eBay

lewislewis9999 · ‎04-03-2014

its bad enough that shipping is through the roof due to greed and self protection but import fees? i will never buy from anyone charging them upfront. there is always another way to find it somewhere.

butemandavid · ‎04-03-2014

I completely agree with you but as you know there are all kinds of sellers on e-bay determined to squeeze the last friggin cent out of you that they can.

Shipping ,,, oh yeah ,,, might as well bend over there but you can get through the maze as I have done on numerous occasions.

Simply this, if I am interested in buying any type of item( s ) from the US. my process is this, if they won't ship it via USPS then I won't buy and that is final.

There has been sellers that had product I was interested in who do not ship via USPS. I would contact them, tell them I was interested but only if they would ship USPS and most of them would.

Another issue that has me quite upset is the exchange rate, at this time I have contacted a company in Toronto that I recently purchased a telephoto lens from.

The price was in US funds no problem there, the transaction was through " Pay Pal " who I always use. I'm charged $ 7.12 over the nominal exchange rate. I've asked ( actually demanded ) an explanation. And of course this is not the first time I've been screwed on the exchange rate and screwed is the correct term. No question I'm not alone ,, I wonder what other Canadians do about excessive exchange rates when purchasing items from the U.S. on e-bay ?

marnotom! · ‎04-03-2014

Sellers don't charge "import fees". An intermediary service acting on behalf of both the buyer and seller does. Click on the link for more information on the next listing you find where there are import charges. Or just read some of the two threads on the Global Shipping Program that are on this board.

As far as PayPal's exchange rate goes, assuming by "nominal exchange rate" you mean "market exchange rate," as an average Joe I've never been able to get that sort of exchange rate from anybody. My credit card issuer's exchange rates, once various internal commissions and fees are factored in, are actually even less favourable than PayPal's, which generally aren't too far out from what my credit unions offer.

What eBay displays on listing pages is an approximate converted price based on the midpoint between market "buy" and "sell" rates for a particular currency.

femmefan1946 · ‎04-03-2014

Simply this, if I am interested in buying any type of item( s ) from the US. my process is this, if they won't ship it via USPS then I won't buy and that is final.

I agree on this, although my one and only GPS purchase was actually the cheapest total of all the identical products offered on eBay and Amazon. And that was in spite of the seller using it for a $40 item although eBay does not encourage using GPS for items under $50 USD.

For a better understanding of exchange rates, look at these sites:

http://www.xe.com/

http://www.rbcroyalbank.com/cgi-bin/travel/currency-converter.pl

http://www.accu-rate.ca/rates.php?currency=USD