Love my new Class 108 !

When I bought souvenirs (by credit card) at the Guinness brewery in Dublin last year, I was given a discount in lieu of the Irish VAT, and a form to be completed and handed in when I left the EU (Manchester, as it happened). If the form was not returned within a certain time, the VAT would be charged back to my credit card.

For the UK, see the official site at

Tinyurl doesn't re-use IDs. They are generated by some sort of algorithm based on the URL, so when someone clicks on a tinyurl link, it is sort of reverse-decoded to get back to the original URL.

This is easy to prove. Get a URL, then make a tinyurl from it. Later on, using the same URL you will get the same tinyurl.

So, they don't have a life-span. Even if they did, most discussions with links to tinyurls will have long since died out!

Oh yes there is! but it's in different words. It's on their homepage:

By entering in a URL in the text field below, we will create a tiny URL that will not break in email postings and never expires.

I read "never expires" as meaning that the ID is never reused and lasts for a very long time, i.e. until TinyURL disappears, and at least as long as Jerry's six months.

There used to be another system, called

"MartinS" wrote

Just one additional comment. The way VAT is calculated on 'second hand items' is such that HM Customs & Excise will not allow it to be discounted on export sales of such items. In other words overseas customers have to pay the same price for 'used' items as UK residents.

John.

Ok,

When you click on the "buy now" button from this particular vendor and select the country, Australia in this instance, you get:

Description of item and a unit price of £67.00

"Sub Total of £67.00 "

Then at the bottom of the order it says "Goods Total (tax free): £57.02" "Carriage charge will be added according to weight/size/value of the package"

Paid by Credit Card from Australian Bank.

Their terms and conditions clearly state "VAT will not be charged on orders sent outside the European Union". So I should have checked this before I started this thread.

Cheers Mal Oz

You must be drinking in the wrong pub. I can get four pints in my local on Sydney's Lower North Shore (yes, pints not schooners) and some small change from $25.

As a general rule for UK mail order I find that by the time the VAT has been deducted and the postage added on, the total cost is roughly the number you first thought of.

Vendor replied, apologised and processed the refund of the VAT.

Case closed.

:-))

Just goes to show that not all traders who 'make mistakes' are sharks, genuine mistakes can and do happen - perhaps some on this group could remember that before being quick to 'name and shame'...

Draconus said the following on 31/01/2007 11:39:

Excellent!

:Jerry: said the following on 31/01/2007 11:46:

So who was the named and shamed supplier then? I must have missed a post - perhaps the sender was in my killfile.

exactly the reason why I was not going to identify the vendor - even though some of you may have 'sussed' out who they were.

Evenin' all.

Although no one actually names a company two or three people found the need to give pointers to a company.

Stop being such an arse and read the first paragraph on http:// tinyurl.com/

MBQ

That's because there is no VAT to be deducted. The clue is in "not VAT registered" and the fact you were not being charged it in the first place.

MBQ

There is no VAT to deduct if they are not registered. If they're not registered and they offer free overseas postage instead then you are getting a very good deal and you should take it up before they go out of business. Either that or they were ripping you off to start with.

MBQ

snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com said the following on 31/01/2007 13:50:

LOL! I wonder if the point will get across :-)

snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com said the following on 31/01/2007 13:55:

I suspect that confusion arises because some of the smaller non-VAT-registered suppliers will sell stuff at the same overall price as VAT registered suppliers. So no, they're not charging VAT, but their VAT-free price is higher, if that makes any sense.

There's no problem with that at all - it just means that non-EU buyers may choose someone else who can deduct the VAT (but might also add quite a hefty postage charge!) You picks and you chooses...

What point is that, other than some people can't copy and paste a line wrapped URL?

I said "I wonder if the point will get across"

:Jerry: then said the following on 31/01/2007 14:42:

It didn't...