Moral Dilemma - Buying From Amazon

Mix it up then.

Buy from real shops whenever your CD/DVD/book (or whatever) is there on the shelf - no postage costs or waiting for delivery - and just buy from Amazon when there is no other option. (A necessary 'evil' if you will.)

Or pop the difference into the nearest charity box.

I did the same thing recently. I bought five BBC radio series' on CD.

Two were available in my local Waterstones so I took the 'hit' and paid a bit extra to support them. (I don't want my local bookshop to fail.)

Two were available from the BBC online shop (free delivery and not much more than Amazon) and I bought the fifth - and least available - from Amazon.

I have often done this with books. If it's on Waterstones' shelves (and I have used their facilities to sit and browse, drink coffee etc.) then I will buy from them.  If I can't find a book I wanted (and ordering will take too long), then I'll buy from Amazon for the convenience of getting it the next day.

Expensive items are different. I never buy those from Amazon (or anywhere else online) because of the potential hassle if the item ever went wrong. This is why I buy things like TVs/refrigerators/furniture/our PVR from the local John Lewis and hi-fi from a local dealership. Everything is then covered for 2 (or 3 or 5) years from a trustworthy local establishment with actual people to deal with.

Too many 'horror' stories (many here on the forums) of bad warranty service from online entities for me to be tempted to save a bit of cash now and regret it later.

I buy as much of my cycling stuff from my LBS, and decided that when I inevitably buy another new bike, I will do it through them also. The on line savings for a lot of things are often offset with the hassle of using a remote warranty / repair service. All this before any ethical social reasons come into play. 

I'm a bit torn really. It annoys me that the companies get away with paying very little or no business tax but, it's not for me to sort out. If I don't buy their products they are not going to suddenly start paying their tax, the lazy inland revenue should be doing something about it. They are quick enough to chase me for a couple of hundred quid cos I'm an easy target. Multimillion pound companies which might require a little effort they seemingly can't be bothered. I don't blame the companies I blame the government for letting it happen, the people who are supposed to sort it out are probably taking back handers from these companies.

Problem is the balance of attracting businesses to invest (with ow rates of corp tax) whose employees then generate tax revenue directly and indirectly, or charge higher corporate tax rates to those businesses who are left and have to cover the fixed costs of higher unemployment . 

I take it that you have a particularly good lawyer?  WHF too, hopefully?

Hi,

I'm sure Rangers F.C. are wishing H.M.R.&C. "let it happen"...

Cheers,

Cofnchtr.

I'm not sure who's being defamed...?

Not sure rangers are in the same 'league' as Vodafone, Starbucks and amazon. 

WTF, why does this f****** site delete posts when you hit save? 

Probably best to edit that tho, you're in ban territory there. 

Yeah that would figure, they ban people instead of fixing the well know bugs on the site. But my comment can stay and maybe one of the tech monkeys will get a kick up the backside. TBH Ben, it's a real ball ache when you spend a few minutes typing a reply and the pants site deletes it.

Understand your frustration, but let's avoid too many expletives shall we  Websites sometimes go wrong I'm afraid, it's as frustrating for us as it is for you.

TBH I can't get too excited about this, because whilst it does blank the rich text box every once in a while and gives me the "Comment field is required" error, if I go back a page with the browser nav, the text is always still there.  I then copy it to make sure I've still got it and try again...

We hardly ever ban people btw, and I imagine the (very small) band of developers have other more pressing work on another one of their portfolio of about a dozen sites.

The BBC pays it's stars through seperate companies to avoid tax, but we still have to pay a TV licence fee. At keast Amazon and Starbucks pay tax and NI on their staff.

The last government borrowed more in 4 years than the previous governments over 300 years combined. They never paid any of it back.

So there are two dilemmas:

Should we be supporting some tax dodgers but not others on moral grounds?

Is the money saved by using these firms better in our pockets or in the government's?

i'm glad that you understand. But it's extremely poor for a site that pushes technology. Let's hope that you can get it sorted quickly and keep happy the people that support it and you finacially.