for using a courier and then flinging it in with royal mail.

But don't think about it when you're in America!!!

Ebay and Amazon are not the same. Ebay lets you estimate your own postal costs, and you choose how much you wish to charge. Amazon marketplace postal costs are set in stone by Amazon. For example all dvds are have a set postage amount (around £1.21 each) no matter whether it is a 20 disk box set or a single dvd... the seller has no say at all in the postage charges.

So for the clock, you will find all clocks have the same postal charges, therefore, no matter on the size, you still get charged the same.

This is what my hubby (who is a marketplace seller, and often has to pay from his own pocket for extra postal costs, and in the same vain gets customers complaining when receiving their single dvd, with only a first class stamp on, when they have paid over £1), has told me... but there is nothing he can do about it.

I do think however that your seller has been a bit rude in not explaining this to you properly.

There's a seller on Amazon who did something similar to me. I left feedback saying that I'd checked how much postage was and they were lying. Came back a bit later and they'd had loads of other complaints and had lowered the postage (obviously under duress).

They don't seem to be selling on Amazon any more now, guess they couldn't make enough profit without ripping people off.