Stonelesscutter

This just popped up in my email inbox...
 

I was kinda hoping someone would come along and say "ah, you need a set of these", but it looks like my best bet would be to either mount standing desk legs to the walls or just go for the standing desk option, which to be fair would seem to be the more sensible option of the two. Thanks to all for your input.

With 2.5m cap you are needing the center support unless you're going to use some really thick and sturdy table material (like +5cm solid) or steel reinforcements. 2m starts to be the point where you really need to start thinking about the weight and how much the table can hold.

could suspend it from the roof but would need a rail to make it not move around.

Then you need 2 lifting mechanisms. They need to be synced and also detect the other mechanism's failure. Probably some other issues a single-mechanism wouldn't have. 
 
You also need a horizontal steel beam or similar brace to prevent bending of the desk surface. 

Adam, thank you for your reply but unfortunately you have truly missed the point, a point I tried to explain in my last reply to support which sadly went ignored.

In the hopes that this can at least reach someone with the ability to put a higher priority on fixing this issue and stop alienating UK buyers, I will try one more time to explain the issue here as I have been a long time follower of LTT and really believe in you, but your letting me down here big time.

You state, as did LTT support, that all duty & tax fees are payable by the buyer, which is normal, I totally get that.

However.

I purchased goods from a Canadian supplier (you guys) and goods that were made IN Canada. This means they are subject to the "UK - Canada Trade continuity act" which means goods of ANY VALUE (not just below £135) can be imported DUTY FREE. Feel free to correct me on this but as far as I'm aware, nothing has changed in this regard.

I paid VAT at checkout. Which can not be avoided and MUST be paid on all goods imported into the UK. 

I paid a higher shipping cost than I would normally, because I knew the goods were coming from Canada. It is what it is.

However, because you either were not supposed to charge me the VAT or because you didn't communicate that correctly to UK customs, it was flagged as unpaid VAT on arrival. You say this is being looked at as quickly as possible, but respectfully this has been going on for nearly 2 years at this point. Hardly seems a priority.

The courier that you used is also routing parcels through Germany, which is not that strange in its own right but they are mismanaging the imports and allowing duty to be charged as if the parcels came from Germany, NOT from Canada.

So, when the parcel finally landed on my doorstep I had a bill for VAT (Already paid at checkout) DUTY (Supposed to be exempt) and the couriers charges for letting me know how much I had to pay.

LTT refunded the VAT.

The Duty was refunded by uk borderforce, not due to luck as you seem to think, but its because border force looked at the parcel, saw that it actually came from Canada and not Germany and refunded me accordingly.

This still left me out of pocket due to the courier charges, which wouldn't have had to have been paid IF everything had gone as it was supposed to and it had been a straight forward delivery. Not to mention the hassle of emailing you, sending letters by post to uk borderforce and having to spend time digging through forums and internet posts to find out this information in the first place.

I sincerely hope someone takes a serious look at this and makes it a priority to get sorted. Granted the UK is a small fish in a large pond, but none the less, its hardly fair.

 

Sorry to hear that you were double-taxed. This is caused by an issue with our store's tax assessment software that is entirely outside of our control, but we are continuing to work with our software vendors to reach a resolution to this as quickly as possible.
 
That said, unfortunately you do have to pay customs/duty fees irrespective of the double-taxation issue. VAT and Duty are two entirely separate categories of fees, and duty is always due on any items imported to the UK in consignments valued above £135. I can't give you legal advice, but I wouldn't recommend pursuing a refund of those fees from your government because it's very unlikely that you will be successful, since those fees appear to have been applied correctly. (EDIT: Just saw your follow-up post where you mentioned having been refunded. That's great! But I wouldn't expect that in the future; it seems to me like you just got very lucky in this case.) If you want to avoid duty fees in the future, you should ensure that anything you buy from abroad (any store, not just ours) doesn't exceed £135.
 
We have a breakdown of what types of fees you can expect when ordering from us here, if that is of any interest to you. I hope this helps!

