amazon MD rip off

MyBrainhurts_2

I recently saw 1gb Hi-Md on amazon for 49p, wow i thought i will get a few of those to keep for future use. Unfortuantly, when i investigated it was £4.50 for the postage. I thinks again , ok i will order 5 and the postage will be worth while. I went through the process and the postage went up in increments of £4.00 per MD. This is not right i thought so i wrote to Amazon.
Oh yes sir thats ok , its a third party provider and they can individual postage for each item and they have set postage rates. I said this is "sharpe practice" and basically lieing about the price and using the postage to make up the cost. No sir all is okay. But dont you realise that its making Amazon look bad, no sir all is okay.

sir then went off and told a government free phone consumer department, they took details and then promised to tell the DTI ( i think).
Today amazon site is still allowing the third party providers to do the sharpe practice but amazon are now selling the Hi-Mds at market price , and free postage if you buy more to qualify for free postage.

Another odd thing is i went to the third partys web site and saw that they are selling the hi-Mds for less that market price £3.99 with free postage. And if you look the amazon reviews for the company they has 5 star rating but when you look closer all the complaints they do have are about the postage charges.

Well , im off my soap box now, wasnt sure if this was the place for a rant but i couldnt find any other one that seemed to be right.

site adress is

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sony-Hi-MD-1GB-Blank-Minidisc/dp/B0002JUILK/sr=11-1/qid=1164910179/ref=sr_11_1/026-8046042-3286825

cheekymole

This would've been better on the Vent/Heaven Sent board but yes, I've been totally annoted by that before now too

Star

Third party sellers have no control over the amount Amazon charges on their behalf for shipping. Amazon also take a huge chunk of the amount for their fees. With this in mind sellers might sell an item for say 1p and the profit will be on the P+P.

MyBrainhurts_2

are you suggesting that amazon set the rate of postage charge for the third party seller, well that the complet opposite to what amazon told me. But to sell anything for a pretend price and then make it up on something that they dont sell or is part of the service is not fair trading. Im a little confused if yo uare defending this practice

Sigur_2

Are you new to the internet?

MyBrainhurts_2

no - why as a question like that?

iwanttosave_2

Did you buy the items from the market place? New and used?

If so, they might not even be coming from the same seller. This is nothing to do with amazon, they set the delivery charge, thats about it. A good seller may refund you some of the postage, but they are not obliged to do this.

Amazon fees are very high, to I sold something the other day for £20, £22 including delivery, I got after fees £14 and out of that, I had to pay postage.

If you buy a load of these items, and only get charged postage for one, the seller may end up selling at a deficit.

MyBrainhurts_2

wel if you look at the link i gave you it shows the product is sold by a third party seller, as in another company. the company have there own web site which sells then for a £1 less than on amazon . If amazon or ripping me off then the should be ashemed - if the third party is ripping me off then bot the third party and amazon should be ashamed. However i was wize enough to see if it was a scam, well it was so i didnt buy any?

Im very confused as there seem to be a feeling that this practice is okay ?

It shades of the rip scam of people charging excessive charged on postage on Ebays

ManAtHome

Yes, sound just like the ebay one - and one I wouldn't go for ("oh it's just an ordinary MD, of course we'll refund your 49p if you send it back..."). Maybe the Amazon charges are a percentage of the goods price, not the total including postage..?

As for reputation, neither ebay nor Amazon are in my top million or so of suppliers.

simonbrowne

what i think sigur was saying was this is common practice on some internet sites, especiaslly the likes of ebay. the reason being they pay the advertiser (ie ebay) a percentage of the price it sells for (not including the postage) the cheaper the item sells for the less they pay in commision . they still need to make the money up and so add it to the postage. i dont particulary mind them doing it as it keeps costs down to us the buyers. i do resent it when all these details are in the fineprint halfway down the listing. i think sigur was saying when he asked if you were a newbie was most of us have figured this out allready. i understand your point as well as my old dad keeps seeing bargain lcd tvs for £5 camcorders for £10 and i have to keep reminding him about the £400 postage. he still cant get his head round this.

matty85

I know what you mean, MyBrainhurts. I think the way Play do it with Playtrade is much better than Amazon Marketplace because the postage is included in the price the 3rd party seller sets. The problem with Amazon's method is that for cheap and small electrial items like MD's, cables etc they automatically get lumped into the £4.00+ per item shipping rate so even if it is listed at the minimum of 1p it is still far more expensive overall. I guess Amazon must have there reasons for doing it, but yes, to me it seems odd.