How do I protect myself against customs charges?

[phvlad]

Forgive my ignorance if my frustration is simply caused by a lack of understanding of the system, I've browsed Ebay for years but only made a handful transactions. I recently searched for a product and specifically trimmed the results by "seller location" (among other criteria) to be limited to North American sellers. Then I further looked at each result to learn more about each seller and the item I selected clearly said (I'm looking at it right now) 

"Item location: Amazon, United States"

Now the package comes, I have $25 of customs charges to pay, and I look up the tracking and sure enough, it left from China a week ago.

What am I supposed to do to protect myself? I filtered my results, I read the item description, and in the end this $40 product will end up costing me $75 anyway.

[karl*katz]

Buy items located in Canada

[pjcdn2005]

In the description of the listing it states that order from the U.S. will be sent from within the U.S. and orders from Canada will be sent from China. But I agree that in their item location field, they are being misleading for everyone but American buyers. You could report the listing although that wouldn't help your situation.

Usually an item of that value will not be assessed anything for customs if sent by through the mail system. But if it was sent by courier and the item was made in China, you would be charged for duty etc regardless if it was shipped from the U.S. or China. The listing just gives a generic shipping method so there was no way of knowing how it would be sent.

I'm sorry that this happened. All you can really do is to complain to the seller although they are no obligated to refund you the brokerage and tax/duty charges.

[marnotom! · Accepted solution]

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@phvlad wrote:

Forgive my ignorance if my frustration is simply caused by a lack of understanding of the system, I've browsed Ebay for years but only made a handful transactions. I recently searched for a product and specifically trimmed the results by "seller location" (among other criteria) to be limited to North American sellers. Then I further looked at each result to learn more about each seller and the item I selected clearly said (I'm looking at it right now) 

"Item location: Amazon, United States"

Now the package comes, I have $25 of customs charges to pay, and I look up the tracking and sure enough, it left from China a week ago.

What am I supposed to do to protect myself? I filtered my results, I read the item description, and in the end this $40 product will end up costing me $75 anyway.

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In theory, any item that you import by mail or similar carrier with a declared value of over C$20 is subject to charges of taxes (HST/GST/PST, etc.) and duty, the same taxes and duty you'd be paying directly or indirectly if you purchased the item from a Canadian merchant registered to collect and remit those charges.

http://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/import/postal-postale/duty-droits-eng.html

The rub is that Canada Border Services doesn't always assess and collect taxes/duty owing on mailed items above the C$20 threshold (for various reasons related to efficiency), but items sent by means other than the mail are always hit with these charges and usually a bit to a lot on top of that in processing charges.  (Items sent by mail are subject to a C$9.95 processing charge by Canada Post.)

Long story short, even if your item had shipped from the United States there's a chance that it could have been hit with a charge for taxes and duty.

As suggested in Karl*Katz' post, if you don't want to pay "customs charges," buy items from Canadian sellers that don't charge the same sales taxes that are collected by customs.  If you do buy from outside of Canada, make sure your shipments have declared values of below C$20.

[femmefan1946]

Don't buy anything valued over $20 CDN.

Buy Canadian.

[femmefan1946]

and the item I selected clearly said (I'm looking at it right now) 

"Item location: Amazon, United States"

Sounds like this seller is buying on Amazon when he gets an order and having it shipped directly to his customer.

Keep us up to date. I'll make the popcorn.

[phvlad]

I appreciate all the feedback. I knew I wasn't really up to snuff in my understanding of what exactly triggers the duties but you guys did a great job of clearing that up.

The bottom line, though, is what I expected; limit myself to Canadian sellers. A shame, really... you would think there would be more opportunity for free trade between U.S. vendors and Canadian consumers, especially for such small amounts. Not having access to the American vendors seriously limits Ebay's value to me as a consumer...

[marnotom!]

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@phvlad wrote:

The bottom line, though, is what I expected; limit myself to Canadian sellers. A shame, really... you would think there would be more opportunity for free trade between U.S. vendors and Canadian consumers, especially for such small amounts. Not having access to the American vendors seriously limits Ebay's value to me as a consumer...

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Keep in mind that what you're paying the government(s) is the same taxes you'd pay if you purchased the item from a Canadian retailer registered to collect those taxes.  In the case of an item not manufactured in a "free trade" country, you might also be indirectly paying that retailer "back" for the duty they (or their supplier) were charged when they imported the item themselves, as duty is factored into the item's pre-tax costs.

Free trade is about reducing or eliminating duty, not taxes.  That's why we still pay GST/HST/PST, etc. on items made in the United States or Mexico.

Taxing personal imports is--in theory--an attempt to level the playing field between Canadian merchants and sellers of merchandise located outside of Canada.  As you've likely discovered from other purchases, it's a practice that's not terribly consistently applied to items sent by mail.