Comments about the Global Shipping Program

[kalvin@ebay.com]

Feel free to share your thoughts about the Global Shipping Program here. 

A few questions to get the ball rolling:

• What has worked well for you with the Global Shipping Program?
• Any ideas to help improve the experience for Canadian buyers?
• What has deterred you from buying items offered using the Global Shipping Program?
• How have you managed to search for items outside the program?

Please try & keep the comments constructive 🙂

If you have any questions about the program, please post them here.

[marnotom!]

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@kxeron wrote:

And all the while, the GSP (including its players eBay and PBI) continues to be fully unaccountable to consumers because of blanket terms that have no legal meaning like "Import Charges".

"Import Charges" only has meaning in eBay because eBay's T&C's and website contains the term, but if you ask a CBSA officer what "Import Charges" means and didn't include "eBay" as a context, they'd probably think you're talking about duty and/or the taxes, same with any other government official.

The problem isn't that these fees are being charged, it is the way they're being charged in a manner that has zero transparency that has no mechanisms whatsoever to protect consumers from fradulent charges. There's no way for a consumer to go to a CBSA office to challenge a GSP fee that was unlawfully or incorrectly collected. The T&C's contains that extremely vague term to further distance eBay from the legal frameworks of conventional commerce that is recognized by governments, coming up with terms like "Import Charges" that allows eBay or PBI to charge whatever fees they see fit and there is no confirmation whatsoever that any money actually made it to the Canadian government for imports under $20.

I don't mind paying CBSA, because I know money is going into Canadian pockets at the least, but I have no affirmation or legal mechanisms to hold PBI directly accountable because of the fact the eBay T&C's make eBay and all of its affiliates deities over a monopoly of individual-to-individual Internet commerce.

I would respectfully, sir, ask you to wake yourself up, eBay is not its own universe, there's a world outside of eBay that is questioning the integrity of the programme and there is no pointing at the T&C's or FAQs or other "eBay universe" stuff that will change that. It will only be when there is a full, qualified legal analysis on this programme from a Canadian standpoint (Not an American standpoint that eBay would prefer — in the US contracts are largely immutable) will many people be satisfied. Perhaps this analysis will require the intervention of Industry Canada, or perhaps it will require a court room.

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I really don't understand where people get the idea that I'm "defending" the GSP.  I'm trying to arm people with more insight into how the program possibly operates.  You can do battle with your enemy much more effectively if you've got some idea how your enemy works.  

I personally don't think the average Canada Border Services Agency employee gives a rat's about the term "import charges" being bandied about.  As long as they collect--directly or indirectly--the taxes and duty owing on an import, they're likely just going to continue about their business.

Remember, Pitney Bowes is acting as importer for the purposes of the GSP.  You can argue that the process under which it assumes this role is questionable, but that's not relevant here.  As far as CBSA is concerned, Pitney Bowes is charged the taxes and duty and that's from whom CBSA (or the Canada Revenue Agency) will be receiving these monies.

A while back the eBay employee du jour relayed the information that what we're getting charged by Pitney Bowes is not the taxes and duty per se but an amount that goes toward taxes, duty and the other fees that make up "import charges" on a GSP purchase.  Carriers such as FedEx and UPS work in a similar fashion for items requiring brokerage.  They "advance" the taxes and duty due on an import and the importer reimburses the carrier for those fees.

Again, I'm not trying to make excuses for PBI or the GSP or defend its actions.  I'm just trying to clear what appears to be pretty muddied waters when it comes to figuring out how and why the GSP works as it does.

[nudibranch4569]

dont buy from sellers using this program.

[nudibranch4569]

just dont buy from buyers using this program,simple solution.

[kxeron]

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@marnotom! wrote:

I really don't understand where people get the idea that I'm "defending" the GSP.  I'm trying to arm people with more insight into how the program possibly operates.  You can do battle with your enemy much more effectively if you've got some idea how your enemy works.  

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    Many people are aware of how the programme operates, it is an opaque programme designed with PBI's and eBay' interests in mind that through contracts people are bound to how the programme operates and the only resolution if you disagree with how the programme operates is to terminate your eBay account and discontinue your use of the site permanantly, thus dissolving your business association with eBay and PBI.

    It is further a programme where as per the 'Indemnity' clause you are obliged while engaged with eBay as a user where you cannot launch a lawsuit or otherwise seek redress against eBay or any of its affiliates, including PBI. If an eBay user were to request an investigation into eBay's or PBI's operation of the GSP, eBay would be well within their authority as granted by the T&C's to terminate that consumer's user account without any appeal.

