Canadian EF Users... Is there any way to avoid custom charges. They are a B!

I've been selling and buying online for years. This is just part of living in Canada, folks.

Taxes are the buyers responsibility, unless the seller chooses to pay them.

What Fed Ex says is that the shipper is liable, not responsible.

Quoted from their site:

As per the contract of carriage with FedEx®, the shipper is ultimately liable for any duties and taxes assessed on the shipment. If the recipient refuses the package or the recipient or third party FedEx account holder refuses to pay for duties and taxes, the original shipper will be billed for duties and taxes.

And another quote from their site:

Responsible Party:
Duties and taxes on international shipments will be billed automatically to the recipient, unless the shipper requests that FedEx bill the shipper or a third party. When completing the FedEx International air waybill or FedEx Expanded Service International air waybill, you can select the shipper, the recipient or a third party as the party responsible for payment.

link


As I said, Eden is being great with helping us out right now because several packages came through with inflated fees added to them. What you need to check to see if you were overcharged is the taxable value on the customs slip. If that value is the correct amount for what you bought, the fees you are being given are just taxes. (review products still have a value and do not count as free when it comes to customs) less

I've been buying online for years too (over 20). Lived in Canada all my life, and 95% of the stuff I buy online comes from the States. And this is the very first time I've been hit with customs charges. If it's just "part of living in Canada", then I would think I would have experienced them by now.

I know customs charges are part of life (or can be) when you're buying stuff from out of the country, but it almost seems like they're applied selectively. Like, why in the hell have I never been charged before, and now all of a sudden I am? Now, in the meantime, I watched the tracking information on UPS.com and I noticed a couple of pieces of information that I've never seen before:

November 22: Registered with clearing agency / Shipment submitted to clearing agency

November 23: Package data processed by brokerage Waiting for clearance / Receiver's customs broker has been assigned The shipment is now released to move in transit

Like I said, I've been ordering stuff from the US online for years, and have never seen that piece of information in the tracking data. So maybe I was just unlucky this time and my package got picked for further investigation? I have no idea.

All I know is that I'm slightly less than thrilled with UPS right now, and I definitely hope that EF finds some way to clear this up for everyone. less

Just because you have not experienced it does not mean it is not true. This is from the Canadian Border Services Agency webpage (link):

Importing by Mail

Duty, Taxes and Handling Fees on Items Mailed to You

Duty and tax exemptions

The CBSA can examine almost any item that comes to Canada by mail.

You may have to pay duty, the goods and services tax (GST) or the harmonized sales tax (HST) and the provincial sales tax (PST) on items mailed to you. If you owe duty and tax, it will be indicated on Form E14, CBSA Postal Import Form, which will be attached to your mail item when it is delivered.

The amount of duty or taxes you may owe on an item depends upon the following:

the item’s value in Canadian dollars;
whether or not the item is a gift; and
any exemptions specified in related legislation.

The item’s value in Canadian dollars

Under the provisions of the Postal Imports Remission Order, if someone mails you an item worth CAN$20 or less, you don’t have to pay duty or taxes on the item. If the item is worth more than CAN$20, you must pay the applicable duty, the GST or HST, and any PST on the item’s full value.

Items that do not qualify for the CAN$20 exemption include the following:

tobacco;
books;
periodicals;
magazines;
alcoholic beverages; and
goods ordered through a Canadian post office box or a Canadian intermediary. less

Not cool. FedEx says taxes and duty is the responsibility of the shipper, on the receiver, as it should be. I'm not sure if UPS is the same, but if they're a competing company then it may be. Are customs charges NOT duty or taxes? If it's separate charge, that's total B.S. If not, then what gives?

As well, I've seen tracked orders from EF jumping across the border multiple times (sometimes up to 4 times crossing the border back and forth before finally getting here) - would we have to pay customs charges for each time UPS brings it over the border? Because that's UPS's fault, not ours.

A friend of mine got a package from FedEx with this with a customs bill, but still got their package. I don't think they paid it yet and I'm highly unsure of what FedEx can really do to make them pay for it since the shipping process is complete. less

According to what I can find on the UPS website, duty and taxes are the responsibility of the customer. :/ I really wish I could figure out why, when I have been ordering stuff from the US for years (and EF specifically for three years) this is the first time I've ever been expected to cover duty and taxes on delivery. It's pretty confusing.

