Complaint Review: Nepco

There's no ripoff by the merchant. They got the GBP249.99 (actually somewhat less than that, the card company at work again) and promptly delivered the goods. Once a card has been charged, they are required to ship immediately. Your attempt to cancel was too late.

Policies on this vary among card companies. The vast majority are not a good deal. For example I have the fine print from the heavily advertised Citi Simplicity card here:

QUOTE
Transaction fee for Purchases Made in a Foreign Currency: For each purchase made in a foreign currency, we add an addtional FINANCE CHARGE of 3% of the purchase amount after its conversion to U.S. dollars.

...

INFORMATION ON FOREIGN CURRENCY CONVERSION PROCEDURES
... VISA uses a conversion rate in effect as of its applicable central processing date. Such a rate is either a rate it selects from the range of rates avaialabe in wholesale currency markets, which may be different from the rate it receives, or the government-mandated rate.
UNQUOTE

The second paragraph is particularly sinister because they get to charge you the WORST published rate they can find, even if they actually convert it at a better rate. Then Citi adds the 3% to the U.S. dollar amount AFTER Visa ripped you off on the rate.

Now if you return the camera, the same thing will probably happen in reverse to your refund. It's going to cost you about GBP50.00 plus shipping cost to be rid of it. May as well keep it.

I recommend using a Mastercard (in their rate selection, they use "midpoint" rather than the worst one) from a bank that doesn't charge an additional fee.

Did your credit card company charge you a fee for converting GBP to USD? The discrepancy in the amounts sounds just about right for that type of fee.