DVD DEBACLE

My day began with a brisk walk to the local Royal Mail depot to collect a package. The goods in question were my latest purchases on DVD courtesy of DVD Pacific in the US. Sensing an eighties style horror kick a few weeks back, I splashed out on the very reasonably priced Region 1 releases of THE PROWLER and THE BURNING from Blue Underground and MGM respectively. To complete my order I also picked up Anchor Bay's 2-disc edition of RE-ANIMATOR.

Unfortunately, upon arriving at the depot I had to pay a rather hefty customs charge (£8.00 of which was the Royal Mail's own handling charge) and am therefore feeling what once was a bargain has been scuppered unnecessarily. You see the total cost of the DVDs are under £18 and should therefore be eligible for import into the EU without any customs charges. This is beginning to be a rather annoying pattern as at least 3 other orders from DVD Pacific I've received in recent months have been similarly charged incorrectly. I can only imagine the total amount in dollars written on the box is conveniently being read as pounds by the customs people. Anyway, this time I'm not going to write of the charge as a loss, so I'm off to post a letter to HMS Customs to try and reclaim my cash. Fingers crossed I am successful.

Otherwise can anyone suggest another online DVD retailer in the States that they have imported DVDs from without this problem.

*Update, April 4th, 2008 13:23pm*: After checking the maths involved with my purchase I've discovered an interesting discrepancy. When I placed my order with DVD Pacific back on March 14th the total cost of my order was under £18. However, when my card was charged and the discs shipped, a mere four days later on the 18th, the prices had been subject to a slight but significant increase. This increase pushed the combined total of the order above £18 and thus the danger of incurring an expensive customs charge was realised. This leaves me baffled as to whether the increase occurred due to fluctuations in the conversion rate between the pound and the dollar or more likely that DVD Pacific often up prices in the interim between order and shipment. Basically, I'm left in a position where I'm unable to reclaim the money I've had to fork out for the charge and I'll have to be more vigilant of this practice in the future.