Buying imported goods

I can only write this as a guide and an example of what can happen when you purchase goods from a business that imports from abroad, this is what happened to a friend of mine.She purchased a wedding dress on ebay that came from another country other than an EEC country. The dress came on time and it was a lovely dress, not as well made asyouwould have expected but OK for the price paid to the seller. However the sting came with the shipping costs, import duty and VAT. The shipping was advertised as 99.00,shethought this was reasonable as the dress only cost 30.00 but when the dress arrived it had a shipping receipt inside (I don't think it was meant to be enclosed with the dress) and the cost of shipping was in fact only 25.00. About 2 weeks after delivery of the dress came a VAT demand for 21.00 to be sent to customs and excise as the dress had beenvalued at 120 by the sender, within days another invoice turned up for import duty of another 6.00. So after paying the seller 129.00 for the dress in all she was invoiced for another 27.00 on top of this for duty and shewas overcharged 74.00 for p