eBay

youareshy0 · ‎10-25-2017

Hi ebay i recently brought an item and now my post office is asking me to pay for custom fees. The invoice the seller sent me only include item cost and shipping. it did not say i had to pay additional fees. What can i do?

marnotom! · ‎10-25-2017

Pay them or lose the item.

Tax and duty are supposedly assessed and charged on items sent by mail or courier with a declared value of over C$20 (generally speaking). Quite often, the ones that go through the mail get a free pass.

If you receive your item and find that Canada Border Services messed up, or your seller misstated the item's declared value, you can contest the charges afterwards.

By the way, listing pages on the desktop version of eBay do have cautionary notes that customs fees could be applied to the item and it's the buyer's responsibility to pay them. Unless I've missed it, these notes aren't on the eBay mobile site.

femmefan1946 · ‎10-25-2017

EBay used to encourage sellers who shipped internationally to add this boilerplate to their listings.

Import duties, taxes and charges are not included in the item price or shipping charges. These charges are the buyer's responsibility. Please check with your country's customs office to determine what these additional costs will be prior to bidding/buying.

If you stop and think about it, there are over 178 countries in the United Nations. How would any seller know what to charge a buyer in any one of 178 countries?

You can pay the duty and (mostly) Sales Tax (plus a service charge/ customs brokerage fee to the shipper that ranges from $9.95 for Canada Post to $25 or more for a courier.

When importing expensive and/or bulky items purchased on eBay, there is something to be said for using sellers who are enrolled in the Global Shipping Program, which will charge import fees to cover those costs before the seller is even instructed to ship.

youareshy0 · ‎10-25-2017

What if the seller did not tell me he was using the Global Shipping Program and was not stated in the invoice?

marnotom! · ‎10-25-2017

A seller doesn't need to tell you that they're using the Global Shipping Program. That information is plastered all over the listing page by eBay.

Taxes and duty are pre-paid on your behalf by Pitney Bowes Inc. (administrator of the GSP) and you'd reimburse PBI at the time you paid for your item. You'd see a line item for "import charges" that's made up of the estimate PBI made of the taxes, duty and customs processing fees due. (NB: On some occasions, "import charges" may be added to a GSP -forwarded item's shipping charge.)

A seller cannot switch from one shipping method to the GSP after a sale has been made. Pitney Bowes won't have the necessary information to process the sale. (Or your money, for that matter.) A GSP-forwarded item should not have import charges due upon receipt.

Here's a link to further information that I should have added to my earlier post:

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

wingnut*12 · ‎10-25-2017

I recently purchased a model train from the U.K , for around $150 .00 , and on arrival had to pay a fee of $30.00 + to retrieve it from Canada Post . The fee was for customs and related to GST / HST from customs . As I understand , purchases of up to $400.00 are exempt from this form of piracy at customs , and having paid for a purchase out of the U.K , how are they able to charge GST when it was not in Canada . Something needs to be sorted out here as we as small time collectors are being double dipped on . Next election should be a good time to show our displeasure .

ypdc_dennis · ‎10-25-2017

@youareshy0 wrote:
What if the seller did not tell me he was using the Global Shipping Program and was not stated in the invoice?

If the seller was really using GSP the post office would not be asking for duty/taxes/handling fee.

GSP is charged separately at the time you buy and goes to Pitney-Bowes (who run GSP) who handle any import fees, so you do not pay anything extra on arrival. GSP is only available for USA and UK sellers.

...

Buy from Canadian sellers who ship from Canada if you want to avoid import cost surprises.

-..-

ypdc_dennis · ‎10-25-2017

@wingnut*12 wrote:
I recently purchased a model train from the U.K , for around $150 .00 , and on arrival had to pay a fee of $30.00 + to retrieve it from Canada Post . The fee was for customs and related to GST / HST from customs . As I understand , purchases of up to $400.00 are exempt from this form of piracy at customs , and having paid for a purchase out of the U.K , how are they able to charge GST when it was not in Canada .

Canada's mail import free limit is $20. (and has been since the 1980's).

GST/HST and duty is to be collected on most imports into Canada. Your purchase sounds like 13%+$9.95 handling fee. The item is in Canada at the delivery point.

There is no "double" tax unless the seller said they were shipping via the Global Shipping Program (taxes collected) and then did not (and you were charged taxes on arrival) -- in which case you ask for a refund of your GSP payment.

...

Stuff send via the post office is often not accessed taxes, the tax/duty laws are ignored for the small stuff -- one report I saw said only 3% of items sent through the post office and worth $50 or under are actually charged. Courier companies on the other hand, almost always collect.

-..-

femmefan1946 · ‎10-25-2017

Next election should be a good time to show our displeasure .

You don't have to wait that long.

You can write to your MP and encourage her to work on getting the $20 duty free limit on postal imports raised.

You don't even need to stamp the envelope, just mark it OHMS.

The address is :

Member's Name, MP

House of Commons

OTTAWA ON K1A 0A6

If your MP is on one of the financial committees, all the better.

zank60 · ‎10-26-2017

$9.95 handling fee is a lot of money for a value of $20 or more, I have received two items with a value of $25 each and I had to pay the duty free for both.

reallynicestamps · ‎10-26-2017

It's a set fee for service.

