Warning when buying of UK websites

ErinGoBrath

Was buying some kit of kitbag.co.uk yesterday and I seen there is an € option at the top of the page.

Out of curiousity I check the price difference between a sterling basket and euiro basket containing the same items:

Stg 100
Euro 154

100stg -> 134 euro on XE.com

€20 euro difference if you pay in sterling. Worth keeping an eye out for given the strength of the euro to sterling at the moment.

tvr

Theres nothing sinister going on , its just that the euro has rallied against the sterling in the last couple of days hence the flucuation in the pricing. Do you are correct at the moment it is better to buy everything in sterling.

ErinGoBrath

Ah yeah, I know it's not sinister. Just a warning not to buy in euro.

Mountjoy Mugger

tvr wrote: »

Theres nothing sinister going on , its just that the euro has rallied against the sterling in the last couple of days

We've had a strong euro against sterling for some months now.

Some sites can't be bothered about updating the exchange rate. Simple as.

marrm

ErinGoBrath wrote: »

Was buying some kit of kitbag.co.uk yesterday and I seen there is an € option at the top of the page.

Out of curiousity I check the price difference between a sterling basket and euiro basket containing the same items:

Stg 100
Euro 154

100stg -> 134 euro on XE.com

€20 euro difference if you pay in sterling. Worth keeping an eye out for given the strength of the euro to sterling at the moment.

Take care! It's a €20 Euro difference if you pay in Euro. Then they'll charge you the extra €20 :eek:.

If you pay in sterling, using your credit card or paypal or whatever, you'll get the correct rate.

ErinGoBrath

marrm wrote: »

Take care! It's a €20 Euro difference if you pay in Euro. Then they'll charge you the extra €20 :eek:.

That's what I meant, got my words a bit muddled!

ChuckProphet

the likes of play.com won't let u pay in sterling for deliveries to ireland. i bought a game for €15.49, was £9.99 sterling which is actually only €13.47.:eek:

TheDriver

Play seem to charge more so that the "free" delivery is included! Feels like we are being ripped off all the same

_Whimsical_

Op you are still within your rights to cancel that order and make it again through sterling if you want to.

ErinGoBrath

chilly wrote: »

Op you are still within your rights to cancel that order and make it again through sterling if you want to.

No I did order in Sterling. Just worded the original post badly

Mimikyu

This post has been deleted.

okidoki987

Credit card companys now charge you a 1.75% fee for buying anything
from overseas, certainly for Sterling, not sure about USD.

jayteecork

You can't order in sterling on play.com as far as I know,
a 14.99 sterling game is 20 euro according to xe.com, on play.com it is 23.49.
they pull 3.49 out of their ass.
I'm not buying from them again.

jayteecork

okidoki987 wrote: »

Credit card companys now charge you a 1.75% fee for buying anything
from overseas, certainly for Sterling, not sure about USD.

Are you serious?
I got a leaflet in the post about new credit card charges but I binned it as I finally cancelled my CC over the week.
Laser only for me from now on.

zAbbo

jayteecork wrote: »

Are you serious?
I got a leaflet in the post about new credit card charges but I binned it as I finally cancelled my CC over the week.
Laser only for me from now on.

Do oversea's companies accept Lazer?

rubadub

Mr.S wrote: »

i dont know what the word they use is, but it is accualy cheaper if you pick up up

It is a marketing scam, they call it "walk in discount", and "free delivery", translated means the value of the "walk in discount" is the actual delivery charge you pay.
That is why I prefer places with upfront delivery charges, who give a discount for multiple buys. www.dvdpacific.com have a good setup, lots of options. I like places with fast/slow, i.e. expensive/cheap delivery options.

Some have high "free delivery" included in their prices, just so they do not get a bad name for slow delivery, but sometimes I do not care if a dvd takes 3 months to arrive, so would prefer a slow post option, and will not complain about them.

Are you serious?
I got a leaflet in the post about new credit card charges but I binned it as I finally cancelled my CC over the week.
Laser only for me from now on.

Some C/C companies might have "no fee", so it is just masked in the same way as play and dominoes, i.e. they give you a really poor exhange rate and get the money that way.

a 14.99 sterling game is 20 euro according to xe.com, on play.com it is 23.49

It is very unfair to compare to xe. Nobody is really going to get that figure. A better comparison is what the bank would give you that day, i.e. if you did get the chance to pay by sterling the bank will give you a worse rate than XE, then they will slap on the 2% (or whatever) cross border fees. If your bank has no crossborder fee, expect a very poor exchange rate, they always screw you in the end.

