Canadians: UPS HUGE Customs Charges!!

[macker123]

I purchased a center console off eBay for $130 US ~ $195 Canadian. I paid all of the shipping charges etc. to the seller. It was weighed at 25 pounds I believe.

They tried delivering it today and want to charge $96 Canadian in fees. That is 50% of the purchase price. What the heck? Is it not a small handling fee and 7% GST? I know UPS overcharges for customs handling compared to Canada Post, but this is outrageous.

 

[section525]

Was it shipped as a gift?

 

[macker123]

No I don't believe it was. I was sure it didn't make a difference with UPS. But anyways I have bought things that were $500+ from the US and shipped by UPS and I only pay around $50.

This was only $190 Canadian. How do they justify charging so much, come on I already paid them $60 to ship the package.

 

[Dan Whitaker]

I found this out the hard way also. I sold a necklace my wife did not want any more to someone in Canada. He e-mailed me Wednesday wanting to know why he was being charged $50 for a $15 purchase. I did not know until I called UPS that morning and told me of the charges.
What realy torques me off is why UPS doesn't tell you of these ridiculous charges. The company I work for lets me ship my stuff and we ship industrial products to Canada all the time and knew nothing of this.
You would think all the other crap the UPS system tells you about it would tell you about these charges.
Bcause of this I lost a sell as I told the guy to refuse the package and I would refund him. I wouldn't want to pay $ 50 for a $15 purchase either.

Sorry for the long post but I needed to vent.

 

[rpenner54]

Yup, you gotta say its "worthless" when you ship it. Or find a way to send it as a "gift". Otherwise you have to pay duty fees!

 

[macker123]

Well I don't believe these are duty fees, but handling fees. It seems UPS can pretty much charge what they wish.

I found their Canadian prices that you supposdly agree to when you ship UPS to Canada:
Dead Link Removed

Of course these don't add up even close to $90 Canadian for me, but around $50 - $60. The other amount, must be some kind of *handling* fee.

 

[Dan Whitaker]

What realy sucks is our postal system does not require the import documents that UPS and the others require. Why? Because our govenerment makes them do it this way but exepmt themselves from it!
If I would have sent the package through the United Postal Service I would have only had to write on thier tiny little label the contents and country of manufactre. But who knows when it would have got there.

 

[Cartman]

Is there a way around this - most online stores will not mark a package as a gift because they can get into trouble and if it is listed as being worthless and gets damaged insurance may not pay.

There has to be a cheap way around this.

 

[ld50]

On-line stores have to obey the law, there is no way around it.

To get around the ebay purchase into Canada problem always request parcel post (regular mail) and try to see if you can get them to say it is a gift, by saying you would love it if they could help you out a bit on the cost of shipping, you know whine about the outrageous duty you will have to pay. You will have to take your chances on recieving it, but it`s not a high risk.

If it is an expensive item that they would rather put a value to, ask them to claim a value of 24 DOLLARS US OR LESS!
See, once an item coming into Canada equals 40$ canadian or more, it is subject to these huge duties.

When I bought a suspension lift kit for my Explorer, I worked out a deal with the guy to label it as a DEMO kit, with a value of $75 CDN (his idea). This throws off the customs agents, who can`t really fight the claim that it is a demo or not. (my kit with shocks actually cost me a couple hundred) I still had to pay some duty, but it was far less.

I use Ebay to fuel my other hobby, which is collecting old Russian cameras ( don`t ask)
I have saved hundreds by conning the sellers in Russia into saying it was a gift, or else it was only worth 5 dollars, since it is actually a non-working parts camera.
I have quite a collection of cameras I only bid as high as 24 dollars US for.

If anything, these private deals between me and some guy in another country being taxed so highly by my government extremely pisses me off and I resent that they evenneed be involved.

-lol