Amazon - endorsing Marketplace scams

Amazon lend their reputation to "Amazon Marketplace" - a supposedly safe place to trade with suppliers you have never heard of, with the reassurance that Amazon are there to see fair play.

A great idea - but it doesn't actually work that way. Amazon is quite happy to allow traders to impose ludicrous P&P charges - which you can't work out until you have finished your order.

We all understand that nothing is for free - and that postage does cost money. Where Amazon is the supplier, you pay so much for the first item, and then much less for each extra item. That makes sense.

But buy using Marketplace and some traders will charge you the same P&P for each and every item. I assembled a basketfull of stuff at prices that seemed keen but not ludicrous. Cost of items: £19.82. Plus £57.07 for Postage and Packing.

This is a joke. If Amazon really think it important to allow suppliers to quote low item prices which they finance through high P&P charges (and I can't see why this is a good idea) then the user needs to be allowed to work out the attractiveness of the offer by seeing the incremental P&P charge for each purchase - alongside the item price. Amazon could modify their site to do this if they were bothered. But they don't.

As things stand, Amazon are lending their reputation to very dodgy practice. Would you want to do that with your expensively-promoted brand?