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Comment by ivolimmen | Hacker News Reader

One of the great perks of living in the Netherlands. We already have this. If you can sign up in 1 minute using the web you must also be able to cancel in one minute using the web (For the Dutch: Wet van Dam). This rule is only for consumers not for businesses. Consumers are very well protected here.

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> Wet van Dam

The mental image that produces in someone not fluent in Dutch:

https://cdn10.bigcommerce.com/s-x8dfmo/products/10767/images...

I was thinking more like this: https://i.imgur.com/LiGevHJ.jpg

I keep running into Dutch e-commerce sites that advertise prices without fees and VAT, and I haven't figured out who I'm supposed to complain to. Just yesterday, the first indication the prices weren't accurate is when I saw the real total in iDEAL.

I am from the Netherlands, and I never see prices without VAT on websites. What is an example?

Edit: not saying your lying, just thinking it might be geo related sometimes?

I was buying tickets for an upcoming music concert here in Amsterdam. The map showing prices in different sections was one price, but they wanted €74 extra in "total fees", and an additional €14 in VAT.

That VAT only covers the extra fees; it's 21%.

I only noticed that after writing the comment. Still feels wrong to advertise one price, then sneak in "total fees" (whatever those are) in between the checkout flow and the payment processor page.

see: TicketMaster

Ticketmaster advertises the full price upfront in The Netherlands, no hidden fees that show up later.

Sounds like a shady site. If you know Dutch you can report them using the meld.nl site.

Prices without VAT are the main listed price on Dutch websites whose primary clientele isn't the end consumer.

Examples I remembered offhand: elektramat.nl, rvspaleis.nl

Those both list the price with VAT too, but the primary list price is without.

You'll find plenty of more examples e.g. if you think about what the house you're in is made of, and look for those materials in bulk. E.g. I-beams, pallets of wood, insulation etc.

Ahh yeah, websites targeting other businesses might give the ex-VAT price the preference. Although your 2 examples still show the price including VAT directly under the non-VAT price.

Are you looking at b2b sites perhaps? Afaik, in Germany, you can show b2b prices without VAT.

Are you using a VPN or proxy? I never saw any website without VAT prices. I did once find a site where the prices were different when viewing it with an apple device.

ACM is responsible for this kind of stuff; you can send them a "tip": https://www.acm.nl/en

I know that at least a few years ago they were actively and aggressively enforcing these kind of transparent pricing legislation, although I don't know the current situation, or what they do with tips sent to them.

As someone who immigrated here from the US, holy crap is it so nice to actually cancel something. I tried a few different Dutch streaming services before settlign on which one I wanted to keep and cancelling the others was painless.

Customer protections for online purchases are also great. The return policy for buying online is so much better than in person, I have friends who will purposefully browse in-store, then place an order on their phone and pick it up at the customer service counter 5 minutes later, solely to take advantage of the extra consumer protections. This is especially true for more expensive purchases like appliances (looking at you Mediamarkt)!

Whereas in the USA "caveat emptor" is alive and well.

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