Since 2003, there’s a weird phenomenon prevailing in UK.
There’re many Asian people, including Chinese, Malaysian and Indonesian, applying for a visiting visa or a student visa for UK.
Instead of merely visiting and studying in UK, they are in fact doing business in UK, mainly through eBay.
They purchase some goods which are really cheap from mainland China and resell it in UK.
These goods include counterfeit mobile phone battery and CDs.
This severely harms the economy of the UK as they eventually will take all their profit as well as the capital back to their home country.
Another major activity people use eBay is that they can buy goods using money earned in an illegal way before on eBay and resell them so as to hinder the evidence of being illegal.
As their bank accounts involve frequent monetary transfer every day, the bank usually grants them a loan on request.
But they'll then take the money they borrowed and leave UK.
I am confident that the above phenomenon is still prevailing.
Just check the accounts of eBay users of UK.
Most of them run their business since 2003 and the average turnover per day can be around 300 items when it reached its maximum.
If they have a profit of 1 pound per item, then they'll have 300 pounds of profit per day without being bordered by the tax burden as they're visitors or students only.
This certainly harms the UK economy as they contribute nothing to UK economy or welfare.
This lenient immigration policy leads to the born of many Malaysian or Chinese millionaires.
The amount of flow of capital is unlimited.
What's the most ridiculous is that they can extend their visa by just temporarily leaving UK every 6 months.
Some "students" apply the student visa simply because they want a lawful excuse to stay in UK.
They are of course just businessmen.
I believe there should be a proper legal system that processes every application of businessmen to enter UK although they come to support the UK economy.
You can click onto the mobile phone accessories category of the eBay site of UK and you'll find out that most of the sellers having >5000 feedbacks are actually students and visitors, who are not supposed to be involved in commercial activities.
It seems to me that the UK government is spoiling them.
It's not something strange for a student to send out a few items every week for personal reasons, but how about one sending out 300 items per day?
Just imagine the profits they can earn.
The post office should notice about that already, but it seems to me that they just want to sell more stamps.
I believe universities should be aware of the fact that they are doing business as they move stocks on a regular (daily) basis.
I think it's the time for the related authorities to take some actions.
Some simple measures will do.
For example, why don't the officers of the post office ask for some proof of identity to those frequently sends out bulk packages?
Or if they notice that there're always bulk packages sent from a certain address they can ask for details.
If no actions are taken, then UK will simply become the paradise for those criminals who continuously harm the UK economy.
As everybody knows, taxes and bills are paid regularly by those shops along streets. Online business poses a certain harm to them and it seems to be unavoidable.
But what's intolerable is that those who are not supposed to be involved in the UK online business are making profit and threatening the life of local people.
As those Asian people thinks that it's ok for them to run their business in this way since they've never been caught for this reason, more and more people come to our country and perform in this way.
The consequences are hazardous as a layman can imagine.
Ebay's regulations on the identity of sellers are really loose that they can control one account by different people.
That means if one's visa expires and has to leave UK, there's still someone taking over it.
These people can be anyone, including criminals or illegal immigrants.
I would suggest eBay should try to verify the true identity of account users on a regular basis.
Or eBay can request those doing business in UK to provide the identity over years and answer the prolonged doubt on them: are you really a qualified British or businessman in the past years you've stayed in UK?
This is also an issue on current UK eBay system - the officers of eBay are not logical at all.
They only rely on the number of feedbacks as the only measure to judge whether the seller is trustworthy or not, doing nothing on their true identity.
Ebay's control on the quality of the goods sold is far from satisfaction too.
Can you believe that a piece of Sony Ericsson's authentic mobile phone battery just costs 3 pounds on eBay which costs 20 pounds in UK retailers?
The quality of these cheap products is questionable.
What makes the matter worse is that some illegal goods can be embedded in those products,
e.g. drugs. Of course it's impossible for these to pass the customs, but it's OK for them to just send them within the UK territory.
It's high time we had to do something to stop this kind of business.
Another major concern is the UK's regulation on visas and immigrations.
I believe some changes should be made as soon as possible so that our economy will not be eroded furtherer. For example, the student and visiting visa should contain some elements specifying that they cannot be involved in any business activities or their visa will be cancelled.
Before the implementation of any changes in the content of law some immediate actions should be taken as it takes some time for those laws to be debated and changed.
Ebay can suspend those accounts controlled by those not qualified to do business in UK, or taxes can be added on those eBay sellers.
I sincerely believe that with our commitment on eliminating these criminals, UK will surely become “clean” again.