Final update from me. Just got a refund from border force of £41.87 so I've ended the game down £5.82 - which I can live with. 

LTT support never replied to my email. Very disappointing there. As good as the merch actually turned out to be, I won't be buying from them again.

Shame.

I'm sure they'll get back to you any moment and will make things right for you. So far I've never had any problems when dealing with their support. It just takes a while sometimes.
I also despise the fact that tax isn't included in the listed prices. It trips me up every time. You think you're purchasing something for a nice nearly round number like 69.99 but then suddenly an additional amount is charged on top and and it's not a nice nearly round amount anymore. To be honest, at the prices LTT is charging for certain items, I would expect the taxes to already be included. Certain things on the store are decent or good value, but other things are just not. The WAN pants for example are significantly overpriced, but I digress.

I want a him & her living room TV setup. Two screens, side by side, so my wife can watch whatever she wants to on her screen, while I game on mine, so we can enjoy our space together on the same couch and neither of us has to compromise with a laptop. Either of us could wear headphones, or both, or neither, depending on what we're doing and prefer at any given time. I want to hook up all media devices to both TVs, so that any of them can be used on either TV without having to have two of each device. The best option to accomplish this would probably be an HDMI matrix, but since those can be quite expensive I've been toying around in my mind with a janky solution of an HDMI splitter for each media device leading to two separate HDMI switches.
 
I don't recall having seen a setup like this anywhere before, so I think this might be an interesting topic for a video. There are various little problems I can foresee potentially coming up, and the video could cover the struggles of solving those. For example, if you're using two identical TVs side by side, what is to stop them from both simultaneously responding to a remote control command that is only intended for one of them. Some TVs might have options for using alternative IR command sets, but what if they don't, then how would you work around this problem? Likewise, there might be issues when trying to use two wireless headsets with two TVs, but then again it could prove to be as simple as pairing once and forgetting about it.
 
Anyway, I would love it if someone with the means of LTT could go out and test the validity of a setup like this, before I go and spend thousands of pounds on equipment to only end up crying.

This is in the hope it'll help other international customers of LTT store. Please note that this is not a complaint directed at LTT. Although there is an aspect to this storey which involves a mistake by LTT, upon contacting them, it was instantly resolved. In fact, I wasn't even aware of LTT's mistake until they informed me of it and resolved it. This is more to illustrate that you may receive a bill from a third party for customs charges, and if you do, you should have a close look at that bill. Just for the record, I wish to state that I am just an average consumer and have no expertise when it comes to importing/exporting and taxes.
 
Recently, I purchased a few items from LTT store with a combined value of USD 229.98. I live in Northern Ireland, and in this case UK import customs apply. On top of the 229.98, LTT charged me for shipping and for VAT. As it turns out, the UK policies on imports mean that for shipments with a value of over GBP 135.00, which was the case here, the VAT needs to be paid in the UK instead of in Canada. This is why, when I contacted LTT, they recognized the mistake, and refunded those charges to me.
 
The reason I contacted support in the first place, was because I received a letter from the courier Parcelforce requesting me to pay a bill of GBP 69.49 (close but not "nice") in order for them to deliver the parcel to me. This bill consisted of the following charges.
 
