Author: Chris

Buying from the States, attempt 2: self declaring duty & VAT

I've placed an(other) order from the rather excellent site SplitReason. And, in an attempt to avoid a repeat of August's ridiculous episode (tentatively titled "Royal Mail Handling Fees, or, exorbitance and stupidity in equal measure") I've decided to give our besieged postal service a rest and handle the admin work myself.

This involves one critical thing - getting SplitReason to mark my parcel as "to be customs cleared by importer". I've put the request in and I'll be updating this post as developments occur. I'm determined to import a single purchase and pay any applicable customs charges directly myself (as is perfectly feasible according to UK tax legislation), I don't need Royal Mail's help.

Stay tuned for updates fellow international shoppers!

[liveblog]

Quirky / curious email of the week: Anonymous - "Operation Jubilee"

This dropped into my inbox early this morning, a lovely abuse of the email spec and some poor person's mailserver (more fool them for not securing it properly)...

To: me
From: Anonymous@OperationJubilee.in
 Subject: Anonymous Operation Jubilee - 5 November 2012

 Dear Anonymous,

 Rally Millions To
 Parliament, London
 5 November 2012

 Cancel All Debt
 Stop War
 Redistribute the Land
 Eliminate Poverty

 Please, spread this message to everyone you know.

This message was, quite cleverly, entirely included in the email subject field, newlines and all. Thunderbird enjoyed parsing it.

So, November the 5th, Parliament Square? See you there.

"Tesco" Facebook scam returns, as Timeline Removal Plugin

  • File under '...really, Amazon?!'

In another example of Amazon's AWS abuse detection failing spectacularly, likely the same culprits behind last week's Tesco Voucher Giveaway scam have targeted Facebook users again -- this time with a "Timeline Removal Plugin" scam.

The scam seems to function thusly: victim clicks the link from a previous victim's event, creates a Facebook event with the same TinyURL in the Event description (containing a link to a Google Translate-wrapped AmazonAWS link) and so the cycle repeats. This doesn't involve the sharing feature, probably a technique Facebook locked down after last week's abuse.

Here are some screenshots of what will appear in your feed when a friend falls victim... Continue reading ""Tesco" Facebook scam returns, as Timeline Removal Plugin"

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