RE: [Thinkpad] Surprising price diff between IBM Canada and US

I understand your argument, after my event with Canada, I looked into
comparing several outlets for a shipment to Russia. USPS seem to have the
best deal, however the buyer was still required to sell the farm to pay the
"sales tax". He ended up bailing out. I now say I will only ship to the
US. Too many people have backed out once they learn that they will in fact
pay an arm and a leg to get their item. I agree UPS is bad from my
experience, but each receiving country needs to seriously look into their
tariff structure. Otherwise they are seriously affecting the purchasing
capabilities of their citizens.

Without getting too deep into the matter, Canada UPS and the Government were
not helpful with the issue and were very threatening. I was very glad the
transaction finally was completed. It took nearly three weeks to get
through the mess. Because of this quagmire, and what I faced in Russia, I
will never send a package out of the US again. It takes too much time, the
governments are way to violent and accusational. UPS (USA) was very helpful
and friendly; UPS (Canada) was very unfriendly and threatening - same for
the government. I hope this answers why US Ebayers choose not to send out
of country.

Just one more thing . . . The people (winning bidders) were very nice
people and equally shared my frustrations. I have no issue with the winners
nor the people in other countries. It's your governments! (Of course our
government here in the good ol' US of A is catching up fast!)

Cheers!
George

-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Guthrie [mailto:aardvark77@shaw.ca]
Sent: Monday, March 01, 2004 3:19 PM
To: Colgrove, George; 'Andrew Webber'; thinkpad@stderr.org
Subject: RE: [Thinkpad] Surprising price diff between IBM Canada and US

A lot of people might refer to the charge as duty because that's what
they had to pay for the transborder shipment. The Canadian dollar has
gone up a lot in the last year, from $1.50 Canadian to one US $ to about
$1.33. So even assuming it was at the high rate ($120=$180 Canadian),
the duty (actually sales tax) would have been $12.60. The balance of
$47.40 is UPS's extortionate brokerage/handling charge. Compare that to
$5.00 at the Post office and you'll see why I try to insist people ship
by Post instead. I've had very few problems with postal shipments, but
aside from brokerage charges shipments by UPS always seem to be a pain.
Once I won an auction on ebay for $.01 (yes one cent), the vendor after
charging a hefty shipping fee refused to ship it any other way but UPS.
The idiot then also put a value for duty of $100 US on it. I had to put
out over $50 after I had it delivered. UPS then wanted another $40 to
process the claim for getting my refund of about $10 from the
government. They would not of course refund their original charge. Of
course I didn't proceed.
Another time when I complained about the high charge for brokerage, they
said that they could return the parcel to the original point of entry
and that I could fill out my own brokerage forms there. That would have
meant a two way trip of about 900 miles each way. So when they have
your item, they really have you over a barrel. More fun is to be had
when you purchase an item, pay extra for postal shipping, and then they
ship UPS anyway.
Ehhh, I've got a couple of other UPS stories I could tell, but my blood
pressure is already going way up. :^)
One thing I've never been able to figure out is why so many ebay vendors
mark their listings as "Will ship only to US" They are only limiting
demand for their items and as any economist will tell you if demand is
lowered, then the price will be lowered as well. Most of the time when
I'm bidding on auctions, I ignore that, unless the vendor specifically
says in the listing that they won't ship outside the US. 99% of the time
they have no problem with that. I also have an aunt in Seattle who will
trans-ship for me, but often they don't even want to consider that. I
just shake my head in wonderment.

-----Original Message-----
From: Colgrove, George [mailto:George.Colgrove@state.vt.us]
Sent: Monday, March 01, 2004 5:36 AM
To: 'Andrew Webber'; thinkpad@stderr.org
Subject: RE: [Thinkpad] Surprising price diff between IBM Canada and US

I sent a ThinkPad to Canada about 9 months or so ago. The unit sold for
US$120 and shipping via UPS was roughly US$25.00. The guy receiving it
was
charged roughly C$60.00 (at least that was what he told me) duty!

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Received on Tue Mar 2 07:41:15 2004