Well - if it can be done with .us and .ie it can be done with .uk. Sorted.
Equally sortable.
Amazon selling dangerous lighting
- Thread starter studentspark
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So, if we are agreed that it would not be reasonable to prosecute the person who, in the eyes of current laws, actually committed the crime (illegal import), you feel that we should go hunting for someone else, who didn't commit the crime, to pursue instead?
Kind Regards, John
No - that wasn't what I was saying.
We don't hold people further down the supply chain responsible for importation, but we do subject them to sanctions for selling whatever makes it through the importation interdictions. Nor do we exempt people at any point in the supply chain within our jurisdiction just because in the jurisdiction where the items/substances are manufactured the authorities do not prevent their manufacture.
Accountable for facilitating the sale, through/on a UK website to a UK customer. However you want to define "facilitating" (short of "what-ifs" so obviously ridiculous that they could only be put forward by someone fundamentally opposed to the idea of any legislation aimed at protecting the unintelligent/naive/trusting from being exploited by the venal) then yes I hold to the view that they should, and must, be held accountable.
It cannot be thought, by anybody with an IQ bigger than their shoe size, that when Amazon.co.uk or .fr or .de provide, for profit, web hosting, shopping cart, payment, search, review, customer accounts, warehousing, packaging, shipment etc etc etc facilities for Lucky Boy Electrics in Guandong that they are not facilitating sales by Lucky Boy Electrics into the UK, or France or Germany.
Previous extrapolations of "facilitating" have included credit card providers. Well, why not? If China will not put a stop to their own citizens lying, cheating, defrauding, and exporting danger then why not? Mastercard and Visa will not abandon the UK, or Europe, if they are threatened with sanctions. When the Wikileaks exposé broke they pro-actively started refusing to process payments to Wikileaks just out of fear of sanctions. If they were faced with being drawn into a mess created because Amazon refused to police their business customers they would not abandon the UK, or Europe, with all its restaurants and supermarkets, and department stores and hotels and airlines and travel companies and railways and clothes shops and petrol stations and... and... and...
They would drop Amazon like a stinking maggot-laden corpse.
And as I have said before - Amazon would suddenly find that they could do something after all. At the moment they have no incentive to do so. They will never start acting like responsible, conscientious, upright people until they are forced to under pain of penalties which they cannot write off as a cost of doing business.
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I take it you think I do.
Feel free to provide real proof that I do, or fail to do so and be shown to be wrong, yet again, and also yet again blinded by personal animosity and possessed of a truly shameful childish attitude.
How about the people who facilitate the crime?
What does it say about the morals of a society which is prepared to imprison a disadvantaged black kid because someone 100 yards away who he barely knew used a knife which he didn't know they had to kill someone, but they are not prepared to do anything to stop UK businesses from profiting by helping foreign companies sell illegal products into the UK?
For the avoidance of doubt, that was not a rhetorical question.
So you think that every person who decides to order an item from overseas via Amazon or a similar site should know exactly how much duty and VAT should be charged? Even when I was importing things to the U.K. regularly it could sometimes be difficult to determine if duty was chargeable and if so at what rate, such is the complexity of the rules. Most people making casual orders will have no idea about the applicable rates and expect that if anything is due H.M. Customs will present a bill for the correct amount. If Customs has let the package into the country without requesting payment, isn't it reasonable for somebody to assume that no payment is expected?
Yes, the rules for .co.uk domain registrations could be restricted in some way. So Amazon (or whoever) if moving completely out of the U.K. would then probably just use its .com domain instead, possibly adopting sub-domains to market to specific countries: uk.amazon.com, fr.amazon.com, ie.amazon.com, etc.
How? The .com domain is used widely by businesses worldwide and carries no specific national connotation.
I'm not going to hunt around for examples, but if all the people I've ever had to deal with, you must come very close to the top of the list in terms of people who frequently 'ask questions' primarily to 'make a point'.
Kind Regards, John
But in the case of somebody in the U.K. buying an item via Amazon for his own use which is shipped from an address in China direct to the U.K. address, there is nobody else in the supply chain after the item has reached the U.K.
What exactly is a U.K. website? The owner of the site (be it individual or company) is resident/based in the U.K? The domain name implies a U.K. location, as in amazon.co.uk? The web server which provides the services is located within the U.K? Some combination or all of the preceeding? What exactly?
Look up the IP addresses to which amazon.co.uk resolves and it appears that their servers are in Ireland. So is it a U.K. website or not?
Does Amazon take legal possession of the goods and import them? If so, then fine, Amazon becomes like any business with a physical store in the U.K. which sells goods on. If Amazon does not take possession of the goods, it's merely an intermediary, the seller in China or wherever transferring ownership of the goods drectly to the U.K. buyer, who is the legal importer.
No, they don't need to know how much duty and VAT is applicable, but they do need to know that duty and/or VAT might be payable, and they have a moral and legal duty to find out, or inform HMRC of their intentions.
Go on - it might keep you quiet for a while.
You just aren't paying attention. Again, for the countless-n'th time, you think that what you should do is not just read what I write.
Am I to take it that you have chosen to disbelieve a clear and unambiguous statement from me, and are ignoring this question because you have decided it is a rhetorical one?
What does it say about the morals of a society which is prepared to imprison a disadvantaged black kid because someone 100 yards away who he barely knew used a knife which he didn't know they had to kill someone, but they are not prepared to do anything to stop UK businesses from profiting by helping foreign companies sell illegal products into the UK?
True.
If you'd care to read it all properly you'll see that I was pointing out to JW2 that whilst we do not prosecute people further along the supply chain for illegal importation of proscribed items which get through customs, we do indeed prosecute them for selling or even just owning them.
That will do.
So will that.
I think you'll find that that would also do if the content was pirated copyright material, terrorism related stuff, child porn etc.
Yes
It cannot be thought, by anybody with an IQ bigger than their shoe size, that when Amazon.co.uk or .fr or .de provide, for profit, web hosting, shopping cart, payment, search, review, customer accounts, warehousing, packaging, shipment etc etc etc facilities for Lucky Boy Electrics in Guandong that they are not facilitating sales by Lucky Boy Electrics into the UK, or France or Germany.
So are you back to suggesting that the buyers of these products (who usually will have no reason to know, or even suspect, that they have committed a crime) should be prosecuted for "just owning them"?
Kind Regards, John
Are you suggesting that people who commit a crime should not be prosecuted?
I think most people buying overseas, whether having the items shipped to them or bringing them into the country in person are aware of the fact that there might be duty and/or VAT payable. But when an item is coming through Customs for inspection, isn't it resonable to expect that the Customs official inspecting the package will know if anything is payable and, if so, how much?
If you go overseas on vacation and return with a suitcase full of goodies, dutifully going through the "items to declare" channel at the port because you think you might have something on which tax is due, don't you expect the Customs official who checks the contents of your suitcase to know if anything has tax payable, and to work out the correct amount? If he says, "Nothing to pay," and waves you on, isn't it reasonable to expect that he knows his job and that no tax is due?
So when people know that incoming packages via the postal service or other carrier go through Customs upon arrival in the U.K., isn't it also reasonable for them to expect that if any tax is due, it will be demanded, and that if the package has been passed through without demand for payment that nothing is due? Or should somebody buying a £10 item from overseas be expected to spend hours pouring through voluminous Customs documents just to try and determine if tax is payable?
P.S. Yes, I know that £10 is below any limit of being chargeable, but just making the point.
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