    It is further a programme where eBay and PBI can define terms under their own will and charge fees they see fit and name those fees whatever they wish.

    It is further a programme where PBI can use fancy legal terms to assign itself as the importer thus making it immune from being accountable to the purchasing consumer except where it allows itself to be accountable. This reads quite similar to how the US Government cannot be sued as an institution except when it allows itself to be sued.

   It is further a programme where computer-calculated figures go unchallenged and treated as if they're a word from a holy book and there's no way to get a person's review of these figures because the programme has automated people thinking for themselves out of the equation.

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I personally don't think the average Canada Border Services Agency employee gives a rat's about the term "import charges" being bandied about.  As long as they collect--directly or indirectly--the taxes and duty owing on an import, they're likely just going to continue about their business.

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    Terminology is important here as it means as long as eBay and PBI use terms not already etablished, they are permitted to include the words "Boogie man fee" in their terms and you'd be obliged to pay it if you use a programme that includes that fee. I would prefer to pay CBSA as at least I will get a sheet of paper with what is tax, what is duty. PBI on the other hand lumpsums everything into one fee that we are not allowed to dispute as per the T&C's and further blockades people from accountability with red tape in a statement that says pretty much "You assign us as the importer, we are the legal customer, not you, we owe you no information because we took care of everything, not you.".
 

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Remember, Pitney Bowes is acting as importer for the purposes of the GSP.  You can argue that the process under which it assumes this role is questionable, but that's not relevant here.  As far as CBSA is concerned, Pitney Bowes is charged the taxes and duty and that's from whom CBSA (or the Canada Revenue Agency) will be receiving these monies.

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    This does not dissolve PBI of complying with consumer protection norms, including providing adequate transparency. If anything, PBI is hiding behind that proxy importer title to soley avoid accountability as the purchasing consumer is disarmed by the T&C's from seeking that accountability since eBay and PBI as an eBay associate is made immutable by the T&C's. This is why the GSP needs challenge from an external authority to be determined fully if it is koshier with Canadian consumer norms, not just US norms that eBay and PBI operate under.
 

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A while back the eBay employee du jour relayed the information that what we're getting charged by Pitney Bowes is not the taxes and duty per se but an amount that goes toward taxes, duty and the other fees that make up "import charges" on a GSP purchase.  Carriers such as FedEx and UPS work in a similar fashion for items requiring brokerage.  They "advance" the taxes and duty due on an import and the importer reimburses the carrier for those fees.

Again, I'm not trying to make excuses for PBI or the GSP or defend its actions.  I'm just trying to clear what appears to be pretty muddied waters when it comes to figuring out how and why the GSP works as it does.

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    With common carriers, you get remitted taxation information and get a receipt that's useful outside of eBay. With the GSP, the receipt is only useful within eBay or PBI, again to prevent external accountability

    Very well - I accept that you are not making excuses, but at minimum, acknowledge these flaws and discuss the flaws with us, don't talk as if you're presenting facts to a court room, this is a discussion forum after all, we are your peers, not an audience.

[marnotom!]

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@kxeron wrote:

I accept that you are not making excuses, but at minimum, acknowledge these flaws and discuss the flaws with us, don't talk as if you're presenting facts to a court room, this is a discussion forum after all, we are your peers, not an audience.

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I'm trying to take a bigger picture view with the GSP.  My wife recently purchased something from the online arm of a U.S. clothing retailer and I now wish I'd hung onto it for a bit instead of running it through the shredder and recycling it, because it may have offered some clues as to how invoicing and receipts are handled by U.S. retailers who ship through intermediary services that appear to be similar to the Global Shipping Program.

While I can see that the invoicing may have been more transparent with my wife's purchase, I suspect that a lot of the sundry charges levied by the GSP would have been buried with the price of the items that she bought.  In addition, I doubt that the process of collecting and remitting taxes would have been much different, if at all.

example:  http://www.borderfree.com/consumer-terms

(If I can find the T&C of a service that has nothing to do with PBI, I'll be sure to let you know.)

