apc shipping to canada - ridiculous custom fees

[gregory]

I recently ordered from apc to canada and got hammered with custom fees. I thought it would be less since they went from ups to usps but it sure isn't the case. Anyone know if there's less chance of paying crazy fees by choosing the faster more expensive shipping option?

[tm]

tough luck,

i think customs just charge you whatever they think they feel appropriate (or lack thereof)...........

i think private courier are even worst cause they charge you brokage and whatever the crap fees they deem to charge.

i've gotten some heavy hits from DHL, and UPS respectively.

[_inwonderland]

I think if you choose UPS, you are very likely to be hit with their brokerage fees (pretty much 100% of the time through personal experience).

On the other hand, if you use USPS, it really depends on what you buy and the customs officer. It's pretty random in my experience. One time I bought a pair of shoes from Revolve and didn't have to pay anything but another time I bought a shirt off a forum and the seller marked it as a $30 gift (I really only paid $16) and had to pay about $10 in taxes + handling fee, no duties though.

There are set rates, so customs can't just charge you whatever they want. The duties for clothing is something like 17% or 18%. Add GST + PST and a $5 handling fee ($8 for EMS).

[gregory]

yeah, I bought a shirt and some pants (about $260US) and had to pay $109cdn. Pretty harsh.

[oh snap]

nearly 50%? thats messed. I've never been hit that hard through regular post. ive gotten effed by brokerage fees... but generally i can only recall paying 10-15% on the marked value, if ive had to pay at all.

I agree with tm, ups, fedex and so on will charge you something every time, but usps and other socialist postal systems will often not catch it.

most of my experience comes from shoes and electronics though, so maybe "clothes" falls in a different bracket

[kit714]

i 've had experience of buyin a pair of diors from browns and got charged 96 cdn for custom fees. From then on, i only purchase online if the seller or online store is willing to mark the item as gift. Theres no way around it unless the seller is willing to help out.

[herpsky]

sold some deminz to a du in canada

i shipped by ups. he got hit with a 90 dollar brokeage fee but after going thru some bullshit with his UPS store, he avoided the charge. no idea how though.

[2000dB]

sold some deminz to a du in canada

i shipped by ups. he got hit with a 90 dollar brokeage fee but after going thru some bullshit with his UPS store, he avoided the charge. no idea how though.

if you go and file the brokerage papers yourself or some shit like that. never had to do it because I never get hit with customs or whenever I do it's only a few bucks.

[mmm]

i 've had experience of buyin a pair of diors from browns and got charged 96 cdn for custom fees. From then on, i only purchase online if the seller or online store is willing to mark the item as gift. Theres no way around it unless the seller is willing to help out.

Marking it as gift only works for items less than $60. If its more than that it gets treated the same as normal.

Theres a pretty well written guide that explains shipping charges to Canada

[kit714]

yeah my bad...marking as gift + lowering the price value to 50

[pattyc]

Damn, after reading this topic I contacted a retailer that I bought some stuff from, who are located in England. I asked if they marked the item as a gift to lower fees and they responded saying that it was illegal and that they don't do it. Now I'm probably gonna get charged a ton.

[oh snap]

Damn, after reading this topic I contacted a retailer that I bought some stuff from, who are located in England. I asked if they marked the item as a gift to lower fees and they responded saying that it was illegal and that they don't do it. Now I'm probably gonna get charged a ton.

retailers generally wont do it, even ebay businesses sometimes wont. casual ebayers usually dont mind.

at any rate, it would only save you duty on the first $60 of your purchase. its risky to ask them to mark a higher valued item down to 60 on the chance it does get lost or damaged during shipping. also if it is clearly worth more than 60, customs will assign their own estimated value. avoiding brokerage fees by shipping with national postal systems and hoping customs misses it is usually the best you can do