People moan about paypal, and I hate them, but their rates are actually good, they seem bad compared to XE, but nobody gets that.

If you want a fair comparison it would be to buy the exact same item at the same time from the same shop, 3 times. Once with paypal, once with euros, and once with sterling via C/C. Now see which is cheapest on your c/c bill.

There is a way in paypal to see the difference in buy/sell rates, just like in a bank on the computer thing on the wall, XE is in between both usually.

311

Does anyone know why ,amazon.co.uk increase the sterling price when the delivery is going to ireland ?

Everytime I order something like a DVD for say £10 ,when I go to checkout it jumps to 11.20 or similar.

dereko1969

_Brian_ wrote: »

Does anyone know why ,amazon.co.uk increase the sterling price when the delivery is going to ireland ?

Everytime I order something like a DVD for say £10 ,when I go to checkout it jumps to 11.20 or similar.

i think it's to do with the VAT rate - as Amazon would have to be registered here i think they have to charge you the irish vat rate of 21% rather than the Uk rate of 17%.

rubadub

dereko1969 wrote: »

i think it's to do with the VAT rate - as Amazon would have to be registered here i think they have to charge you the irish vat rate of 21% rather than the Uk rate of 17%.

Spot on, its the VAT.

Since they charge Irish vat, is Ireland benefiting from that VAT?

It is something to bear in mind, if you buy from the UK you are in effect giving money to the UK economy, and not giving any to Ireland. You dont think of it on an individual basis much, but if people started buying everything from abroad then your income tax or some other tax would have to increase.

It is also sort of unfair to say play etc are way cheaper than hmv in town, since they are not paying the vat to the government.

311

rubadub wrote: »

It is also sort of unfair to say play etc are way cheaper than hmv in town, since they are not paying the vat to the government.

I always try to keep this in mind when purchasing stuff ,but to be honest a lot of stuff people buy is bargain specific to the internet.

I think the reason we get shafted half the time here is because there isn't enough competition ,because of the small market we have.

Lump

xe.com offers a much better rate then you'd get from the bank. The best thing to do is check the rate on your banks website.

Dodge

okidoki987 wrote: »

Credit card companys now charge you a 1.75% fee for buying anything
from overseas, certainly for Sterling, not sure about USD.

Seriously? When I'm away and outside the eurozone any major spending is done on the Credit card. Just found it easier. I've not heard of this fee (and I'm not saying it doesn't exist...)

davork

rubadub wrote: »

Spot on, its the VAT.

Since they charge Irish vat, is Ireland benefiting from that VAT?

It is something to bear in mind, if you buy from the UK you are in effect giving money to the UK economy, and not giving any to Ireland. You dont think of it on an individual basis much, but if people started buying everything from abroad then your income tax or some other tax would have to increase.

It is also sort of unfair to say play etc are way cheaper than hmv in town, since they are not paying the vat to the government.

Strictly speaking, if Ireland gets money from the EU, then we are getting some fraction of the VAT paid to Amazon (A portion of all VAT charged within the EU goes to the EU)

As for the future... well it's worst than that...

In their infinite wisdom Europe have come up with a way of ensuring we pay VAT. We'll soon (2009?) get charged Irish vat on everything shipped to Ireland from within the EU. The money will go to the sending country's finance department.

Later on (2012 I seem to recall) there is supposed to be some handing over of money at a higher level to nett out the differences, but I can imagine that'll get dropped over time.

So you wish is being granted. Thank you for making it

Still, look on the bright side, An Post get some money for delivering the packages. When they feel like it.

davork

okidoki987 wrote: »

Credit card companys now charge you a 1.75% fee for buying anything
from overseas, certainly for Sterling, not sure about USD.

Its more confusing than that...

A credit card co takes the exchange rate given to them by Visa or Mastercard and then has the option of loading that in their favour.

If you have a card designated in Euro's, you are not supposed to get charged this loading - sometimes a 'mistake' might happen - but that's rarer and rarer these days. The loading applies to any and every other currency...

The loading percentage depends on the credit card company. if you want a laugh, try extracting that percentage from the call center people

And rate does vary - I'm fairly sure we have a section on credit cards with the percentages from mid 2007

In the UK, one of the enlightened building societies, Nationwide Anglia doesn't load the conversion rate which is why you'll always see them mentioned as a good holiday card to use in the cross channel newspapers

Naturally, in ripoff ireland we don't get that option. Not even from the credit unions...