It's time we stand up against LL and tell them they need to make SL far for everyone

[Perrie Juran]

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Charly Muggins wrote:

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Summer Tison wrote:

Yeah the cost of living may be higher here in the UK...but I still like living on this little rock, better the Devil you know  and all that....

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I'm quite happy paying VAT if it means my kids have a HUNDRED times smaller chance of being killed in school by a lunatic with a gun.

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Problem is that in the UK the statistics on Crimes Against Children are so fubarred no one really has an accurate picture.  Especially when you consider the fact that until 2009:

"The scope of the British Crime Survey was widened last year after criticism that it had been giving an incomplete picture by excluding (crimes against)10 to 15 year olds."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/7836584/2.15million-crimes-committed-against-children-new-Home-Office-figures-show.html

We could go deeper into facts like crimes with knives are seven times higher in the UK than what they are here.

The UK is no more safe than the U.S. for children, and actually if the Home Office would quit screwing with the numbers it may actually present a bleaker picture.

At least here I am allowed to have the necessary means to protect my Children.

Regardless of where or how, crimes against children suck.  Period. 

[Ceka Cianci]

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Charly Muggins wrote:

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Summer Tison wrote:

Yeah the cost of living may be higher here in the UK...but I still like living on this little rock, better the Devil you know  and all that....

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I'm quite happy paying VAT if it means my kids have a HUNDRED times smaller chance of being killed in school by a lunatic with a gun.

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see? that's taxation with representation there..

hehehe

[Ceka Cianci]

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Perrie Juran wrote:

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Charly Muggins wrote:

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Summer Tison wrote:

Yeah the cost of living may be higher here in the UK...but I still like living on this little rock, better the Devil you know  and all that....

---

I'm quite happy paying VAT if it means my kids have a HUNDRED times smaller chance of being killed in school by a lunatic with a gun.

---

Problem is that in the UK the statistics on Crimes Against Children are so fubarred no one really has an accurate picture.  Especially when you consider the fact that until 2009:

"The scope of the British Crime Survey was widened last year after criticism that it had been giving an incomplete picture by excluding (crimes against)10 to 15 year olds."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/7836584/2.15million-crimes-committed-against-children-new-Home-Office-figures-show.html

We could go deeper into facts like crimes with knives are seven times higher in the UK than what they are here.

The UK is no more safe than the U.S. for children, and actually if the Home Office would quit screwing with the numbers it may actually present a bleaker picture.

At least here I am allowed to have the necessary means to protect my Children.

Regardless of where or how, crimes against children suck.  Period. 

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omg that is so strange..7 times higher?

and crimes by knife being our number one?

wow i'm starting to like here  the more i hear about there

 

ok i'm just razzing everyone..

 

this whole them and us thing is getting sort of goofy hehehe

[Innula Zenovka]

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Perrie Juran wrote:

---

Charly Muggins wrote:

---

Summer Tison wrote:

Yeah the cost of living may be higher here in the UK...but I still like living on this little rock, better the Devil you know  and all that....

---

I'm quite happy paying VAT if it means my kids have a HUNDRED times smaller chance of being killed in school by a lunatic with a gun.

---

Problem is that in the UK the statistics on Crimes Against Children are so fubarred no one really has an accurate picture.  Especially when you consider the fact that until 2009:

"The scope of the British Crime Survey was widened last year after criticism that it had been giving an incomplete picture by excluding (crimes against)10 to 15 year olds."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/7836584/2.15million-crimes-committed-against-children-new-Home-Office-figures-show.html

We could go deeper into facts like crimes with knives are seven times higher in the UK than what they are here.

The UK is no more safe than the U.S. for children, and actually if the Home Office would quit screwing with the numbers it may actually present a bleaker picture.

At least here I am allowed to have the necessary means to protect my Children.

Regardless of where or how, crimes against children suck.  Period. 

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In my experience, and it's something I know a bit about because of my RL job, comparing crime statistics between different police districts in the same country is difficult enough, and comparing them between different countries isn't particularly useful other than to get a very broad picture (e.g. homicide rates, since most countries' legal systems agree on what a homicide is).     

