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Manchester Evening News
Manchester Evening News
National
Rachel Pugh

Amazon shoppers urged to check small-print as people are hit with £32 charge

People who shop on Amazon are being urged to check the small-print. Recently, many shoppers have discovered bargains for under 50p on the retail giant's website, and have rushed to order.

But shoppers found themselves out of pocket when they realised how much they had paid for postage. One shopper was horrified when they went to purchase a bar of Cadbury chocolate, which had been reduced from £3.49 to 41p.

Heather Teece told the Extreme Couponing and Bargains group how she had been excited by the deal, until she checked the small print. She was aghast to discover the price of postage, which was a whopping £31.99.

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Postage for one bar was free, but when Heather added another bar to meet the minimum order requirement, the postage changed. Now she's urged everyone to be careful when ordering from Amazon.

It's important to note that Amazon has thousands of items on offer, and many can be bought via Prime. Amazon is not responsible for the prices its third party sellers charge, but does have systems in place to try and prevent this from happening. The chocolate bar Heather spotted has now been removed.

She wrote: "Got really excited when I saw the price of the big bars of dairy milk on Amazon..... It was minimum 2 buy.... Look what shipping jumped to."

After seeing the post, shoppers rushed to share their own stories. Jennie Halligan said: "I got caught out by this too but with some fabric softener. It said prime delivery but afterwards it was £50 delivery. I’ve sent it back for a refund and complained but it cost me £13 to send it back."

Amazon shoppers urged to check small-print or risk being hit with unexpected charge (Amazon)

Rebecca Henry wrote: "There’s been loads of 41p items this week with 31.99 postage." Laura Overton replied: "I had this with some deodorant. 41p instead of £4 but you needed to buy two.. then when you went to check out postage jumped to £29.99."

Becky Smith said: "They did this with se body spray I was looking for.. On my account its was showing 41p a tin (spend so much more to get free delivery). Tried it on prime, was available on prime and stated free delivery until my dad went to check out and they asked for 35.99 postage. Luckily he noticed before purchasing so obviously we never bothered.."

Lily-Rose Jenkins said: "What the actual f*CK. How can they get away with that?? Imagine if you didn't notice the shipping cost." Catherine O'leary said: "They’ve been doing this with so many Items recently! I spoke to customer service and they just said it’s a 3rd party seller so nothing they can do. Definitely naughty!"

Gaz Bartlett said: "It's quite easy really, people on eBay do it too.. it's so Amazon/eBay don't take a big percentage of profit.. as they don't charge anything from the delivery cost just the product price. That's why you'll see stuff selling on eBay for 1p-99p with high delivery cost."

Amazon told Manchester Evening News: " We work hard every day to provide customers with low prices, vast selection, and fast delivery. Sellers set their own product prices in our store and we have policies to help ensure sellers are pricing their products competitively, including shipping costs. We actively monitor our store and remove offers that violate our policies."

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