Hello beautiful peoples!
If you’re reading this… happy Friday the 13th!
I am trying to buy moisture absorber / dehumidifier bags on Amazon.co.uk because I live in the Republic of Ireland – a country with high humidity – and during the cold winter months I cannot simply open the windows to air out the moisture that builds up in my home. I am paying for Prime membership to avail of free Prime delivery without extra charges.
Before you ask – I am not using Amazon.ie because it has multiple issues that I already described, and after many months none of them were fixed. I switched to Amazon.ie for a while but due to the problems I encountered I eventually switched back to Amazon.co.uk.
So I searched Amazon.co.uk and after adjusting the search phrase and filters until everything was set up correctly – I finally found a couple of options:
They were both Prime items, both purchased by more than six thousand people in the past, and both had a high number of four and five star reviews with only about two percent one star reviews. The first item was slightly cheaper at almost €10 for six bags with a 500 ml liquid capacity each, and the second item cost almost €12 for twelve bags with a 250 ml liquid capacity each.
Needless to say – I liked what I saw and I asked my wife for a “consultation”. She came over, looked at both options, and chose the second one, so I added it to the checkout and was about to pay. She then noticed something strange. The price had doubled.
She asked me what happened. I looked closlier and noticed an Import Fees Deposit that was almost the same amount as the price of the item itself – five cents less to be exact. I assumed it must be a mistake, so I cleared the checkout and added the item again, but the same thing happened. My wife then said: “OK, so not this item then – try the other one”. And so I did…
Mind you – this is extremely weird for many reasons. One of them is the fact that if you live in the Republic of Ireland and you purchase items from the United Kingdom, you are not charged import duty when the item value is below €150. That part is clear and well established. VAT can still apply, but Amazon normally includes VAT in the item price and it is never anywhere near an amount that equals ninety nine percent of the item value. In my case the items are well below the €150 threshold, so there is no logical reason for an Import Fees Deposit that almost doubles the price.
So I decided to check something else. I also needed some isopropyl alcohol for cleaning electronics, so I searched for it and found an option I liked: five one litre containers of 99.8 percent IPA for about €36.
This item is nearly three times the price of the twelve dehumidifier bags, so I expected to see some weird import fees in the checkout.
No Import Fees Deposit. What the frick. So I joined the Amazon.co.uk customer service chat and spoke to their representative. After I explained the issue I was told that:
How does this make sense. I tried to explain the situation to the representative, but it became clear that I was not being understood correctly. In the checkout the charges are clearly marked as Import Fees Deposit and not carrier charges or carrier delivery fees. Even if it was marked as carrier charges or delivery charges, why would they charge me for delivering Prime items to a Prime membership holder. And on top of that I am supposed to wait six months for a refund. Awww hell naw…
I said my thank yous and ended the chat, but it kept bugging me. I decided to try again and rejoined the chat a few minutes later, hoping to get a different representative. After a short wait I was explaining the problem to another person. This time I was told:
and then later…
At this stage it was clear to me that I was being told what I wanted to hear just to wrap up the conversation so the representative could move on to another customer. So I thanked them for the help provided, said my goodbyes, and wished them a nice weekend since it was Friday evening.
In the end I closed the chat window and sat there wondering how something this simple could turn into such a mess. Two cheap Prime items somehow trigger massive Import Fees Deposit, a far more expensive item triggers none, and two different representatives give me two completely different explanations. At this point it clearly has to be an error in the Amazon.co.uk checkout. What other reason would there be for such nonsense. And honestly, I would much rather spend my money on weekly groceries and normal life expenses instead of having it sit in Jeff Bezos’ account for six months earning him a nice percentage in interest. After rattling my head for a while I decided to write all of it down here even if nobody reads it, so at least I will have a reminder in case diabetes type 3, also known as Alzheimer, invades my brain in the future. Writing things like this down also helps me clear my head from all those negative emotions after unpleasant events.
Catch you on the flip side,
AndrzejL