The reference to "knife crimes" is a case in point.   Over here, carrying a knife or bladed article other than a very small penknife or similar is illegal unless you've got a good reason.    That may or may not be a good thing, but it certainly means that behaviour that's perfectly legal in many parts of the world is "knife crime" over here, which may make drawing meaningful comparisons rather difficult.

I'm not trying to make any point, particularly, other than that comparisons of crime rates between countries need to be undertaken with the utmost care if they're to give meaningful results.

[Maelstrom Janus]

I wonder why the original poster chose to mention the UK...I get the distinct impression he's not from the UK at all..

..and in my opinion tiers are too high WHEREVER you live... the tiers remain the same while the service seems to decline continually. Instead of the useless 'premium baubles' that keep been proferred how about a tier cut or an increase in free land. And how about increasing the tier points so that people dont have to make massive leaps to increase their land. Its about time long term customers were rewarded for loyalty despite the continual bollocks ( a nice english word for you) they keep being offered as service....

 

As for being in the uk admittedly Lindens cant do anything about v.a.t. but they could set the fees and tier amounts in native currency and let us pay through pay pal rather than having to pay in dollars and have the added inconvenience of having to deal with exchange rates - which ever way they go.

[Cully Andel]

No but other companies who have an International customer base can incorporate the cost of the VAT into the product. Other virtual worlds have done this, I'm sure LL can. As they do not physically receive any payment in the UK, then I doubt they have ever paid any VAT, so it's not as if they'd lose out if they included it in the price.

 

There most probably are some things that are only available here in the UK but that' not what's in question. SL is an international World and yet there are a number of restrictions if you do not live in the US. Payments, cost of land, customer support etc. 

 

[Cully Andel]

You didn't have the European Parliament 'helping' thing's along and I dont believe you fought against VAT on games

 

[Maelstrom Janus]

As usual though regardless of whether the op was right or not a complaint again lindens has been blurred and muddied by a load of irrelevant tosh ...typical....and one more reason why lindens can get away with offering a less than perfect service....

[Cully Andel]

'The US' and 'Linden Labs' are 2 different things and I dont see anyone blaming the US. YES we get charged VAT but there are ways around it to make sure they don't lose money OR customers. That's all that's being said. 

[Charly Muggins]

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Perrie Juran wrote:

We could go deeper into facts like crimes with knives are seven times higher in the UK than what they are here.

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I've yet to see a semi-automatic knife that can kill sixty people a minute.

 

[Cully Andel]

Totally uncalled for attitude. Why take this personally? WHO and WHERE did ANYONE here blame the Americans or say you should pay more??

[Innula Zenovka]

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Cully Andel wrote:

No but other companies who have an International customer base can incorporate the cost of the VAT into the product. Other virtual worlds have done this, I'm sure LL can. As they do not physically receive any payment in the UK, then I doubt they have ever paid any VAT, so it's not as if they'd lose out if they included it in the price.

 

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If their vattable turnover in the EU isn't large enough to attract VAT (£70,000 a year, I think), then they don't need to.   But if it's large enough to hit the VAT threshold, then as far as the tax authorities and EU law are concerned,  they are charging it, whether they know it or not.   

It's not a question of where they're receiving payment.   If they're supplying goods and services to a destination within the EU, the VAT is part of the payment the customer inside the EU sends them (and, if necessary, the VAT authorities can grab their cut from the payment processors -- Visa, PayPal -- before the money leaves the jurisdiction).

Which virtual worlds do you have in mind, out of interest?

 

[Cully Andel]

I'm not basing it so much on their turnover, I'm  quite sure that they're way over the threshhold. More on the fact they they are not registered here, and no longer have a UK office. (At least I dont think they do any more.) Im not aware that HMRC ask overseas based companies to pay their UK VAT. My understanding is that VAT in this country is paid by customers how have income in this country paid in pounds sterling. I'm not sure they can take VAT on payments made to an overseas company paid in their own currency. Even if the UK office were still here, they themselves would not have an income, so would have no VAT to pay. 

I could be wrong, having only dealt with VAT returns for companies here, but knowing the way they make the rules, they've probably come up with a requirement to charge it without working out how they're actually going to claim it.

The other Worlds - Avination, I believe Inworldz and I did come across another but I totally forgot what it was. No matter where you are in the World, you all pay the same. 