The labour involved is the same for a $25 item as for a $2500 item.

DH recently carried an item valued over $250K through customs and the paperwork took about ten minutes. The conversation afterwards with the agents took longer. (They wanted to see the stamp, which had both monetary and historical interest.)

If the items you mention went by Canada Post they were among the 3% or so of low value items assessed by CBSA . Usually they ignore low value items. Were they bulky ? That can catch the CBSA eye.

They probably were duty-free by the way. Not only are there few duties on most items with the spread of Free Trade, but the duty on most items is a few percent. What you were charged was most likely Sales Tax*, which ranges from 5% to 15% depending on your province.

*GST/PST/QST/HST

amcdc79 · ‎11-03-2017

It would seem that CBSA is clamping down on items coming into Canada.

My Daughter just received two CD's from the States, valued @ $10 & $12USD w/shipping @ $12, had to pay the $9.95 plus PST&GST, total came to $12.40CDN. Having tracking, and signature on it, might have garnered the extra attention, who knows?

I guess their thinking is, "if we have to check every package for drugs, might as well charge the Taxes/Duty if there is any to be paid"

Could be a huge money maker for CPC if they charge an extra $9.95 for almost all parcels coming into Canada, especially China.

marnotom! · ‎11-03-2017

@amcdc79 wrote:

Could be a huge money maker for CPC if they charge an extra $9.95 for almost all parcels coming into Canada, especially China.

I suspect that Canada Post is barely covering its costs, if at all, for collecting and remitting taxes/duty due to CBSA and CRA.

reallynicestamps · ‎11-03-2017

The officers are unionized and make a living wage.

https://www.glassdoor.ca/Salary/Canada-Border-Services-Agency-Salaries-E107408.htm

That $30 an hour for a border officer is about $60,000 annually. Like all public servants, they also have a good health plan and a decent pension.

If you watch Border Security, you will see what they do for their money.

marnotom! · ‎11-04-2017

@reallynicestamps wrote:

The officers are unionized and make a living wage.

https://www.glassdoor.ca/Salary/Canada-Border-Services-Agency-Salaries-E107408.htm

That $30 an hour for a border officer is about $60,000 annually. Like all public servants, they also have a good health plan and a decent pension.

If you watch Border Security, you will see what they do for their money.

No quibbles with any of that, but my understanding is that the C$9.95 processing fee levied by Canada Post is just that: levied by Canada Post to defray the costs involved in collecting and forwarding the monies they collect on behalf of CBSA, not to mention processing the paperwork that CBSA throws its way.

CBSA officers do the inspection, assessment and paperwork associated with postal imports as part of their job descriptions and don't need to charge anything extra for this work, unlike couriers who may have this work contracted out anyway.

amcdc79 · ‎11-08-2017

If the CBSA officers do all the work, what do CPC employees do extra to earn/charge the $9.95 plus 50 cents GST?

No different than the Pizza delivery guy. Yes, there may be a delivery charge($2-3) for the pizza, but if you tipped him the same amount as CPC charges($10.45), I would think he would be a very happy person.

If no one is home, then the buyer has to go the next day to the PO to pick it up, where they will have to pay whatever the amount outstanding is.

I don't mind paying the taxes on items over the limit, but I can't believe that I'm saying the GSP is looking better all the time now.

marnotom! · ‎11-08-2017

@amcdc79 wrote:

If the CBSA officers do all the work, what do CPC employees do extra to earn/charge the $9.95 plus 50 cents GST?

No different than the Pizza delivery guy. Yes, there may be a delivery charge($2-3) for the pizza, but if you tipped him the same amount as CPC charges($10.45), I would think he would be a very happy person.

If no one is home, then the buyer has to go the next day to the PO to pick it up, where they will have to pay whatever the amount outstanding is.

I think what we have to consider is that it's more than just a "pizza guy" we're talking about.

The letter carrier has to collect the tax at the door, ensure the paperwork gets back to wherever and whomever they're supposed to take it, and then from there yet another human has to make sure that paperwork gets back to CBSA. If the item ends up having to be picked up by the recipient at a post office or outlet, then it becomes yet another human's job to collect the tax and remit the paperwork, and in the case of the item ending up at a postal outlet the franchisee probably gets a very small cut of that ten bucks for doing this.

The way I see it, you're not paying for a "pizza guy"; you're paying for a process that isn't very efficient, but probably can't be made much more efficient.

mcrlmn · ‎11-08-2017

Buy from CDN sellers.

If you must buy U.S., keep the total transaction under $20 CDN.

I learned the hard way also.

marnotom! · ‎11-09-2017

@mcrlmn wrote:

Buy from CDN sellers.
If you must buy U.S., keep the total transaction under $20 CDN.

Though I think it's important to keep in mind that some Canadian sellers charge and collect GST/HST/PST, the same taxes that would apply to a purchase from the United States (or any other country). Duties (if applicable) would be already factored into the item cost for an item purchased from a Canadian seller, however.