Ordered a 6 cell battery from laptopbattery4u for the daughter's PC. Cost  £48.59 plus Registered Delivery £4.99, total: £53.58.

Got a detailed invoice by email which included delivery by registered mail at £4.99. The website states that delivery of UK orders is by registered mail. The firm is based in the UK.

I was surprised when the post-room at work (my delivery address) phoned me to say that there was a UPS delivery man waiting to collect £17:66 in import duty.

As I didn't have much cash on me, I had the embarrassment of scrabbling round my colleagues to borrow the balance after which the cost has risen to £71.24 - which is almost the same as my local Samsung stockist charges for the branded item.

So the moral of this story is
a) don't be mean - get the real deal for those you love, or
b) avoid laptopbattery4u who mention NOTHING about directly importing from HongKong to the customer and in fact make a spurious charge for UK postage, or both.

Now waiting for a reply to my email requesting reinbursement, after which (assuming they ignore it) I'll have to try PayPal (which isn't that hopeful as it's not a dispute over payment for goods).

Very carefully worded one, that. At first glance it appears to mean that you, the customer, wouldn't incur any additional fees. But if you put on your evil money grabbing robbing cunt hat (you have one of those, right? I can lend you one of mine if you need. I'm a debt collector so i have several) , you can kind of see how it can be construed to mean that they, the seller, reserve the right to not incur any additional fees from importing from Hong Kong. So they make you pay the fees so they don't have do.

Just noticed that's from the US version, but i'm sure there's an identical clause hidden somewhere on the .co.uk site, which i'm assuming is the one you used.

Illegal, though

Oh yeah. I also couldn't find anything remotely similar on the uk site, so i'm guessing they don't have a leg to stand on. I'm also guessing that they won't give a fuck about that and  William will not be reimbursed.

There only seems to be one small mention about the products not necessarily being sent out from the UK

but that could also just be delivering to "Other Countries"

It's wierd, now that I've calmed down a bit. I've bought stuff from overseas suppliers like the late lamented Lik Sang loads of times, so I'm well aware of the liability to import duties if you set out to buy from overseas. I just find it odd that a UK based company, offering (and charging me for) UK postage, should leave me open to ridiculous levels of tax without warning.

Still, I'll give them a day or so.

UPS is notorious for pulling that stunt here.

Or maybe, in this case, one to say Merry Christmas to:



So I'll say 'careless' rather than anything else. And top marks for a prompt refund without even a request for the receipt.

 

Awesome.

To err is human, to forgive divine.

Err?

Nothing human about that picture. Move along.

Actually I'm having a hard time (NJ) working out whether that's a man or woman. Or a manatee.

Right third time. You got there in the end! (proud)

I wouldn't be surprised if that place and/or a lot of other places did that kind of thing regularly and just instantly offered refunds to anyone who questions it. There must be plenty of people who'd just accept the charge, graciously or not, and move on, and it probably results in a net gain for the company.

I don't think the company benefits from import duty

Exactly. I suspect that £17.66 may not have completely wiped their margin on the battery, but I can't imagine it helped.

I suspect that it's thought of as acceptable in cases where they can't supply from stock - especially as a proportion of people probably don't try to claim the money back - even that much.

Annoying though, especially the embarrassment of going round all my workmates trying to scrabble the right change together.

Poor experience of laptopbattery4u.
(no)
Bought a generic battery for my Toshiba Satellite Pro.
After 9 months it was only lasting 1 hour or less between charges.
After 11 months it was down to a few minutes 
Due to manic work life didn't remeber to contact them until 3 days after warranty expired.
They refused to replace the battery.
Contractually they are in the right, but morally they are in the wrong. 

Very poor customer service ... laptopbattery NOT 4U!

For the battery to give 2 minutes use from 100% charge to 6% charge, 3 days after warranty expires, it must have been dying for some time.

My opinion is AVOID laptopbattery4u

and get OEM battery from reputable source, such as laptop manufacturer - might cost twice as much or more, but it'll last 2-3 years easily (like our work laptops do - our IT guys always use OEM).

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