[Amethyst Jetaime]

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Maelstrom Janus wrote:

As for being in the uk admittedly Lindens cant do anything about v.a.t. but they could set the fees and tier amounts in native currency and let us pay through pay pal rather than having to pay in dollars and have the added inconvenience of having to deal with exchange rates - which ever way they go.

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The problem with this is that LL is not a bank would then incur the exchange fees when they exchange the currency into US dollars which they would have to do to be able to use it towards expenses and pay shareholders their share of profit.  They would pass that on to customers in some way, not eat it. 

Again, when I buy things from companies in other countries I have to pay my own exchange fees for exchanging US dollars to other currencies or if they accept US$ they charge me more than they charge for paying in their native currency.  Its just part of the cost of dealing with companies that are in other countries.

[Maelstrom Janus]

Funny I can pay in sterling to other games companies not based in the uk.....if lindens are proferring their services here I should be able to pay in sterling, the japanese in yen, people in europe the euro.....

 

Of course Lindens dont seem to promote them selves as a big international company since the swingeing staff cuts a year or two back.... In any event a massive tier cut for everyone regardless of global location would be a massive boost. Of course the current way Lindens have of dealing with abandoned land means not as much of the map is as yellow as it used to be.

[Ciaran Laval]

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Cully Andel wrote:

I'm not basing it so much on their turnover, I'm  quite sure that they're way over the threshhold. More on the fact they they are not registered here, and no longer have a UK office. (At least I dont think they do any more.) Im not aware that HMRC ask overseas based companies to pay their UK VAT. My understanding is that VAT in this country is paid by customers how have income in this country paid in pounds sterling. I'm not sure they can take VAT on payments made to an overseas company paid in their own currency. Even if the UK office were still here, they themselves would not have an income, so would have no VAT to pay. 

I could be wrong, having only dealt with VAT returns for companies here, but knowing the way they make the rules, they've probably come up with a requirement to charge it without working out how they're actually going to claim it.

The other Worlds - Avination, I believe Inworldz and I did come across another but I totally forgot what it was. No matter where you are in the World, you all pay the same. 

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They would have to pay the VAT in sterling. Whereas HMRC cannot force overseas companies to charge VAT, it's better for them to comply with the regulations.

[Innula Zenovka]

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Cully Andel wrote:

I'm not basing it so much on their turnover, I'm  quite sure that they're way over the threshhold. More on the fact they they are not registered here, and no longer have a UK office. (At least I dont think they do any more.) Im not aware that HMRC ask overseas based companies to pay their UK VAT. My understanding is that VAT in this country is paid by customers how have income in this country paid in pounds sterling. I'm not sure they can take VAT on payments made to an overseas company paid in their own currency. Even if the UK office were still here, they themselves would not have an income, so would have no VAT to pay. 

I could be wrong, having only dealt with VAT returns for companies here, but knowing the way they make the rules, they've probably come up with a requirement to charge it without working out how they're actually going to claim it.

The other Worlds - Avination, I believe Inworldz and I did come across another but I totally forgot what it was. No matter where you are in the World, you all pay the same. 

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All this started in 2003:  http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/taxation/vat/traders/e-commerce/

That's all pretty technical but this consultancy sums it up

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A non-EU company that provides electronically supplied services, such as digital products, services, software, video games or other on line services to private European consumers over the Internet (including E-commerce) is subject to the EU VAT rules implemented in 2003. This means that the company, in most instances, is liable for charging EU VAT on the invoices to the European customer. It will be necessary to:

• Register for VAT in one of the European countries.
• Assess (charge) VAT on all of the invoices to the private consumer located in the EU countries according to each country’s VAT rate, i.e. 20% to UK customers, 19% to German customers, and 19.6% to French customers

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I don't know about Inworldz, but I am pretty sure Avination is a German-based operation with a registered office in London, so that's not a comparable situation.    I could well be wrong, but I'd be a bit surprised if either of them had an annual turnover of £70k.

[Amethyst Jetaime]

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Cully Andel wrote:

'The US' and 'Linden Labs' are 2 different things and I dont see anyone blaming the US. YES we get charged VAT but there are ways around it to make sure they don't lose money OR customers. That's all that's being said. 

