Canada Post will start charging PayPal Shipping customers for any underpaid postage.

[jt-libra]

I noticed this statement on PayPal this morning:

"Starting Dec 1, 2016, Canada Post will start charging PayPal Shipping customers for any underpaid postage. Be sure to fill out your shipping labels accurately to avoid shipping disruptions that can result from owing underpaid postage."

I don't understand this statement.

Has Canada Post, up until now, not looked at shipping labels on parcels they have processed?  Are they now going to examine each and every label?  How do they intend to monitor this?

(Late night watching the election results, so maybe my brain isn't working that well this morning )

[tobyshitzu]

They pass through a cubiscan machine as they go down a conveyor that weighs and measures them and compares it to the barcode.  This is nothing new, Lee valley tools getting extra charges is what their class action suite was about years ago  They've always intended to charge people for underpaid postage or retunr to sender saped thigsg that they can't..  The only suprising thing about that annoucnement is they apparently haven't been with paypal.   

[momcqueen]

Interesting. https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.thestar.com/amp/business/2013/08/21/canada_post_offers_5_million_to_...

[tobyshitzu]

I got $180 from that as most of the small volume shippers that qualified didn't bother to fill out the form.  It had been estimated to be only  $10 each

[momcqueen]

I knew nothing of it until this moment.

[i.am.vivian]

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@mjwl2006 wrote:
Interesting. https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.thestar.com/amp/business/2013/08/21/canada_post_offers_5_million_to_...

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Very. 

"when customers made a mistake in calculating the weight, Canada Post would not correct it, if it favoured the post office."

" if a shipper under-calculated the weight, it was corrected, but if the shipper over-calculated the weight, it was not corrected."

[jt-libra]

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@mjwl2006 wrote:
I knew nothing of it until this moment.

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Me neither.  Thanks for the article, Toby!

[whatchamacallit.ss]

Just noticed this message in PayPal:

"Starting Jan 4, 2017, Canada Post will start charging PayPal Shipping customers for any underpaid postage. Be sure to fill out your shipping labels accurately to avoid shipping disruptions that can result from owing underpaid postage."

So not sure what is going on. First it was Nov 1, now Dec 1, now Jan 4. Good thing too. I've been using the trick of weighing myself and then weighing myself holding the package, so this gives me more time to source a decent weight scale to get accurate weights.

Does anyone have any experience with this:

Thanks.

[pjcdn2005]

I remember that being discussed on the board.  I also remember this....

"It also promises that no later than two years from the date of the tentative settlement, being approved by a court, it will end the practice of charging based on volumetric weights."

Since that was wriitten in August 2013, they must have decided against changing that

[momcqueen]

Try this thread for discussion around good value on kitchen scales to repurpose for postage:

http://community.ebay.ca/t5/Seller-Central/Anyone-using-new-shipping-module-on-ebay-ca/m-p/353438/hi...

[momcqueen]

Personally, I wouldn't bother with a 'postage' scale. My little kitchen scale is compact and works well. Plus, I'm not certain how easy or affordable it is to find postage scales that are integrated with Canada Post. If they are proprietary, the USPS version you linked to would have limited use. Plus, you'd want to find it on eBay, right?