The jumping across the border issue -- that seems to have happened with my latest order, too, and it's something I have never seen happen with any of my other EF orders. This one went from Doraville, GA to Lachine, QC (which...really doesn't make sense because Georgia isn't anywhere *close* to Quebec) and then, after travelling through Nashville, TN and Louisville, KY, it went back and forth between East Syracuse, NY and Lachine, QC *three times* before it continued the rest of the way east. WTF? I've *never* seen that happen before. Usually (and I'm looking at the UPS tracking info for the previous three packages now), once the package reached East Syracuse, NY, it crossed over the border to Lachine, QC, and pretty much immediately headed east. In none of the previous three orders (which are the only ones I can access) was there any mention whatsoever of customs or brokerage agencies or anything like that. Which is why I was so confused when I saw that show up in my tracking information. o_O

The only difference between this order and the previous ones was that this latest one was sent via UPS Worldwide Expedited, and the others were sent via UPS Standard. To be honest, I'd be willing to wait longer for my orders if it meant I wouldn't be slapped with duty and tax charges at my door. less

Actually, I just got off the phone with Megan from EF. She had talked to UPS to see if she could get the customs charges billed to EF's account.

But UPS won't do it. They say that the customs fee I was charged is too small to bill to EF's account.

Now I know that $16.50 is not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. But still...that's $16.50 I was not prepared to pay, especially not on the spur on the moment like that. I don't have a credit card, I don't have cheques, and I didn't have the cash on me this morning. Plus..I keep going back to the fact that I've never had to pay these fees before, so it's a pain in the ass to have to pay them now.

So now I have a couple options. I can suck it up and pay the fee (which is pretty much the only way I'm going to get my package). Megan did say that EF would reimburse me for the customs charge, though. Or I can have the package returned to EF, at which point they will refund my gift card amounts. (But I really don't want to do that; I saved up gift cards for a while to get this stuff, and one item is showing as discontinued, so who knows how long I'll have to wait to get it again.)

I'm thinking I'm just going to go ahead and pay the damn fee, but I'm still not happy about it. I'm glad that EF is doing everything they can to resolve the issue, but I am NOT happy with UPS right now. At all. Or with the entire situation. less

Well, be prepared to be charged at some point. I'm in Canada too, and I've *never* been charged any customs for EF purchases either...but lo and behold, this morning UPS made a delivery attempt and informed me that there was a $20 COD charge that needed to be paid before they could release the package to me. Yeah...I don't think so. There's obviously a way around it, because as I said, I've *never* been charged customs fees before, even with EF. Sorry to say I won't be ordering anything else from EF if I'm going to be hit with customs fees on top of my order purchase price. less

As far as I know, UPS would be the same. Every package I've ever received from EF has been by UPS, and I've never been charged customs fees until today. I'm wondering if it has something to do with the fact that this particular order was sent via UPS Worldwide Expedited, when everything else I've ordered was sent via UPS Canada Standard (which wasn't my choice, btw...I chose standard shipping but EF sent it out Expedited.)

I'm just pretty wary of this, because honestly, if I'm going to get hit with customs charges on top of everything else (I mean, this package cost nearly $20 to ship up here in the first place, and now I have to pretty much double that because of customs fees? I don't think so) then I'm afraid I'll have to find somewhere else to purchase my goodies from. Which would suck, because I love EF...but money's tight and I can't afford to pay out more.

(Edited to add: I just sent off an email to Megan to see what's going on and she's checking into things with UPS. Hopefully things can get ironed out...I know EF is great at working things like this out so I have my fingers crossed.) less

Actually, I just got off the phone with Megan from EF. She had talked to UPS to see if she could get the customs charges billed to EF's account.

But UPS won't do it. They say that the customs fee I was charged is too small to bill to EF's account.

Now I know that $16.50 is not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. But still...that's $16.50 I was not prepared to pay, especially not on the spur on the moment like that. I don't have a credit card, I don't have cheques, and I didn't have the cash on me this morning. Plus..I keep going back to the fact that I've never had to pay these fees before, so it's a pain in the ass to have to pay them now.

So now I have a couple options. I can suck it up and pay the fee (which is pretty much the only way I'm going to get my package). Megan did say that EF would reimburse me for the customs charge, though. Or I can have the package returned to EF, at which point they will refund my gift card amounts. (But I really don't want to do that; I saved up gift cards for a while to get this stuff, and one item is showing as discontinued, so who knows how long I'll have to wait to get it again.)