Customs Duty - GBP 11.24 Excise Duty - GBP 0.00 Import VAT - GBP 46.25 Other - GBP 0.00 Clearance Fee - GBP 12.00 Total - GBP 69.49   Another thing to note is that this letter referenced the country of origin as Germany, instead of Canada. I found this rather peculiar.   I paid the bill in order to receive the parcel, but upon receiving it, I found documentation in the form of a Customs Declaration CN 23. This documentation clearly stated the country of origin to be Canada and the total value of the items to be USD 229.98. I took some time to visit the HMRC (Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs) website in order to try to figure out what charges would be appropriate for the items I had purchased. I soon found that due to a trade agreement between Canada and the UK, the tariff for customs duty on these items should be 0.00%. Aside from this, I calculated the 20% VAT which is applicable in the UK for these items to be USD 46.00, which at the current exchange rate corresponds to a value of approximately GBP 33.92. It seems like someone at Parcelforce just entered the USD amount into their system as if it were a GBP amount.   As a result from my findings, I have contacted the courier Parcelforce to claim back the approximate amount of GBP 23.57 which I had been overcharged for customs duties and VAT.   So, to sum things up in short for you, if you find yourself getting slapped with an extra bill for your LTT purchase, double-check the following.   Are the VAT charges by LTT appropriate for that particular order? Are the charges for customs duties applicable for the trade between Canada and your country for that type of items and their value? Are any VAT charges levied in name of the country you live in appropriate and correctly calculated?   Just wanted to leave this here in the hope that it might help someone else. I'll certainly be having a closer look at any future customs charges I might receive.    

Looks like the same thing happened to me just now.
 
After finally receiving the backpack to the UK on which I paid 20% on checkout I now have to pay another £66 to parcelforce
Currently waiting for support to reply but I am assuming they have to refund the 20% charged,
 
Subtotal $322.96 USD
Shipping (14 - 28 Day Delivery) $79.98 USD
Tax (Standard Rate 20.0%) $80.60 USD
Total $483.54 USD

Am I thinking of something else or was this video titled "UNLAUNCHED" when it started?

Ironic, if true.

This is in the hope it'll help other international customers of LTT store. Please note that this is not a complaint directed at LTT. Although there is an aspect to this storey which involves a mistake by LTT, upon contacting them, it was instantly resolved. In fact, I wasn't even aware of LTT's mistake until they informed me of it and resolved it. This is more to illustrate that you may receive a bill from a third party for customs charges, and if you do, you should have a close look at that bill. Just for the record, I wish to state that I am just an average consumer and have no expertise when it comes to importing/exporting and taxes.
 
Recently, I purchased a few items from LTT store with a combined value of USD 229.98. I live in Northern Ireland, and in this case UK import customs apply. On top of the 229.98, LTT charged me for shipping and for VAT. As it turns out, the UK policies on imports mean that for shipments with a value of over GBP 135.00, which was the case here, the VAT needs to be paid in the UK instead of in Canada. This is why, when I contacted LTT, they recognized the mistake, and refunded those charges to me.
 
The reason I contacted support in the first place, was because I received a letter from the courier Parcelforce requesting me to pay a bill of GBP 69.49 (close but not "nice") in order for them to deliver the parcel to me. This bill consisted of the following charges.
 
Customs Duty - GBP 11.24 Excise Duty - GBP 0.00 Import VAT - GBP 46.25 Other - GBP 0.00 Clearance Fee - GBP 12.00 Total - GBP 69.49   Another thing to note is that this letter referenced the country of origin as Germany, instead of Canada. I found this rather peculiar.   I paid the bill in order to receive the parcel, but upon receiving it, I found documentation in the form of a Customs Declaration CN 23. This documentation clearly stated the country of origin to be Canada and the total value of the items to be USD 229.98. I took some time to visit the HMRC (Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs) website in order to try to figure out what charges would be appropriate for the items I had purchased. I soon found that due to a trade agreement between Canada and the UK, the tariff for customs duty on these items should be 0.00%. Aside from this, I calculated the 20% VAT which is applicable in the UK for these items to be USD 46.00, which at the current exchange rate corresponds to a value of approximately GBP 33.92. It seems like someone at Parcelforce just entered the USD amount into their system as if it were a GBP amount.   As a result from my findings, I have contacted the courier Parcelforce to claim back the approximate amount of GBP 23.57 which I had been overcharged for customs duties and VAT.   So, to sum things up in short for you, if you find yourself getting slapped with an extra bill for your LTT purchase, double-check the following.   Are the VAT charges by LTT appropriate for that particular order? Are the charges for customs duties applicable for the trade between Canada and your country for that type of items and their value? Are any VAT charges levied in name of the country you live in appropriate and correctly calculated?   Just wanted to leave this here in the hope that it might help someone else. I'll certainly be having a closer look at any future customs charges I might receive.    

