eBay

laurriana · ‎02-15-2024

Hello,

I recently bought an item that was over ~$500 USD and imported from the US. At checkout, I selected the option to pay my import fees immediately so I wouldn’t get charged more than I expect to when it gets delivered. When I tracked my order on Canada Post it said I owed $124 CAD in duties and taxes. Now I’m curious as to where did the amount I paid for duties at checkout go. Is eBay responsible?

marnotom! · ‎02-15-2024

Hi, @laurriana. I'm assuming your item was forwarded through the uninterestingly named eBay International Shipping service.

I had no idea that the Canada Post website's tracking would give information on taxes and duties owing on an import assessed for them. Shows how long it's been since I purchased an item that was sent through the mail that was hit with those charges, I guess. Anyway, your situation reminded me of a similar one from about nine months ago, and I surprised myself by actually being able to find the posts in question. They're on this thread and if you've set your preferences up to view posts from oldest to newest, the discussion starts at post 104:

https://community.ebay.ca/t5/Buyer-Central/Does-Ebay-International-Shipping-use-Canada-Post-to-deliv...

I'm not sure what's going on here, but something's going on that's leading to Canada Border Services not knowing that taxes and duties (If applicable) have been paid on the item (and, hence, Canada Post not knowing) and your item gets one of those lovely E14 forms slapped on it. It may be that there are some employees there that can't wrap their heads around the fact that an item that goes through the mail system can be sent DDP ("delivered duties paid"). It may be that whoever's processing the item at the eIS hub in Illinois is forgetting to put a DDP sticker on the item. It may simply be a glitch with the Canada Post system. Unless there's somebody who works closely with any of these agencies who can tell us more about what's going on here, we're just going to have to guess.

As for what happened to the taxes and duty (if applicable) that you paid on your item on checkout, I can't see it going anywhere else but the government(s). eBay takes in a lot of payments earmarked as tax each and every day from buyers and sellers and I can't see how it would be able to skim any of that. Hopefully, I won't have to eat my words a year or so from now.

If you don't mind my asking, how much did you have to pay in import charges at checkout, and did you get a breakdown of the charges, i.e. how much for taxes, how much for duty?

reallynicestamps · ‎02-15-2024

Does your eBay paperwork show the payment?
It's a pain, but you can appeal these overpayments with CBSA, but it will take time.

The CBSA appeal contact information should be on the paperwork you received when you (re)paid the fees.

pjcdn2005 · ‎02-15-2024

Is it possible that it is just showing the amount that you had already paid and not what you will be charged again? If not and you end up paying taxes and duty again you may be able to recover the original amount paid through eBay customer service or as another poster stated, by contacting Canada customs.