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You live in LaLa land where apparently 1+1= 3.  How on earth could they do this without subsidizing Euro customers?  There is no magic wand they can wave to get the tax paid without it coming from their own money or their customers.  It would not be fair to charge customers outside of Europe more to pay the tax for you.  If they took it out of their money it would be subsidizing your cost.  How would that be fair to people outside of Europe who don't get subsidies?  Either way it would not be fair to customers in Asia, Australia, South America, Africa, Canada etc even if we left the US out of it.  I have yet to see people from those companies demanding any taxes or exchange fees that they have to pay be absorbed by LL or all the other customers.  This isn't a Europe vs US issue, its a Europe vs. the rest of the world issue.

I always hear that LL lost a lot of European business when they started to charge the VAT, but never saw any proof of that only some Europeans saying it is so.  But I know a lot of Europeans that still own sims and don't complain. In fact some of the largest estates in SL are owned by Europeans.  However, even if it is true, maybe LL viewed it as the lesser of two evils.  If they had to raise sim prices across the board for everyone to continue to pay the VAT, then probably a lot more people from all over the world would have given up their land and they would have lost far more. 

The real mistake LL made was subsidizing the VAT to begin with.  Now that they no longer do, they get a lot of moaning which they wouldn't be getting otherwise.

[Ciaran Laval]

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Maelstrom Janus wrote:

..and in my opinion tiers are too high WHEREVER you live... the tiers remain the same while the service seems to decline continually. Instead of the useless 'premium baubles' that keep been proferred how about a tier cut or an increase in free land. And how about increasing the tier points so that people dont have to make massive leaps to increase their land. Its about time long term customers were rewarded for loyalty despite the continual bollocks ( a nice english word for you) they keep being offered as service....

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The tier is too damn high, far too high. Linden Lab's only tier cut has been for educational and non-profits and that's a return to the discounts they previously enjoyed, they have done virtually nothing for long term customers.

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Maelstrom Janus wrote:

 

As for being in the uk admittedly Lindens cant do anything about v.a.t. but they could set the fees and tier amounts in native currency and let us pay through pay pal rather than having to pay in dollars and have the added inconvenience of having to deal with exchange rates - which ever way they go.

---

 

This is a double edged sword but other companies do it, for example Eve-Online have rates of:

1-month-plan € 14.95

1-month-plan £ 9.99

1-month-plan $ 14.95

 

The sterling option is quite a recent addition and it works out cheaper than 14.95 Euros. There has been controversy about their pricing structure, when Eve-Online launched the Euro and US dollar were pretty much on par, they no longer are and have not been for quite some time. However CCP have not increased their pricing for customers who pay in US dollars, despite the fact that the US dollar is now a lot weaker against the Euro, which therefore hits their bottom line.

It should also be noted that those in Europe are paying VAT, so initially the Americans would have been technically paying more, now due to the exchange rate, they're paying less to CCP as they are in Europe and therefore need to convert US dollars.

 

[Drake1 Nightfire]

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Cully Andel wrote:

Totally uncalled for attitude. Why take this personally? WHO and WHERE did ANYONE here blame the Americans or say you should pay more??

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ummm the OP did.. and.. i was joking..

[Ciaran Laval]

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Amethyst Jetaime wrote:

I always hear that LL lost a lot of European business when they started to charge the VAT, but never saw any proof of that only some Europeans saying it is so.  But I know a lot of Europeans that still own sims and don't complain. In fact some of the largest estates in SL are owned by Europeans. 

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I don't know where most large estate owners are based, I know some are US based. I know there's one in Germany, but I believe her business is registered in China.

[Perrie Juran]

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Innula Zenovka wrote:

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, other than that comparisons of crime rates between countries need to be undertaken with the utmost care if they're to give meaningful results.

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I agree with this. 

I've looked at a lot of the crime statistics in this category and the numbers have not been easy to crunch.

But really I prefer not to get involved in a long discussion here on it.

Crimes against people and especially crimes against children suck.

But given the fact that there is very plausible evidence that G.B. has a higher rate of crimes against children maybe it is a good thing people there can't obtain firearms.

But what does that really tell us about what is going on in society in general and the solutions to the problems.

Both here and there we BOTH have some serious issues that need to be addressed.

