Unfortunately, buried in the Global Shipping Program's Buyer User Agreement, is some fine print that says that the buyer will be completely responsible for any additional fees that may be charged when the item is delivered.
It is really too bad that the Global Shipping Program is being pushed very hard onto inexperienced sellers on eBay.com. They don't know what they are doing with international shipping, so they have no way to know how outrageously expensive this program is, or how unfair it is for the buyers, until their buyers start complaining, and at that point, they are now finding out that once they have "opted in" to the GSP, there is no way to "opt out". All they can do is disable the GSP on every, individual listing they make.
The import fees are sent directly to the GSP contractor (Pitney Bowes).The seller doesn't receive any of them, and doesn't even have any good way to find out how much their buyers are being charged. IMO, it is not fair to pressure the seller about refunding them, but as a buyer, I would never purchase anything that used the GSP. I would message the seller and let them know that you would like to buy the item if they would remove the GSP or relist without it.
You can tell which ebay.com listings use GSP becuase there will be an "Import Fee" column shown on the Shipping & Handling tab. FYI, if you don't see the amount in the Import Fee column, then you should view the listing on eBay.com. I have heard that some Canadian buyers just see that the costs will be provided on checkout. You just need to change the ".ca" in the URL to ".com" and then press Enter. The import fees have always been shown in the Shipping and Handling tabon all listings I have checked on eBay.com..
