Amazon’s mysterious conversion

Piaras O’Lorcain recently bough some DVDs and Blu-rays from Amazon’s UK website and qualified for free delivery because the total value of his order was £152.92 (including 23 per cent VAT).

" So far so good," he writes. "The invoice docket said that a sterling-euro conversion rate of 1:1.15 had been applied to
the order and when I checked my credit card statement I found that €181.31 had been debited from my account," he writes.

But when he applied the conversion rate above to the sterling value of the order, he got €175.86 and not €181.31.

“In other words, there appeared to be a difference of €5.45. I queried Amazon last Friday, but have not had a reply. It is only a small sum of money, and I suppose I should give Amazon the benefit of the doubt – perhaps there is an additional tax or charge that I am not aware of.

“Anyway, I was curious to know if other pricewatch readers have had the same experience.”