So, unfortunately, I lack the evidence I'd like in order to be able to give a broader perspective on the GSP.  Are your objections to my posts due to the fact that I try to provide some evidence to back up what I'm saying in the context of the GSP and to point out weak or flawed reasoning?  These aren't qualities exclusive to a court room.  These are qualities that are part of reasoned discussion and debate.  If someone's going to complain about out of line import charges on an item, they should at least be able to provide the item number to back up what they're saying.  I guess my first year English prof at university left a few scars on me for his insistence that we need to support everything in a critique with evidence to support our claims.

[kxeron]

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@marnotom! wrote:

I'm trying to take a bigger picture view with the GSP.  My wife recently purchased something from the online arm of a U.S. clothing retailer and I now wish I'd hung onto it for a bit instead of running it through the shredder and recycling it, because it may have offered some clues as to how invoicing and receipts are handled by U.S. retailers who ship through intermediary services that appear to be similar to the Global Shipping Program.

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 Sometimes however, listing the big picture without attention to details like individual incidents of issues can lose perspective with those smaller picture elements. eBay and PBI themselves fell into that same trap where they believed that one application of the programme can be implementd as a blanket programme that in their beliefs matches all markets. This is what I fear you too are falling into the trap of which is what is likely disturbing various members of this community.

It's akin to determining a country's culture by looking at a world map, it doesn't work despite having a view of the world, though you can comment on how the Rocky Mountains look and what geographic events formed them.

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 While I can see that the invoicing may have been more transparent with my wife's purchase, I suspect that a lot of the sundry charges levied by the GSP would have been buried with the price of the items that she bought.  In addition, I doubt that the process of collecting and remitting taxes would have been much different, if at all.

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 However, if you start applying that logic to all purchases, it can lead to the view that "Ahh.. you don't need to know those numbers, it's only the total that matters". This view leads to an endgame where that view is applied to everything and accountability is no longer available. There's no such thing as too much information when it comes to accounting, but there is a definite possibility for too little information. I think I'd prefer information that's usable to me than information about "Import charges" that means just as much to me as a "Boogey man fee". I'd much prefer something using established terms like "duty", "tax", and "shipping costs" that have many decades of precident that have meaning to not just me but the law at large.

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 So, unfortunately, I lack the evidence I'd like in order to be able to give a broader perspective on the GSP.  Are your objections to my posts due to the fact that I try to provide some evidence to back up what I'm saying in the context of the GSP and to point out weak or flawed reasoning?  These aren't qualities exclusive to a court room.  These are qualities that are part of reasoned discussion and debate.  If someone's going to complain about out of line import charges on an item, they should at least be able to provide the item number to back up what they're saying.  I guess my first year English prof at university left a few scars on me for his insistence that we need to support everything in a critique with evidence to support our claims.

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My objections isn't toward your views, perhaps they are applicable in a macro "international" view, but how you are presenting your views that they seem to be talking in the macro, perhaps even construed by some as talking over their heads by presenting possible information dumps that in itself can be construed as providing a perspective of "Too bad, this is how it is, and here's the information from eBay/PBI that says 'too bad'." instead of relating to the individual's issues, acknowledging the issues and looking to verbally stand beside them in supporting them to navigate the programme or perhaps admitting that the programme may not be for them. It is essential to stand beside someone verbally in working out an issue rather than appearing to be accross the table from them as "another party".

The same problem of over-macroification has affected eBays views as well, all information in these threads has been condensed, threads have been merged regardless of after affects, everything is a statistic to eBay HQ.

I fear this is why the GSP will never change as eBay HQ will only see "People unhappy with GSP: +1" and not "This is what should be improved".

[racyug4life]

The thing that frustrates the hell out of me, is my shipping quote from the seller is to my address.  I paid $25 to ship an item under 1lb, which only travelled a short distance.  Then another $17 in "import charges".  To make things even worse, the seller used my Canadian address to calculate the shipping, then when he received my paypal payment, my address was for a place not far from him, in THE US!!!  When I emailed to ask why he shipped it there, he said that was the address that came with my payment.  This is just a money grab....if customs chooses to charge import fees/taxes, I am fine with that, i'll roll the dice on that when I make the purchase...however I have purchased thousands of dollars worth of goods on ebay, and maybe only once or twice payed any duty on an item.  This GSP is complete B.S. and going to drive a lot of Canadian and international customers away!!

[racyug4life]

Ha....my seller didn't even know what it was!!!!

[pjcdn2005]

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@moncsicsi13 wrote:

I just seen a  other coat from ebcollection seller. the coat is $52 and a import charge is $116.83

and a 1 sweater is $20 and a import charge is $20. and a other fur is $29 and import charge is $81.92 ID;161215950573

 Those charges are jokes!!