 

[Ceka Cianci]

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Perrie Juran wrote:

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Innula Zenovka wrote:

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, other than that comparisons of crime rates between countries need to be undertaken with the utmost care if they're to give meaningful results.

---

I agree with this. 

I've looked at a lot of the crime statistics in this category and the numbers have not been easy to crunch.

But really I prefer not to get involved in a long discussion here on it.

Crimes against people and especially crimes against children suck.

But given the fact that there is very plausible evidence that G.B. has a higher rate of crimes against children maybe it is a good thing people there can't obtain firearms.

But what does that really tell us about what is going on in society in general and the solutions to the problems.

Both here and there we BOTH have some serious issues that need to be addressed.

 

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they may have less firearm mass shootings..but they still have them..like 2 years ago..the cambri shootings..

 

U.S. has had about 62 in the last 30 years i believe..a very small part of our crime rate at all..

 

that's why the whole us and them comparison is silly really..

each place will have it's pro's and cons..and both  sides arguing usually end up using someones else's information to go on to back themselves up about someplace they really don't know much about in person..

 

really the bottom line is england wanted this awesome land and are just pissed because they messed up and trusted the ones that were left incharge over here..

either way..us first americans..we're pissed at all of you bastages just for showing up LOL

 

 

[Innula Zenovka]

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Perrie Juran wrote:

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Innula Zenovka wrote:

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, other than that comparisons of crime rates between countries need to be undertaken with the utmost care if they're to give meaningful results.

---

I agree with this. 

I've looked at a lot of the crime statistics in this category and the numbers have not been easy to crunch.

But really I prefer not to get involved in a long discussion here on it.

Crimes against people and especially crimes against children suck.

But given the fact that there is very plausible evidence that G.B. has a higher rate of crimes against children maybe it is a good thing people there can't obtain firearms.

But what does that really tell us about what is going on in society in general and the solutions to the problems.

Both here and there we BOTH have some serious issues that need to be addressed.

 

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Again, it's important to understand what these figures actually mean.    We've got all sorts of different ways of measuring crime rates, and one of them is the British Crime Survey.   This involves surveying members of the public, asking them about whether they've been victims of crime over the last however many months, whether they reported it to the police or not, and is thought to give a fuller picture, in many ways, than the figures of incidents reported to the police, how they were categorised and resolved and so on.

What the article which you referred said is that previously the BCS hadn't included children between 10 and 15 in this survey, and, if they were included, the crime figures appeared to shoot up.    However, it goes on to point out some of the problems with this:

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However critics questioned whether Home Office statisticians had gone too far by characterising relatively trivial disputes as crimes in the survey.

Examples included a “child has their dinner money of 50 pence taken from them by someone who intended to steal their money. The money is returned some time later”.

Others were “at school, a child had a favourite inexpensive toy taken from them on purpose and it is not returned” and “at home two siblings are playing and one of them deliberately smashes the other’s toy”

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It also mentions that 

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Of the 2.15million offences, 1.7million were categorised as “violent crimes”, which means that last year three violent crimes were committed against children every minute.

These violent crimes included 166,000 cases of wounding and 448,000 instances assaults with minor injuries, as well as more than one million crimes which were categorised as “violence with no injury” offences

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Well, if two thirteen year old boys get into a scuffle at school, that's certainly an assault.   And one or both of them comes out of it with some cuts and grazes, that's certainly minor injuries.    But I am honestly not sure that it's particularly helpful to categorise it -- and certainly not to deal with it -- in the same way we'd categorise and deal with the same two lads some five years later if they get into a similar fracas in the pub car park.

It really is very complicated trying to make sense of this sort of figure.   You say this indicates "a higher rate of crimes against children" than elsewhere.  With what figures are you compariing it, and are you sure you are comparing like with like (do your figures include toys being deliberately broken by a sibling, for example)?

[Czari Zenovka]

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Maelstrom Janus wrote:

 

..and in my opinion tiers are too high WHEREVER you live... the tiers remain the same while the service seems to decline continually. Instead of the useless 'premium baubles' that keep been proferred how about a tier cut or an increase in free land. And how about increasing the tier points so that people dont have to make massive leaps to increase their land. Its about time long term customers were rewarded for loyalty despite the continual bollocks ( a nice english word for you) they keep being offered as service....

 

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There's something I think we can all agree on.