incorrect info on customs form costing customer

[duncan-7843]

Why did eBay list my trading card as “metal” on the customs form and cost me an additional $50?

There is no metal in a hockey card. Literally zero reason or logic to list a non metal item as metal. Now it’s a huge problem to get reimbursed and will be months if ever.

[marnotom!]

This is interesting.  Why do you think it was eBay who declared the item as "metal"?  Was this card shipped through the Authentication Program?  What shipping company was used?  What was the declared value of the card?  

To be honest, I'm thinking it was more likely the item's value that triggered that charge than the "metal" description.  What's the $50 charge for, exactly?

[duncan-7843]

So it was shipped via the “eBay Global shipping center” according to the seller. On the customs form the exporters name is listed as “EBay Inc” and not the sellers name or username so that’s why I think it was eBay. The cost is triggered by the item being listed as “metal” which automatically has a duty associated with importing metal items. Of course my item is a hockey card which is paper and cased in plastic so there is zero metal and no duty should’ve been applied, just the taxes I hadn’t yet paid (PST and GST in Canada)

edit: to be clear it is the duty charge specific to a metal item I have a problem with.. this duty is specifically listed on the form as a 7.01% duty for metal. It is not triggered by the item being an amount but by being metal. There are also taxes listed separately which I was expecting. I have imported more expensive hockey cards than this one recently so it's definitely not a cost being triggered by the total dollar amount. 

[marnotom!]

Thanks for the additional information, @duncan-7843. While I've purchased items that were handled by the now somewhat-defunct Global Shipping Program and one item through the new eBay International Shipping service, I've never had one that had a customs form on it. Can you go back to the listing and check to see what service was used here? I'm thinking it's possible that it was yet another program that eBay's trying to wind down called eBay International Standard.  Was the shipping handled by Canada Post within Canada?

If it was one of these eBay services that ended up producing the customs documentation, I'm suspecting that the process is pretty automated and based on the information the seller included on the listing page.  Is there anything in the title, description, or "Item Specifics" section of the listing that could have led to the term "metal" being used on the customs form?  Was the hockey card a Skybox Metal Universe one, perhaps?