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All of those items are auction items with a buy it now price which means that the import fee that you see if based on the buy it now price. If the item actually sells for less the import fees will be less.

[pjcdn2005]

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@racyug4life wrote:

The thing that frustrates the hell out of me, is my shipping quote from the seller is to my address.  I paid $25 to ship an item under 1lb, which only travelled a short distance.  Then another $17 in "import charges".  To make things even worse, the seller used my Canadian address to calculate the shipping, then when he received my paypal payment, my address was for a place not far from him, in THE US!!!  When I emailed to ask why he shipped it there, he said that was the address that came with my payment.  This is just a money grab....if customs chooses to charge import fees/taxes, I am fine with that, i'll roll the dice on that when I make the purchase...however I have purchased thousands of dollars worth of goods on ebay, and maybe only once or twice payed any duty on an item.  This GSP is complete B.S. and going to drive a lot of Canadian and international customers away!!

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The seller only charges for shipping to Kentucky and Pitney Bowes charges for shipping from Kentucky to your location. When you see the shipping charge fee that includes the domestic and international portion. In many cases, the seller has free shipping in the U.S. so you are just paying for the international portion.

The import fees includes taxes, duty when applicable and a brokerage/handling fee.

[arlene_v]

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@marnotom! wrote:

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@arlene_v wrote:

Right. Well let's use these two examples to illustrate this.

Check out the significant difference in shipping and import charges for the same BIN price between two sellers of vintage Pyrex dishes. . . . So in the first example the seller has listed the item in such a way that these dishes are attracting duty, even though they are made in the USA ...and also the shipping is way higher.

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Did you notice why the shipping is "way higher" in the first example?  The first seller charges US$11.35 to ship the item domestically, while the second seller offers "free" domestic shipping.  That $11.35 gets added to the GSP's own shipping charge because the buyer has to cover both the U.S. and non-U.S. legs of the item's transit.

Buyers willing to do a bit of research can get some GSP items shipped to them relatively inexpensively.  Of course, there's the matter of the import charges, as well. . . .

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Hi Marno,

Yes, I mentioned the lower shipping costs in the second listing in the next paragraph, where I specifically state ."In the second example ...  the free US shipping gets it to the depot in Kentucky gratis for the buyer resulting in lower shipping costs."

A big part of the problem with the GSP for buyers is that similar results for similarly priced  items are all over the place .... most casual shoppers on a site don't have the time, nor the inclination to spend hours poring over items trying to figure out why x listing is cheaper than Y listing .... so they tend to get very fed up and lose patience.  Especially when the general and overwhelming trend is that these associated costs make items far more expensive than they were historically on this site. 

This is especially true when it comes to shipping costs and "import duties" that are never spelled out. 

We are designed to find patterns in things..... and there is no clear pattern in similar  listings under this program

The approach on the PBI blog re international shipping is a classic example of the annoying infantalism  corporate American adopts in a lot of  advertising these days.  

And yet the irony is that this simplistic "fix it all" approach in the case of the GSP  has lead to a complex, unwieldy,  program that is completely buyer unfriendly.

Doesn't make for a good shopping experience, as this thread shows!  

[arlene_v]

If I'm going to be using words like infantilism I'd better get the spelling right!!!!! 

I also want to add this: I greatly appreciate all the different views on this thread ...debate is good and it would be very dull indeed if we all agreed with each other on each and every point.

I have learned a great deal here being challenged on certain assumptions .... it is good to argue logically and respectfully, and to never stop learning.  

[rick31797]

The person here that ask a US seller to ship USPS instead of GSP, and by dropping the GSP the Seller charged her 50.00 shipping instead of 30.00... What does dropping the GSP have to do with increasing the shipping..I would have told them to shove it.....

I just ask a seller if he would drop the GSP, he said this ..

Thank you for your question. We only use the Global Shipping Program for
international shipments. If you know someone in the US you can change the
Ship To address and it will be a domestic shipment and then they can ship
it to you. We do appreciate your interest.

[domecreeke]

What a "SCAM." The Global shipping program charges taxes, brokerage costs etc.,etc.,etc.

