ebaynut

I think Hoddy was asking for a link showing UKIP to be racist, this link seems like common sense to me and not at all racist.

You are all correct ( except "Q" of course) to be livid about this. It seems OK for gay couples to foster, but not UKIP supporters. One could speculate the reason all the people "Q" quotes as being under investigation is because they are being targeted due to being members of their respective parties. You may not like Tom Wise, but when we were hoping to move to France in 2007 and the health issue came up, of all the MEPS I contacted he was the only one who took the trouble to contact me, and by phone. We spend almost an hour talking. Seemed a nice guy to me. I am sure most people know what UKIP and the BNP stand for, and this is the appeal for their supporters. They don't support them if they don't share their views anymore than Labour supporters do, surely.

SW17, There must be a government website in France where you can check the limits before duty is charged. There is in the UK and I could give the figures for this, but as you are in France this wont help with the rules there. The sender in the US would need to mark the value in $ and this would be converted by the customs in the receiving country using an up to the minute exchange rate. And yes, a friend in the US is very good to have :-)

Next purchase is going to a friends house in the US and then sent on as the postage from the shops site was $143 when friend can send on for $71 And of course as your friend is not selling this item to you,  can quite legitimately mark the parcel as a $50 or below gift and then there is no duty to pay.

These things are cyclical, maybe it's just someone else's moment and we all have to move on..... Just as well Churchill did not think like that.

A young  Portsmouth woman was so depressed that she decided to end her life by throwing  herself into the sea, but just before she could throw herself from the wharf,  Geoffrey Money, a handsome young man stopped her. "You have so much to live  for," said Geoffrey. "I'm a sailor, and we are off to Australia  tomorrow.  I can stow you away on my ship.  I'll take  care of you, bring you food every day, and keep you  happy."  With nothing to lose, combined with the fact  that she had always wanted to go to Australia , the woman accepted. That  night the Geoffrey brought her aboard and hid her in a small but comfortable  compartment in the hold.   From then on, every night he  would bring her three sandwiches, a bottle of red wine, and make love to her  until dawn.   Two weeks later she was discovered by the  Captain during a routine inspection. "What are you doing here?" asked the  Captain. "I have an arrangement with one of the sailors, Geoffrey" she  replied. "He brings me food and I get a free trip to Australia ." "I see,"  the Captain says. Her conscience got the best of her and she added, "Plus,  he's screwing me." . . . . . . . "He certainly is,"  replied the Captain. "This is the Isle of Wight Ferry."  

As it was hallowen last night and we get a few kids trick or treating, I thought I would do a pumpkin, but unfortunately none bothered to knock for some reason.   [IMG]http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p183/taws6/JimmySaville.jpg[/IMG]

Apologises, the message should have read,   I note that Parcelforce had the parcel in France within 24 hours, so clearly the problem ( surprise) is with the French end. Also if you took the Parcelforce option on P2G, than that would have been the cheapest of the services offered. So hardly a shock that the service which accompanies the cheapest is not so good when there is a problem. Poor old P2G, done the best price, done their side of the deal by getting it to the French delivery company so quick, then let down by the French, not an unusual story, then P2G get the blame for poor service.   Glad it has now turned up for you, but I doubt you will get better service time than this. I know you paid for 3-5 days delivery and that's what it should be, but with the very small margins in low cost delivery, you have to be flexible, or pay for the top service. They have never lost one of mine yet, but many have been late and the biggest pain is when the customer demands to know where it is and of course P2G start losing money on the deal when they have to start checking where it is. So they are in no rush to help, or if they do I doubt if the French can be bothered to respond, seeing as they could not even be bothered to deliver it on time, if as you say the address was correct.

I note that Parcelforce had the parcel in France within 24 hours, so clearly the problem ( surprise) is with the French end. Also if you took the Parcelforce option on P2G, than that would have been the cheapest of the services offered. So hardly a shock that the service which accompanies the cheapest is not so good when there is a problem. Poor old Parcelforce, done the best price, done their side of the deal by getting it to the French delivery company so quick, then let down by the French, not an unusual story, then PF get the blame for poor service.

Lou, When I put these dimensions in the P2G site, I get the same quote as you paid, however the Interparcel site lowest price is showing as £25.00 plus vat, not £41.00 plus vat as you were quoted. Clearly in this case P2G are cheaper if the parcel is of low value and you don't want insurance, but if it was of value and you did want to insure it for £500, then P2G would charge £25.00 and Interparcel would charge £10, then making Interparcel cheaper by £10 including insurance. But it is correct, you do have to shop on these sites, but always take the high cost of P2G insurance into account before deciding.   Idun, I am unable to understand Interparcel being four times more expensive than P2G unless you go for P2G cheapest option and compare it against Interparcels highest.

That's interesting Lou, what where the dimensions and weight of your package? I send mainly to the US and Australia and never find any difference in their quotes. I would like to check this out. 

If you are sending an item of value from the UK which needs insurance, then Interparcel are a better bet, they use the  same carriers as P2G and charge about the same for delivery, but their insurance is a lot less. £500 insurance cover with P2G is £25.00, with interparcel its only £10, and they do pay out if there is a problem.

There certainly was a lot to be said for the "Rackman" way of  dealing with these type of problems. The answer is clear, if you must do everything "by the book", DO NOT let out property.

Hello Tony, The one big question, What will you do for healthcare if you move to France??

I must admit I am amazed by some of the language used in the last post by a forum moderator. There are ladies taking part in this thread, and I find these type of comments most unsettling and crude.

Or the French.

I thought the the placard held up by someone outside the court summed it up nicely.   SLING YER HOOK!!!!!

Thanks for the information SW17. Mrs. ebaynut is getting her best burkha ironed, I have dug out my copy of the Koran and we are off to see the cleric at Barclays with a view to opening a "Muslim account" in the morning after prayers.

I guess that Barclays are not Muslim then ???

To have a PayPal account, you must have a bank account ( or in some cases a credit card) linked to it, so the recipient of the payment can access the funds. The money laundering part would be looked at the recipients end if necessary If you send payment for goods, then the seller will pay 20 pence per transaction plus 3.4% of the amount received and you are covered for non receipt of the item by PayPal. If you had send the payment as a "personal" payment, then if the seller was in the same country, then they would not have had to pay anything to receive the funds, but you would have had no protection if it had not turned up or other problems with your item. If the recipient of the funds was overseas, and payment was sent as "personal" then PayPal charge a very small fee to send as a personal payment. Don't worry, its an excellent way to send payment which works very well.

Also not all houses in the UK have water meters. We don't have one and pay a total of £261.32 this year ( April 12 till April 13) for as much water as we need. In some years when the summer has been dry, it means you can water the garden all you want, with no worry of the cost. This year of course not needed. This is for clean water only as we have a private system for the waste.

So if you did not take the tablets your life would be "restricted".

The TV show was called  Trash to Treasure and was on  ITV.

If you have a life restricting condition in the UK, mostly the same as ALD's in France, then you will receive a prescription exemption certificate (credit card size) and you do not have to pay for any prescriptions you need. Even if say you broke a leg, it would still be covered by the certificate and you would not have to pay for whatever was needed. It covers ANY prescriptions you need, where as an ALD will only cover that one condition.

Only some of it, I thought it all did.