@marnotom! wrote:
Last I checked, this thread was a collection of comments about the Global Shipping Program, which go beyond a campaign to take it to the media.
Comments that are at best being converted into numbers of "who's unhappy" and "who's happy" for statistical purposes to be used at meaningless meetings, where any suggestions listed in this thread to improve the programme are ignored by PBI's management (while hiding behind eBay). The only alternative I see is to seek assistance through other means to get questions not speculated upon or sprinkled with feel-good PR boilerplate of "we take your concerns very seriously", but authoritatively and clearly answered.
You, I, and practically everyone on these forums can only speculate about the programme's full administration and operation beyond the advertising, FAQs and T&C's littered around, we can also only speculate on whether this is healthy for Canadian consumers or not from our own personal experiences and viewpoints.
Even the eBay employees that go through these forums have to constantly talk to the "GSP Team" who seems to not be interested in coming to these forums themselves to answer questions and clear the record for once and for all and accept the input from the userbase as not statistics, but fact that consumers are indeed dissatisfied and accept the reasons that have been repeated for more than 2000 posts now and hundreds, potentially thousands on other forums across the Internet.
It is time to cut to the chase.
I'm still wondering how the possibility of media attention leading to all items with declared values of above $20 being assessed and charged appropriate taxes and duties is so earth-shatteringly terrible.
It's not terrible and I'd pay if requested by our (the Canadian) government, though paying through a foreign company who has no accountability to our government whatsoever and would hang me out to dry at the drop of a hat is however is "earth-shatteringly" terrible. Why?
The reason I say this is that eBay and PBI both have measures in their agreements that absolve them of any disputes AND that the "Import Charges" is a meaningless term to the average consumer and I have no legal proof to submit to customs (duty) or the CRA (tax) in the event they fail to get paid to their satisfaction by PBI.
Why should I have to make money leave the Canadian economy to an unaccountable party to pay Canadian taxes? It doesn't make sense.
The programme on the side of the consumer is too complex and bureaucratic to be healthy when laid on top of existing legal structures that have existed for centuries before the parents of the founders of eBay and PBI were even born. I'm not one to cart around tradition, however the principle remains — people know how to pay traditionally for duty and tax, the processes are laid out and well known (pay on delivery or go to the customs office). There are mechanisms to dispute incorrect assessments (which the GSP lacks).
How about we keep this simple and not add more layers of abstraction onto logistics that confuse and disorient consumers? Logistics is already impossibly complex with millions of packages flying though hundreds of interoperating systems per day, one cog in the logistics chain breaks and a package may go missing or become damaged. PBI is inserting more cogs that may and have failed into that system and try to "keep the problem on eBay" through those reimbursements so that consumers won't truly hold them to account.
The more hands a package goes through the higher the chance it will get damaged, destroyed or lost and the higher chance some paperwork won't get properly done.
The GSP is hostile to simplicity for consumers despite how simple it seems it may make selling. Why? In combination with the above, the legal onus if anything goes wrong is always upon the importer, eBay, PBI and the sellers can walk away without a scratch from any GSP issue.
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