UPS customs fees on returns, who pays?

[altimateoutlet]

I am looking for some insight.

I have a customer returning a product from the USA.  I told them to return goods via Postal service. They didn't like the cost the post gave them so they decided to ship by ups.  We receive that call from Ups asking if we either have a broker or if ups would act on our behalf and clear the shipment. Cost aprox. $40.00. We said ask the shipper to pay.

Shipper does not like our response and escalates a claim with the VENUE. We are talking about a claim for aprox $85.00.  Its not a thorough spanking to our company!

Question 1.  If we agree to option one and provide a full refund and write the deal off can this buyer leave bad dsr's

Question 2.  Our return policy clearly states, return shipping paid by buyer. Does this include any customs/fees expense?

Any comments welcome and appreciated

[fatdane]

If you were to assume that you will already get negative feedback and poor dsr's from this customer, refuse the UPS parcel. I believe in that case UPS tries to ding the sender for the money. 

UPS in the US apparently does a poor job of telling US shippers about the Brokerage fee that Canadians will be paying. 

[mr.elmwood]

Had something like this last fall. Customer buys a part for their car that clearly will not fit. Buyer blames me. Yeah, right, it is a cup holder. I agree to refund, ship it back cheapest way. They decide to use UPS. Fortunately, I was out for a month. UPS wanted $36.56 for a $45 sale. The part was already on it's way back to the buyer by the time I got home, weeks later.

Got the usual UPS letter looking for payment from me. I do  not think so. As far as I know, the people that deliberately bought the worng thing, send it to me the wrong way, really messed everything up, got stuck with the UPS bill. I never got the part back.

I had no sympathy for them.

I've never had to pay any import duties on a return. If they had returned it, correctly, you would not owe anything.

[pjcdn2005]

Question 1 - yes

Question 2 - There shouldn't be any customs fees since it originally was sent by you from Canadas. Normally I tell a buyer to mark the customs form as merchandise return but I don't know if UPS would accept that.

I would probably try phoning UPS, explaining it was a return, that no taxes should be owed and ask them how to proceed from there.

Or you can pay the fees and then put in a claim to the customs office to get back any duty or taxes BUT you won't be refunded the UPS brokerage charges if you do it that way.