eBay duties on Swiss Watches are horribly wrong

[blackorange34]

Preface: Ive bought numerous swiss made watches (new or old and from authorized dealers) for years now.

Decided to check eBay for a Marathon Made Watch (Made in Switzerland)

What is this duty rate? It's 5% for Switzerland to Canada on Watch imports.

Duties on this should be at most $50 at 5% of 1000. $180 is nearing 5% of $3700 valued item.

I don't need some bs excuse from ebay saying "Well, part of that has handling" HAHAHA so you decided to add 13% handling? Yeah I'm not buying anything off eBay anymore. These duties are hilarious.

I've double checked the tariff rates at https://www.tariffinder.ca/en/getStarted

Good to know that eBay is scamming buyers.

[pjcdn2005]

Oops! deleted my post

[marnotom!]

It's tricky to work with your screengrab as I can only see a thumbnail about the size of a postage stamp that crops the image awkwardly.  I generally use the "insert photos" function to add images to my posts.

I checked a few listings for "Marathon Made Watch" and the duty calculation seems to be based on 5% of the selling price, so my conclusion is that the seller for the particular item you've found is providing eBay with some garbage info in the "Item Specifics" section of the listing that's throwing off the eBay calculator.  Perhaps they didn't correctly note the watch's country of manufacture or the style of the watch, for example.

An estimate for duty should be right on the listing page, @blackorange34.  Are you seeing that same US$180 figure on the listing page?

[flipistics]

13% sounds a lot like tax being applied.

[blackorange34]

See picture below. I added this item to check out and went to check out, right at the "CONFIRM AND PAY" screen https://www.ebay.ca/itm/145693804073 I wonder how many times I've been gouged for duties for no reason now from buying other items. I've lost all trust in eBay now.  I've also attached a recent duty reciept from FedEx for a purchase at Chrono24.ca, it was a Swiss Watch as well.

EBAY

$1,000 USD For item

$58.59 for shipping

$ 61.93 for GST

$ 180 for Duties

FedEx Duty reicept for another purchase, everything was declared at full value ($2600 CAD watch)

Anyways, eBay is so bad. The watch community doesn't really recommend it for numerous reasons and this is the last nail. The funny thing too is that Marathon Watch is from a Canadian Company, I highly suspect it already entered Canada once and then into the US. This is just double dipping duty but thats another point and off topic.

[flipistics]

That's weird. All the other watches I took a look around the same price range seem to be much lower for duties while also going through eIS. I wonder if something is being picked up with regards to it being a diving watch and causing it to be miscategorized?

[marnotom!]

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@blackorange34 wrote:

See picture below. I added this item to check out and went to check out, right at the "CONFIRM AND PAY" screen https://www.ebay.ca/itm/145693804073.

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And see this listing by an authorized Marathon dealer.  You should be able to see the duty calculation right on the listing page, and it's showing up as 5% for me:

https://www.ebay.ca/itm/186127561240

Compare the "Item Specifics" section for both listings.  They have some differences.  The one from the dealer states that it comes with papers, but the listing you found doesn't.  And following @flipistics' suggestion that the type of watch may be a factor, note that the one that isn't from the dealer is simply described as a "wristwatch" while the one from the dealer specifies that it's a "Military / Diving" timepiece.

The duty calculation is only as good as the information provided by the seller.  As @flipistics suggests, there's some differences in the information on each timepiece stated in the Item Specifics that's led to the duty calculator coming up with the calculations that it has.  The examples I found may be what's responsible, they may not.  You're the expert here, @blackorange34, so maybe you can figure it out.

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@blackorange34 wrote:

Anyways, eBay is so bad. The watch community doesn't really recommend it for numerous reasons and this is the last nail. 

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eBay isn't so bad if you know how to use it to your advantage and that you appreciate that the sellers on here vary wildly in their knowledge and competence, just like in the "real world."  Some US sellers really don't give a rat's backside about shipping internationally and it shows in how their listings present to non-US buyers, if they even bother having some sort of international sales and shipping strategy in the first place.