I recently wanted to purchase quite a large quantity of one item from an ebay seller. We haggled back and forth a bit, but his price was a bit more than I wanted to pay, so I declined.
He then phoned me and said, if you are VAT registered, I will supply you with a VAT invoice and you can claim it back. (For example he was saying, instead of charging you £10, I will charge you £11 including VAT and you will then be able to claim back £1.83 VAT per item, thus making the price to me £9.17).
Being a bit suspicious, as he had not mentioned VAT up to that point, I asked for his VAT number. He gave a fictitious one.
I then declined his offer again, and have purchased elsewhere.
He is quite obviously operating fraudently, do I report him, or leave it be.
DP and I disagree on this. I think I should report; he says I should leave it. Would like to see what others' opinions are.
BTW, in case it makes any difference; I run my own business, am VAT registered and follow the correct rules with regards to VAT.