A managed switch allows VLANs, that on a basic level means you can split them into multiple "virtual" switches.  This can be done per-port, or using VLAN tags, which allows you to pass those virtual LANs down a single port and split them out elsewhere, such as on an Access Point where it can put them on independent SSIDs.

A single Access Point doing "double duty" is functionally no different to two different Access Points (other than they will usually share the same WiFi channel due to only have one radio on each frequency).  The WiFi network (SSID) you are connecting to are unique, your clients will only connect to the ones you have added on that client and traffic is just as isolated as if they were separate devices.

If traffic can pass without the VPN would be entirely down to the box you have the other end handling the VPN.  If its denied there, the traffic has nowhere to go.

Most wifi access points can change the power basically doing this.
 
But you can do this without 2 sets of access points using vlans. I have setup many networks where one ap has multiple wifi networks that connects to their own subnets

Access Points optimised for "one room" are typically the in-wall kind, these will be directional so to avoid interfering with the neighbours you'd want them on an outside wall facing inwards - so the back of the AP where very little signal will pass is facing the neighbours.
 
You don't need multiple Access Points or switches for this, its exactly what "managed" switches are for.  You setup two different virtual LANs (VLANs) then assign them to ports, or in the case of Access Points you can pass the VLAN tagged traffic to the Access Point and have each VLAN on its own SSID.
 
For example on my LAN I have the main LAN, an IoT LAN and a dual-stack (IPv4 & IPv6) LAN, so I can pick and choose which I want for individual clients.

For VPNs though I don't bother with that as they all run on my pfSense router and I policy route them instead, but VLANs are easier if you want to use several different physical boxes to handle the VPNs and allocate specific clients to them.

Or you could even consolidate the whole thing into a single box by using a router able to run something like OpenWRT. (not necessarily to replace your main router, but to run the VPNs, broadcast their SSIDs and assign specific ports and/or VLAN tags)  But this depends how much bandwidth you need as running VPNs on routers will hit CPU bottlenecks depending on the router.

Most products have tax built into the price? Everything in the UK, EU prices displayed on sites and in stores all show the price (which takes into account tax). At the end of the shop, it calculates the 20% by calculating the total value of your bill but nobody looks or thinks about tax because everything you buy already has a 20% tax on the purchase price.
 
A bottle of coke is £1. Says that online, says that on the shelf. You go to pay, and you pay £1. Receipt shows bottle of Coke cost £1, and at the bottom says that 20p of the £1 total shop was added tax. Buy £100 worth of clothes online, and you pay £100. The 20% (£20 VAT) is already built into the price…
 
Literally nobody thinks about tax or working out tax on items for things like this unless you’re buying for a business. It’s stupid and I don’t get why America does it. When shopping on USAF bases in the UK in their supermarkets, it’s annoying buying things and forgetting they’re gonna add extra at the end. I don’t get the point. Just add it before if they’re going to be paying it at the end. Is it just a ploy to make Americans think stuff is cheaper by going “Hey, this item is actually $8 and we are only charging you $8 but the Gov are going to make you pay $10”???

after a quick test, shoppify still add a 20% taxe to an order to the european union even if the total amount is superior to 150€/$ so if you do wish to order you will have to pay VAT twice and wait for ltt support to refund you but because de change between USD and EUR will have change between the order and the refund you might gain or loose some money

Update for me, the ltt support has refunded me the 20% VAT that was added at checkout (it shouldn't have happen since the total amount was superiour to 150$)
 
so everything is good for me

In other words, it's a mess all around.

So, I have a little update on this, as I just received a letter in the post from Border Force. I had asked them to send me back GBP 23.57, and explained them my reasoning for that. The result is that they're sending me GBP 57.49. That's a lot more than I had anticipated. Seems these extra efforts I've put into looking up information and communicating with some entities have been rather worth my while! 🙂 I shall attach the reply from Border Force, redacted of course.