Warning: Fishpond.co.uk

Jas1234uk

This site appears to be a UK business, advertises prices in pounds sterling and states free shipping. I purchased some cosmetics at what I thought was a good price only to be charged £13 extra by customs as the package was coming from USA! The company is not UK based and actually operates out of New Zealand!! How frustrating for shoppers. When I complained at not being told of any additional charges I was told it was in their terms and conditions, however, I was not advised at all when purchasing that the goods were coming from America. All very misleading! Does anyone else have the same problem with this or another similar site?
I think we should stop non UK businesses from operating under .co.uk website names!

c7jdks

1. Customs & Duties: For any orders shipped outside of New Zealand the customer is the importer of record and will be responsible for all customs import duties and sales tax charges. These charges vary in each country and are outside of Fishpond�s control. Contact your local customs office for more information on what import duties or sales taxes may be imposed.

SKSAN

This is not a .co.uk company at all they post from abroad and the reason everything has free delivery is because you have to pay customs when the postman brings you the package. Mine was as much as the actual cost of the item I ordered, when I emailed customer service because of course you cannot ring them - they sent me an obnoxious email to say that I should read the terms and conditions.

Who reads all the terms and conditions on any website? As a consumer you do not expect a uk company who says free delivery to then charge you customs.

Fishpond - if you are reading this. You will not get repeat custom from your consumers because you do not treat your customers fairly.

Annabee

Seems like a lot of companies not based in the UK call their website 'something.co.uk' deliberately to mislead UK customers. Then you can get the problem with Customs as the OP experienced.

At the very least items are going to take longer to be delivered than the customer was expecting, as they are unaware their items are coming from overseas. The only intention of these companies in naming their sites like this can be to deceive, can't think of any other reason.

I have particularly noticed this with MarketPlace sellers on Amazon. I think Amazon should stamp on it.

Juleshid

SKSAN wrote: »

Who reads all the terms and conditions on any website? As a consumer you do not expect a uk company who says free delivery to then charge you customs.

Um hi, if you don't read t&cs then that's your own problem if you're buying from somewhere new and it seems super cheap its probably worth looking at why.

Also you do understand that "customs" isn't a charge levied by the company (please tell me you know that) and that its import duty that you pay to HMRC.

I was investigating fishpond as i want a book that is only available in Oz/NZ and it seems rather overpriced, but thank you this has made me laugh.

Anna - loads of companies do it, it's generally used as a sign that they will specifically do trade in a certain country, do you only use .co.uk sites? what about .com sites what country do they belong to?

pmduk

it's called the world wide web for a reason. It's up to the customer to check where a retailer is based, if only to know which consumer protection is available.

earthstorm

I dont know why Nominet dont invoke restrictions like other countries.

As a webhost I have a lot of USA clients so thought i would set up a .us site with a .us domain.

so i registered a .us domain, no problem thus far, but then within a couple of hours the registrar contacted me saying they were refunding me as i was in the UK so could not register a .us domain.

why cant Nominet do the same thing, so only .uk domains can only be registered if you have a UK address

also noticed to open their contact us page you have to be signed in or register, also their footer stated 'Fishpond Ltd' but only Fishpond Ltd according to companies house shows Status: Dissolved 24/05/2012 and they were Nature of Business (SIC):
1920 - Manufacture of luggage & the like, saddlery

ThumbRemote

I do like the section on 'How Fishpond works' that states 'Free Delivery' and 'Delivery is free for every product we sell, which means you don’t have to pay expensive additional shipping rates for items coming from other countries.'
http://www.fishpond.co.uk/how-fishpond-works

Personally, I'd consider free delivery to mean 'getting the product to me without extra charges to pay'. It may be free shipping, it certainly isn't free delivery.

It would be extremely easy for them to mention customs charges on their website at the checkout stage. They have a .co.uk site, price in sterling and even have a UK mail address on their contact page. The only mention of customs charges is within point 15 of their T&Cs. They are quite clearly intent on passing themselves off as a British company, and wish to hide the matter of customs charges from the customer.

jillsa

I've used fishpond a few times and I was fully aware the goods were coming from abroad. When I ordered it says "ships from Australia/New Zealand" etc.
I have not had to pay customs duty on any of the items I purchased, presumably as these have been low cost items (Dvd/book).

This is what the HMRC website says:"If you buy goods online from outside the EU for delivery to the UK, you'll have to pay Customs Duty and Import VAT on top of the purchase price if the goods are above a certain value - though Customs Duty is waived if the amount of duty payable is £9 or less."

I have been able, through fishpond, to get hold of books and DVds not available in the UK and have been very pleased with their service.

jonnymac0

I too knew Fishpond.Co.Uk was not UK based. I thought that was quite clear. I didnt know about the custom charges (not clear on their website) until I checked their reliability on Google (MSE forum). I have been caught out with custom charges in the past but to me it seems to be a bit of hit or miss affair. All that said, the item I wanted to buy can only be obtained in the USA. When I went on to the makers website (priced in US dollars) they were twice as expensive (after applying the exchange rate) than they were on Fishpond. So whilst I was not expecting to spend more than the price shown, the custom charge, whilst annoying, is fair enough. I think the key here is to check before you buy from a company no known to you, to allow you to make an informed choice. I dont bother with the T&C's I use Google to do the hard work for me. Fingers crossed that the item ordered actually does turn up :-)

DeltaWhiskyHotel

Not making any comment about anybody who believes they may have been misled about the .co.uk address.

My local trading standards has had numerous articles in the local press about being wary of the .co.uk suffix as an indication of physical location - especially about Chinese sellers of counterfeits (apparently it is rife)

As a matter of habit I now carry out basic checks on every (new) website I consider purchasing from.

• Check on google for reviews etc.

A quick google of fishpond ltd returned a page of references to a New Zealand based business.

• Check on domain name (through a register search site - whois.domaintools - kept on my favourites for the purpose - search Google for domain name & choose a search site you like)

The fishpond.co.uk returned the following:
Domain name:
fishpond.co.uk
Registrant:
Fishpond World Limited
Registrant type:
UK Limited Company, (Company number: 7652358)
Registrant's address:
9 Airpark Drive
Mangere
AUC
AKL

New Zealand

• Also look at the website for clues - bad English is a common clue for Chinese sites.

The fishpond site states 'all prices are in pounds sterlings' on the homepage - personally I was surprised to find it was a New Zealand business - the extra s looked suspicious to me.

Any discrepancies should serve as a warning that more investigation is needed before parting with card details.

Apologies if this advice has been repeated in these forums numerous times already, but it is still obvious that many people don't bother with those basic checks.