The Shipping to Canada (Alberta)  - the only cost coming through the United States Postal Service is that we would get charged (on an occasional basis) the 5% GST Tax. and usually nothing on items less than $50.00. Brokerage fees when items were shipped through the US Postal service were unheard of. For example, there is an item we would order from a California supplier every three months through ebay but since this Global Shipping program started we have ceased purchasing from this ebay supplier as brokerage costs are now brought into play. What brokerage costs. Who is the broker and do they actually remit all these collected charges to the Canadian government ???????? This is something that Revenue Canada should investigate .

So we have now dried up our ebay purchases from any ebay seller who is a participant in the Global Shipping program. At one time it was a fairly "simple'" procedure to buy a product from an ebay program, Not anymore. Greed has taken the fun out of buying from ebay sellers.

[domecreeke]

Agreed - we have stopped buying from any ebay seller who utilizes the Global Shipping Program.

[walker0017]

I was reading on the eBay.com site boards and came across a thread about PB being investigated by the German government for tax fraud concerning the GSP. There are complaints about buyers being charged taxes and duty twice for their purchases, the first time by eBay the second when they have to pick up their package by their customs service. I thought that was a bit odd until I came across a statement in the GSP T&C for buyers, it states the following:

Paragraph 3 i. Exclusions. You alone are responsible for any customs duties, taxes, surcharges, fines, penalties, or other charges which may be imposed on you by customs or tax officials after a GSP Item has successfully cleared customs and been delivered to (or made available for pickup at) the delivery address specified by you.

That tells me that any buyer can be hit with a double tax and/or duty charge and not only is it is too bad for us but there is no method or compensation open to us. Do we know if anyone in Canada has been hit twice by this here?

[marnotom!]

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@arlene_v wrote:

A big part of the problem with the GSP for buyers is that similar results for similarly priced  items are all over the place .... most casual shoppers on a site don't have the time, nor the inclination to spend hours poring over items trying to figure out why x listing is cheaper than Y listing .... so they tend to get very fed up and lose patience.  Especially when the general and overwhelming trend is that these associated costs make items far more expensive than they were historically on this site. 

This is especially true when it comes to shipping costs and "import duties" that are never spelled out. 

We are designed to find patterns in things..... and there is no clear pattern in similar  listings under this program

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I think that, once again, it all comes down to sellers not using the "Item Specifics" section of the listing.  There are still a number of sellers on eBay.com who don't weigh their items and rely on flat-rate packaging to ship their merchandise domestically.  If they don't provide an accurate weight (or even bother to) for the shipment, that's likely going to affect the shipping rate that the GSP calculates.

[marnotom!]

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@kxeron wrote:

I fear this is why the GSP will never change as eBay HQ will only see "People unhappy with GSP: +1" and not "This is what should be improved".

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Unfortunately, the bulk of the complaints about the GSP seem to be that it's charging taxes and duty while items sent by post don't get charged taxes and duty even though they're subject to those charges.  And there's no way of getting around that.

It's compounded that many of those posting aren't up on how or why taxes/duty are levied on personal imports.  We just got a post where it's suggested that the threshold is $50 (not $20) and no mention is made of Canada Post's ten buck processing charge.

Actual suggestions on how eBay and Pitney Bowes can encourage sellers to ship to Canada without breaking Canadian's wallets or driving away sellers have been pretty thin compared to the number of complaints.

For what it's worth, here's how "the other site" does it.  The importer places a deposit, which is refundable if the deposit is larger than the fees actually levied, and receipts can be requested from the carrier concerned.  So, it is doable.  The question is:  at what cost to the importer?

And how would the typical eBay buyer react to the idea of a "deposit"?

[marnotom!]

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@rick31797 wrote:

The person here that ask a US seller to ship USPS instead of GSP, and by dropping the GSP the Seller charged her 50.00 shipping instead of 30.00... What does dropping the GSP have to do with increasing the shipping..I would have told them to shove it.....

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As I've pointed out elsewhere, sometimes the GSP works out to be a relatively good deal in the shipping cost department, particularly if the seller offers "free" domestic shipping.

Having said that, the seller may not have chose the best shipping method for the item.  When I had more patience and energy to make requests like that of "ships to: US" sellers, I would specifically stated the shipping method I was interested in, i.e. First Class International.  Some sellers aren't aware that at four pounds, the weight limit for First Class International is considerably higher than domestic First Class.

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@rick31797 wrote:

I just ask a seller if he would drop the GSP, he said this ..

Thank you for your question. We only use the Global Shipping Program for
international shipments. If you know someone in the US you can change the
Ship To address and it will be a domestic shipment and then they can ship
it to you. We do appreciate your interest.

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Does this surprise you?