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xsolarwindx

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Hi all, I recently ordered free samples of a product from another country. I ordered it in steps so now I got individual products in different packages worth about a dollar each or so. They were shipped via USPS first class and now I have to pay a huge amount of duties.

Obviously, I don't want the items anymore since I got about five packages of product worth around $5 and around $15 of duties on each package. What happens if I don't pay duties?
 
USPS? Seriously?

If I order anything from the States, I always ask for USPS shipping. I avoid UPS, though, because they usually gouge on brokerage (not customs) fees.
 
ShonTron said:
USPS? Seriously?

If I order anything from the States, I always ask for USPS shipping. I avoid UPS, though, because they usually gouge on brokerage (not customs) fees.
Click to expand...

Yep, quote from the website itself when I ordered the free samples:

Your Shipping Method is: USPS - First Class Mail

And now they want duties. The product is electronic microchip components for a hobby project.



But when the product arrived at my friends house, they left a little slip. It says:

FedEx Express

Sorry we missed you when we tried to deliver a shipment of 1 packages. Then there's more text.

And after it says Import duties/Taxes to be collected: $14.40

This is outrageous - for a $0.50 free sample product.

And the thing is, five more should be arriving because the samples company packaged them separately.
 
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USPS (US Postal Service) gets sent to Canada Post, Canada Post will collect the duties and add a $5 handling fee. If you don't pick it up from them, they send it back after a while -- end of story.

UPS Ground - they do gouge you - fee is usually equal to around 15% I think (when I used them there fee was about equal to taxes collected).

UPS Air - brokerage fees are included

Fedex - brokerage fees are included (once UPS gouges you on ground - it would have been better to use Fedex :eek: ).

I suspect that if you don't pick it up - they will eventually send it back as well.
 
cacruden said:
USPS (US Postal Service) gets sent to Canada Post, Canada Post will collect the duties and add a $5 handling fee. If you don't pick it up from them, they send it back after a while -- end of story.

UPS Ground - they do gouge you - fee is usually equal to around 15% I think (when I used them there fee was about equal to taxes collected).

UPS Air - brokerage fees are included

Fedex - brokerage fees are included (once UPS gouges you on ground - it would have been better to use Fedex :eek: ).

I suspect that if you don't pick it up - they will eventually send it back as well.
Click to expand...

So what should I tell my friend if the FedEx people ring the doorbell when he's at home? Should I tell him to answer? What if he answers? Should he tell the delivery guy that he doesn't want it?
 
Just tell your friend not to accept the packages if/when FedEx shows up. Period. If your friend is not home, FedEx will try to deliver one or two more times, then finally leave a message on where to pick the items up. If you don't pick them up after a certain amount of time, they are returned to the sender.


Are they addressed to your friend, or to you?
 
Hydrogen said:
Just tell your friend not to accept the packages if/when FedEx shows up. Period. If your friend is not home, FedEx will try to deliver one or two more times, then finally leave a message on where to pick the items up. If you don't pick them up after a certain amount of time, they are returned to the sender.


Are they addressed to your friend, or to you?
Click to expand...

They're addressed to my friend. Should I bother calling first and try to get out of paying duties and still get the product? Or should I not take the risk and just drop it like you said?
 
These duties are a huge problem and are now making me think twice about ordering anything online. My wife and I have been burned a number of times with "surprise" duties of 50 to 100% on things we've ordered. Anything coming from the US is risky. If you don't pay they will harass you with phone calls, and could, in theory, damage your credit rating. The amounts of the duties are not revealed up front, and if you wish to reject and return the product you need to pay that additional shipping and deal with even more hassles.

The worst experience for me was a TV stand I ordered from an online company based in Vancouver (I needed a stand of very specific dimensions to fit in my small condo and couldn't find one locally). Without warning me, they shipped it to me from a warehouse located in Ohio. Sure enough, it got hung up at the border until I paid a brokerage service $150 in "brokerage fees" in addition to the nearly $100 I'd already paid in shipping. I felt blackmailed with little choice but to pay; the company had already billed my credit card in full and it would have cost almost that much to ship it back to the sender, and they made it clear that if it was damaged they would have rejected it (a possible scenario since it had glass shelves). In the end my shipping and brokerage costs far outweighed the cost of the unit itself.

My wife ordered a couple ink pen refills and was charged $24 duty on the $30 purchase. The package was about the size of a hockey puck. Another time she ordered a special baking pan we couldn't find in Toronto and was billed $30 duty on a $40 purchase.

From what I've read online (http://www.thestar.com/Business/article/281890) there seems to be a choice, in that you can pay brokerage fees to expedite (speed up) the border process, but in my experience there's never really been a choice.

I think all this is extortionate and should be illegal. The fees are insanely high in comparison to the value of the original goods, and the shady way they are applied only after the fact with no up-front transparency makes it impossible to make an informed decision about what to purchase.
 
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I would prefer there be a cross-border agreement where the sender pays the customs fees to the US goverment, and the US government remits them to Canada (and vica-versa).
 
cacruden said:
I would prefer there be a cross-border agreement where the sender pays the customs fees to the US goverment, and the US government remits them to Canada (and vica-versa).
Click to expand...

I think the US should honor its trade agreements with Canada, but it doesn't, and there's absolutely no hope of this working either.
 
Sales tax

I think that you are paying sales tax as determined by your broker. The PO and Couriers are empowered to be your broker for a fee of $5 in the case of the PO or $35 in the case of UPS. I don't know the fee charged by the other couriers but I am sure there is one. You will only pay duty on most items if the country of origin is other than the US or Mexico.
 
Ok. Either way I don't want to pay anything at all. Is it ok if I tell my friend to just not answer his door for the delivery guy or say something like, this is a wrong address or something like that? What should I do so I don't have to pay anything?
 
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