Courier asks me to pay for VAT not mentioned on website

SuperHan

They wouldn't be able to charge you the VAT as they won't be VAT registered here as they're not a UK company.

Not all orders get picked for checking by customs (but more and more seem to incur the VAT and admin charge nowadays), so you may have got lucky or had low value purchases previously.

As the shop won't know the VAT rules in all countries (or probably none except their own), it'd be too onerous for them to show the possible VAT charges to everyone.

Anyone can buy any domain, wherever (with some possible restrictions), it's not an indicator of where goods/companies are based! A little research is also good to prevent yourself getting stung with a fraudulent site - and a future clue is the odd pence added on to prices. It's usually a sign of a forex calculation!

TallArnie

The retailer (JJ's House) have been nothing but courteous in this matter: they responded quickly and professionally to our query, and they even refunded us the additional fees.

(Note: I have also updated my original posting)

bod1467

Thanks for returning with the outcome.