Internet Retailer - Refund is less than what I was charged.

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Morgause

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I attempted to buy some headphones from a fairly well known British internet retailer. I entered a different shipping address than my credit card billing address; I do this a lot with other internet retailers and had no problems.

Within a day, I got an e-mail from them stating that due to the value of the goods (£67.57) the goods could only be shipped to my billing address. In addition to this, they also needed a photocopy two of the following: my bank statement / credit card statement / utility bill / driver's license.

However, they had also taken the €96 from my credit card (I could see this from my internet banking.

I was not happy with sending a retailer copies of my personal bank statements etc, nor was I happy with their taking my money before I agreed to the new conditions, so I requested that they cancel my order and refund my money.

This they did; however they only refunded me €93.

I know it's only €3 difference; but it's the principle of the thing. Are they entitled to do this, as an admin charge or something?

I was not told in advance that I had to provide ID along with my credit card; nor was I told that I could only ship to my billing address. Indeed the fields within the ordering form asked if I wished to ship to an address other than my billing address.

Apologies for the length of this post.
 
A similar thing happened to me with Amazon a couple of months back. I ordered a book and they took payment. I got an email from them about two weeks later stating that their copy of the book was not of an acceptable standard to send out so they'd be refunding me. I got a refund to my credit card but for less than the amount i'd paid. The difference was only a couple of Euro - I emailed them looking for the difference but got no reply. It wasn't worth my while pursuing it further but annoying none the less
 
I notice on my credit card that the conversion rate for refunds is always less favourable than rate for purchases. I presume it is the banks who control this.
 
Thanks for the replies, yeah Fred, sounds like the same situation. I don't want to put too much effort into pursuing a couple of quid but it's not their money to take!

I thought it might be something to do with the conversion rate alright - so basically the bank is skimming off money if you use your card for non-Euro purchases. Perhaps I should try to find the same product from a Euro based retailer.
 
Check with your credit card company to see the original amount charged/credited in sterling, which should be the same. You can try complaining to the CC company, but I doubt if they'll do anything.
 
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