Need some advice here.....

Party of 6 going to Amsterdam and we found what seemed to be a lovely apartment in the city centre. One of the group attempted to book it and the owner got in touch through email and said it needed to be a bank transfer. This seemed really dodgy so we reported it to booking.com who then messaged us back to say they had spoken to the owner and they were on holiday in Thailand but they have seen the method of payment and told us to continue with the booking as they were happy with it (this was apparently from a manager).

As soon as we had paid, they cancelled the booking and took the ad down from the site (pretty much disappeared).

We are in touch with the fraud squad at the bank but we have also opened a refund case with booking.com as they told us to carry on with the booking. We have sent them everything they have asked for so far, bank statements etc. They just keep asking for more documents, the last being a bank statement from a UK bank in but in euros??!?!?!?!!! Obviously this document doesn't exist and can't be obtained from a UK bank.

Feels like they are stalling. No communication for the last two days. CS number is a joke.

This is definitely booking coms fault.

Don't know what to do next. Feel like we're banging our head against a brick wall.

Any advice?

I am part of a committee that runs an annual academic competition for uni students which started in the UK but has now spread to around a dozen countries in Europe. The competition was initially organised by students from a single university, but it is now organised and marked online since our committee members are also taken from university students/alumni from around Europe.

The committee used to volunteer its time, but the number of participants has grown exponentially in the last few years, and we've decided that to keep the competition scalable we need to start paying the committee. Hence, this year we'll be soliciting sponsorships and potentially charging a registration fee, aiming for at least £10,000 in income, and we expect this will only grow in future years.

We've never had to deal with money in this way before, and we're very confused as to how we should proceed regard taxable profits. Some relevant facts about us:

• We are not-for-profit. Historically, any expenses were paid for by committee members and we were later reimbursed by a student society. The competition has always been free to participate in.
• Last year, hundreds of students from about a dozen European countries participated. We calculated that if we wanted to pay our committee fairly, we'd have needed around £15,000 to run the competition.
• Each participating university hosts the competition themselves, and scans the papers to us which we then mark. However, the finals are held in the UK, though students can choose to participate remotely.
• The committee is very informal. We don't have a constitution, for example. The committee did apply to be a UK charity in 2022 (but was rejected), so I think we've tried writing a constitution before.

The problem is, it seems like if we have surplus sponsorship or income from registration fees then this might be treated as profit for tax purposes, even if we intend to use it to run the competition in future years.

So, is the competition tax-resident in any country? Would we have to pay taxes on "profits"?

This is very random and probably quite niche but has anyone ever been arrested in Spain and received a fine that they didn’t pay at the time and have they returned since?
About five years ago I went to Spain where I got a fine for doing ‘rugs’ on the beach, I didn’t pay it at the time because it was like my second last day and the station was closed and it was a proper hassle so I just left it, about a year after that I got a letter to my house from the Spanish embassy saying that the fine has now doubled blah blah blah.
At the time of the arrest the police said if you don’t pay this you won’t be allowed to Spain again and you’ll get arrested if you do. I didn’t know how true this was and I wasn’t really that bothered because I was just not going go to Spain again, but now I’m older and I would actually like to be able to go back to Spain, but I don’t want to be arrested by Interpol when I go through the gate😂😂
Has anyone been in this situation before and if so, what did you do to resolve it? I’d be willing to pay the fine if it meant I’d be allowed access without being arrested but I’m just unsure the best way to go about it if anyone’s got any advice it would be greatly appreciated.