I'm thinking I'm just going to go ahead and pay the damn fee, but I'm still not happy about it. I'm glad that EF is doing everything they can to resolve the issue, but I am NOT happy with UPS right now. At all. Or with the entire situation. less

I wish I had packages coming in at only $16.50, I had about four packages that I had to pay 50something dollars on (each) and my boyfriend had about 2 packages. That was around the time I started this thread. I don't mean to make your situation seem less important, as I understand custom charges are a B (like the title says) but when I've paid over $200bucks to UPS for 4 packgages, %16.50 would have been a blessing. By the way, I was NEVER reimbursed for any of the brokerage fees, and my fees were MUCH larger than $16.50 less

Well if the $20 fee is from customs, that is not a bad thing. Some of us were getting packages of $60+ fees, because UPS was charging huge brokerage fees on top of the customs fees.

Paying custom charges is not something we are too worried about because being Canadian, it happens, and that is something we all know could happen when ordering outside of Canada. But paying UPS for brokerage? No thank you lol less

I wish I had packages coming in at only $16.50, I had about four packages that I had to pay 50something dollars on (each) and my boyfriend had about 2 packages. That was around the time I started this thread. I don't mean to make your situation seem less important, as I understand custom charges are a B (like the title says) but when I've paid over $200bucks to UPS for 4 packgages, %16.50 would have been a blessing. By the way, I was NEVER reimbursed for any of the brokerage fees, and my fees were MUCH larger than $16.50 less

Yeah, I know. The bit about the charges being too small to be billed directly to EF didn't make any sense to me, either, but...then again, this IS UPS we're talking about, and at this point I have *zero* faith in them.

My order was sent via UPS Worldwide Expedited, which according to what Megan told me was supposed to *avoid* the customs fee issue, but for whatever reason, it didn't work. Honest to god, I'd rather have EF strap my order to the back of a donkey and walk it up here than put up with this crap again. less

Yeah, every other package I've ever gotten from EF has been sent Standard. This is the only package they've ever sent Expedited. I know that customs fees can be charged at any time, blah blah blah....but it just seems odd to me that the only time the customs/brokerage fees were charged was when the package was sent via a method that was supposed to keep that from happening. Damn UPS.

So I guess my hope is that EF never uses UPS Worldwide Expedited to send out packages to me again. I'll certainly not ever be *requesting* it (I didn't this time, either, but apparently there was some other issue that caused them to choose that method for me.) less

I understand that in the grand scheme of things, $16.50 is not a large amount of money for most people. However (and I'm not looking for pity or anything) I've been unemployed for 16 months and that $16.50 was a completely unexpected expense, no matter how small, you know? The only reason I'm even able to order stuff from EF in the first place is because of my gift cards from EdenCafe posts.

So no, $16.50 isn't an OMGBIGDEAL, or ordinarily wouldn't be...but to me, the amount is not even the point. The point, for me, is that I already paid $17.00 in shipping and I did not expect to be hit with another $17.00 at my door that I was completely unprepared to pay, you know?

Everyone has different financial circumstances, and while $16.50 wouldn't be worth talking about for some people...I mean, that $16.50 could have been much better spent than handing it over to UPS. I only *wish* I were in a situation right now that would mean that a "small" amount of money like the one we're talking about here wasn't an issue for me, but as it stands right now, yes, that's a huge amount of money to me, because I simply don't have it. I haven't even been able to get my package yet, because I haven't been able to come up with that extra money yet.

So...yeah. There you have it. less

I paid $109.74 for my package today, because UPS decided it was worth $827. Only $10 was actual brokerage fee, the rest was taxes. Eden reimbursed this to me in full, though.

They said I could have got the taxes adjusted by getting Eden to fax a proper invoice to customs, and by going down to the customs office and paying $15 for them to re-asses it... which I might have done but have had so much going on that I just didn't want to wait anymore (I ordered this package on Nov 4th). less

I paid $109.74 for my package today, because UPS decided it was worth $827. Only $10 was actual brokerage fee, the rest was taxes. Eden reimbursed this to me in full, though.

They said I could have got the taxes adjusted by getting Eden to fax a proper invoice to customs, and by going down to the customs office and paying $15 for them to re-asses it... which I might have done but have had so much going on that I just didn't want to wait anymore (I ordered this package on Nov 4th). less