LITTLEWOODS customers, angered by its decision to no longer deduct VAT for Channel Island customers, have voted with their wallets. The Guernsey Press yesterday received a string of correspondence as part of its Fair Play protest against the price hike. Dozens of text messages were sent to the Fair Play number, adding to telephone calls and emails from islanders upset at the move.

Customers of the Littlewoods conglomerate have told us that they are now boycotting the mail-order giant.

‘I have been a Kays customer for three years but will no longer order from it out of protest,’ said Martyn Hughes.

Great Universal customer Christine Le Jean was outraged by the decision to impose the extra cost.

‘Who will get the tax? They are sending to a zero-rated area and will therefore not have to pay the 17.5% to the UK Government but will pocket that extra profit. They are already very expensive to buy from and I will stop shopping with them,’ she said.

Kays customer of 30 years Leslie de Carteret said: ‘Living in the islands is expensive enough as it is, with a much higher RPI than the mainland, so the last thing we need is for greedy companies to make things worse.

‘Let’s hope that if enough people complain, the companies might have second thoughts – either that or they will certainly lose a lot of revenue to the catalogues that can be bothered to do things properly.’

A correspondent, who asked not to be named, said: ‘You are asking us to boycott Littlewoods. Maybe all the other VAT rip-off companies should be boycotted too?

Carol Masterman received a letter telling her that she could no longer get VAT-free shopping from her mail-order supplier. She said: ‘I was rather shocked, I must say.

‘But I must say in its favour that all the items that I ordered were quite reasonable and that was including tax. So once the VAT had been taken off, it was cheaper than what I would have paid here. So I am upset they want to charge us VAT.’

Littlewoods spokesman Stephen Bray yesterday said he would not comment until early next week.

A customer of Kays – part of the Littlewoods empire – was sent an email from its Internet customer services department on Monday telling her that it was continuing to deduct VAT from purchases and that she would be notified if there were any changes to that policy.