It’s with a heavy heart that I have to untangle myself from slay-worthy, trendy and most importantly affordable clothing. I’m sure like me, many of you have heard of the U.K. based clothing brand Missguided by now; you’ll see their fierce pieces on some of Youtube’s most fashionable bloggers and immediately be ready to place an order. The company may seem like the next ASOS or Forever 21 with an even edgier website and all-star collabs. So you’re probably wondering why I just sprinkled in buy-worthy adjectives to describe a website I will never shop at again… well I’m sure you can see from the image, but I’ll explain further.

I had placed five orders total to missguidedus.com between 2013 and July of 2015. The first three orders I placed I had no issue with. The highest one totaled $126.50 (I promise pricing is relevant to this post). My fourth order, the dreaded fourth order, totaled $177.60. For all orders I used a coupon code, so that fourth order I got 20% off and “free shipping”, Missguided states it has free shipping on most orders to the U.S. So I’m doing fine, loving most of my new stuff, until about a month later I receive a FedEx bill for $68. I see the company on the bill is Missguided, so I contact their customer service concerned why I’ve received a bill from them.

I emailed a customer service representative back and forth and with the response I got you would’ve thought this happens all the time. Shannon, the customer service representative, told me it’s customs that enforces the fee if you place an order out of the U.S. Your order must be over $200 she states, mine was only $177.60, so I’m even more confused until I realized that the 20% off promo doesn’t count towards customs, they only count the clothes at their full price.

My first inquiry was why had I ordered from other out-of-states sites such as ASOS and Sabo Skirt for similar prices and never gotten a customs fee? Next, I wondered why the hell this website advertises “free shipping” (there is no disclaimer when you order, you must go to their Help page and read up on delivery to figure out you may be charged a customs fee) when you place an order even close to $200, which is not an outrageous amount to spend for a seasonal buy. I asked Shannon these questions and she directed me to the delivery questions page on their website which made me feel like Missguided was blaming me instead of taking responsibility for not having a clear disclaimer on their website.  If they had a disclaimer at checkout they would still get the sale, but I would’ve placed two orders to avoid a very large shipping fee.

Good companies firstly have a shipping disclaimer, I work for a retail Ecommerce site and we have one when you checkout for certain states/countries, also we would never not offer to try and make the situation better by either paying the customs fee or offering a coupon code at the very least. Missguided did none of this. I got a measly sorry, and “We hope you’ll reconsider” shopping with us after I told Shannon I’d no longer purchase from them. Oh, but it gets better.

So, I finally decide to pay the customs fee recently (I was hoping stupidly it’d go away), but as I was talking to a co-worker about my experience, she was going through a shipping debacle elsewhere, she said she’d check their website. I did, and now it states in their delivery questions section you have to spend $800 to be charged a customs fee. It’s not even a year after my shipping horror story and now I’m even more enraged. I just paid a $77 customs fee (with interest the fee went up) for a $177 order and now you have to spend $800 to be charged!?

I took to Missguided’s Facebook, which I encourage anyone who may still want to order from there to checkout because there’s a slew of other people who have shipping issues with them, which made me feel like a part of a very sad fashion army. They asked me to privately message them  and I did. I inquired why the customs fee had changed and if they could do anything to assist with the fee I had been charged. Once again, I received the same response. Which to me means this is a company issue, not a customer service personality issue.

After reading everyone else’s qualms with their shipping, I felt validated. That’s also why I needed to write this. Missguided is blowing up, many fashion and beauty gurus I love who live in the U.S. order from them, and I know many other people are influenced to buy clothes from the clothing sites these girls buy from. I’m not sure if they are sent these clothes, or know about the customs fees, but it’s a shame their viewers don’t know about the possibility of outrageous shipping fees. I wouldn’t even mind if it was made clear in their checkout, but it’s still not. I tested this 20 minutes ago by adding over $800 worth of merchandise into a cart and going through checkout to see what the shipping said. Still, there was no disclaimer, just a $14.99 shipping charge. (I didn’t purchase by the way this was all before putting in my shipping info). All I have to say is check the disclaimer on out of country sites, but honestly if it’s a good website, you shouldn’t have to.

Note: Sizing is really off for this site as well, I’m normally a size 0-2 and I ordered a dress in a 2 and then a 4 and it was so stiff I couldn’t get it past my hips for either.