[Ianfromnotts]

Inspired by the glowing feedback from other users I thought ELF performance was the way to go but ended up using the main dealers via ebay. ELF prices were comparable, marginally higher than the bay but lower than RUFE, I was happy to pay a small price premium to support and independent and get more personal service but, unfortunately things didnt go at all I expected.

I emailed to their advertised address at 11:05 am on Wedneday but got no reply, the next day I used their web site contact form 08:40 am and they replied at 09:26 saying didnt recieve my orginal enquiry and would get back to me with prices later that day. I recieved the price information at 18:37 pm.

In all honesty by this point I was leaning towards using the bay but wanting the parts quickly thought they still offered the best option. I phoned in but the call went to voice mail. I left a message which was replied to quickly.

They thought they could ship today, Friday for delivery on Monday, but couldnt take telephone payments but said their system generated an invoice with on line payment options and I needed to use their on line form to send my address details. I rekeyed all the information again and the invoice arrived quickly BUT ..........

Online payments took me to "transfer wise" an international money transfer portal where I was told a 50p fee applied, which looked to be for currency exchange/transfer but I had to register before I could use the service.

I duly registered and waited for the verification email. I followed the link to verfiy. Next I followed the orginal link to payment but the link failed, I tried again and was presented with 3 payment options, payment by credit card added an extra charged of 57p, on top of the 50p transfer charge,

When I selected the credit card option (for the benefit of the additional protection it offers) and typed in all the card information a warning came up saying that using the card type I had selected (Visa Credit) may lead to additional charges being levied by my bank. It didnt specify what these were or how much they might be.

By now I had had enough I wasnt prepared to risk additional unspecified charges and the whole buying exoerience had been frustrating so I phoned up cancelled the order and placed it via the bay.

PS: I have now looked into what the additional fees might and from the Transfer Wise web site

"Occasionally, your bank might charge you an extra fee for a card payment, because they treat it as a 'cash withdrawal'. This normally only applies to credit cards, but could be any card, so it's worth checking with your bank if you're unsure about this"

My bank charges 2.5% with a minmum charge of £3 for credit card cash withdrawals.