Yes, we know it’s tricky, because customers always think you’re by the pool and turn into Mr Grumpy! But, after 2 years of trials and (many) errors, we think we’ve designed the idea solution: Work from a UKSofa.
UKSofa is a bit of kit that adds another WiFi network address to your internet. Click on it and it hides your location by moving your web connection point from France to the Yorkshire moors. We then cover your tracks by providing you with your own genuine UK static IP address.
It’s that simple. Plug it in. Connect your devices to it and you’ll find le bureau has moved (through a data tunnel) to Yorkshire. And when you’ve finished work, you can even watch the local (UK) TV news, live, poolside of course! And all this without a VPN.
To join our growing band of hidden expat workers, details, prices, testimonials, and FAQs are all at www.uksofa.eu
Aren’t you advertising something that is tax fraud? I think the French tax authorities might become interested in your client list.
(Edit: your contact details are in the UK so perhaps you don’t realise that it is illegal to work when you are physically in France without declaring this? Many people of course do, but that’s their decision. Promoting a business to facilitate illegal activity is perhaps rather different…)
Where does his website or his post suggest hiding from the French tax authorities? All it suggests is hiding your location from your customers/suppliers etc so that they think you are still in the UK. It’s just a VPN isn’t it?!
Have I got the wrong end of the stick or have you? I’m not sure!!
Izzy x
It is not overt, but if you are pretending to be working in the UK then by implication you are pretending not to be working in France.
Yes it would be possible to do this legally and declare any income you earn this way to the French authorities. But if an employer in the UK is paying a salary to someone they believe to be working in the UK, they they are defrauding the French tax authorities too as they should be paying social charges.
Oh, and next year will have to comply with rules about providing services to non-EU countries like the UK
From their website “It’s great if you need to work but prefer to be in your holiday home and not in your normal UK office but help them remain (virtually) in the UK”. If your holiday home is in France and you are working, you are working in France.
I’m sure no-one cares for a couple of weeks here and there, but it strikes me this might not be the case for a lot of the newly arrived in France trying to get a CdS.
The point of this rather escapes me - other than as a very expensive way of watching some UK television. Is anybody else interested in the location of your IP address?
A UK phone number can be useful - I have one for business, but it’s part of a package that costs about £20 per year in total.
So, that would be a VPN then - they seem to make the distinction based on whether there are multiple endpoints in different countries (theirs is just UK) and the fact that they (seem to) offer a unique exit point IP address per customer.
The last point probably is worthy of note as it will help evade the BBC’s scrutiny - well until/unless the BBC figure out that the block of addresses all belong to people who are not located in the UK.
Otherwise it just seems to be one of the many VPN “hide your IP” address offerings out there.
The first post in this thread is pretty dodgy though.
You’ve all raised some really interesting comments, particularly the tax fraud bit, so (as a retired company lawyer and JP) I think I’ll deal with that first. The best analogy is a shot gun. Not legal to buy one yet illegal if you shoot someone. And, as one comment also states, to cover the related point it is also illegal to buy, or promote or otherwise facilitate buying a gun with intent for its use in an illegal manner.
So far as I am aware, our users are not crooks but are people, including me, who wanted their internet experience to be identical to that of the UK. They may not speak French, prefer to visit google.co.uk and not google.fr and want use the internet as if they’re in the UK. Making that possible in a really simple way was the the design brief. VPNs try to do the same yet when multiple users are all accessing via the same server you get the well-known problems. Some give you your own IP address and some allow multiple devices. Add these and ours becomes price competitive.
Each UKSofa has its own unique IP address so sites remember you and it makes it much easier to connect remotely to a company server in the UK. It gets round geo-blocking yet again it’s not illegal or fraudulent. For digital nomads, a UK IP can be vitally important for many people will simply not deal with you if they find you’re not next door but 2,000 miles away.
The big difference to a VPN is the way we route you to the UK via a data tunnel. Again it’s not unique but we take you direct to a premium ISP, it’s the identical route you would take using BBand installed in a UK home. Our ISP then seriously restricts the number of users for each of own servers. Yes it’s expensive to do that but it’s the only way you can guarantee very high quality.
What you have all shown me is there is a problem with our advert. It does not include the word everyone has missed - SIMPLE. Our device launches a new WiFi Network address. You can still select your existing one (e.g. orange) but with one SIMPLE click on “uksofa” you, your family, or if you run a Bar, hotel or campsite, your customers, can all surf the internet just as if sitting on a sofa in the UK (unless plotting a tax fraud!) .
This is indeed just one of the annoying limitations of Google - I use DuckDuckGo, which (in addition to enhanced privacy) simply includes a button to switch between languages. It’s really useful if you are bi-lingual.
For people with little technical ability, this solution is wonderful. I have a VPN for catch up TV and other UK based services so have no need for it but I do know other brits who want to watch catch up etc and would struggle with VPN.
Also when I used to work remotely for Reuters and Deutsche Bank we had to use VPN and it proved to be unreliable at times due to over contention on the VPN servers. (it meant having to try various locations before success and then sometimes meant slow connection too) This solution would have been ideal for my purposes. I wish you well with the venture.
It depends how you are using a VPN Jane. I have a mini router with a VPN installed on it so that all my devices can connect to it - TV, freesat box, MacBook etc if needed.
Many would just use software or an app to connect - much easier and does not require much configuration.
It’s up to the “owners” how they run their business IMO. Quite like the idea, but for example, Amazon prime UK will (apparently) not work using a VPN, wonder if it would work using this:thinking:. It’s also quite (very) expensive £115 and nearly 18/month - don’t think so. Maybe a large discount for SF members?
It’s not about hiding Stella, it’s about internet security. When I worked for Reuters, Deutsche Bank and Intel they insisted that we connect via VPN and then had an additional layer of security along with our normal login and password.
Sure it’s up to each person to decide whether they want to abide by rule or not. My point is that advertising something specifically as allowing you to break rules is not right. Some could unwittingly then think this was ok and end up in a mess with french tax authorities. . Especially if they don’t speak much french.
Many VPN services also overstep the line too, saying you can access BBC without a licence but since this is no longer a criminal act it’s of less concern.
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