Amazon UK, dupes, stranger with pants down!
April 22nd, 2006 by Jason Roe. Post is filed under Jason Roe.
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Catchy headline eh? So what is this guy talking about I hear you all cry!
As it’s my birthday on Sunday and I recently went looking for a new Apple iPod 30gb video. Trying to be a good consumer, I went about doing a bit of homework before making a purchase. After looking around the web for a while I went to the usual suspects Apple (€329), Komplett (€315) and finally Amazon UK … This is where the story gets interesting, the price on Amazon was the lowest price I could find anywhere!
The iPod was listed on the site for £189.99. After converting this back to euro the price worked out at about €275.213, which is roughly a €53 saving from the initial apple quote. Great I thought, not a bad saving for an hours work! As an impulsive buyer I went straight to the checkout, this is when I first noticed something unusual. The price that I had originally been quoted had jumped from £189.99 to £196, I found this a little strange but I assumed that the shipping fee had been added on. In my mind I was still saving money as the revised quote when converted back was still only €283.
I continued on through the gauntlet of payment details until I reach the order confirmation page. Again something strange had happened, the price had changed yet again!! We had now reached the £203 marker which roughly converts to about €300 euro. Wondering what the hell was going on! I decided to do a bit of reading. It seems that instead of charging me the local UK VAT rate of 17.5% that I was quoted on the main site, Amazon decided to charge me 21% their Irish VAT rate. It seems this is down to EU legislation!!
After the whole Amazon pants down experience I felt truly ripped off, it seems no matter where you go to shop once you’re Irish you’re sure to get sucker punched! Maybe it’s just me, but a €25 euro jump in price seemed a bit unusual to say the least. In the end I went directly through apple and got my iPod for €300 euro with free shipping and free engraving. It was a little bit more expensive but I didn’t want to give Amazon any money after this saga. On the bright side they charge 0% VAT on books.
April 24th, 2006 at 1:27 am
This could be because Amazon is incorporated in Ireland also, so it would be putting some of its sales through its Irish office.. I’m not sure when they started doing this, but I think it’s been like that for a while.
May 18th, 2006 at 1:43 pm
Amazon has since changed their shipping policy and no longer ship to the Republic of Ireland at all! have a look at boards.ie or on the blogosphere for more..