USPS Crazy Brokerage Fees?

[HiTempguy1]

So I bought a race suit out of the states, shipped USPS international priority, and was hit with $100cad of duty/brokerage on a $450cdn suit (after shipping).

WTF? I thought USPS prevented shit like this from happening? Do I have any recourse? The suit was still a great deal, but I was expecting maybe $50 or so

[vengie]

Same thing happened to me recently with UPS, paid $15 brokerage for a $30 part.
I asked the guy how it's calculated and he had no answer for me. Stupid.

[roopi]

What was the breakdown of fees? Clothing is normally about 18 percent duty plus gst so seems pretty normal. The brokerage was probably a small portion of that charge.

[lilmira]

Sounds about right with duty and GST. Jesus can't save you if custom decides to nail you. Even Canada post charges like ~5-10 bucks for handling.

[Thaco]

USPS is always $10 +Duty and tax, but typically they do not charge duty on stuff under like $50... so its a lot cheaper, but the duty on clothing not made in north america is 18%+5% tax... +$10, sounds about right...


only way you can dispute it is if you can provie it was made in north america and the seller did not disclose that... then it'd fall under NAFTA and be free duty

[HiTempguy1]

Hey guys, thanks for all the help.

Everything you guys said was 100% correct information, even down to Thaco's math!

Which I guess this is an FYI for people, if you buy clothing out of the USA that's not made there, holywtfbbq you are going to pay!

[RX_EVOLV]

Make sure the harmonization code the seller used is correct.

We do alot of shipping into the US, and sometimes the package get passed from one courier to another and the new courier would just make up a tariff code despite what we declared, which might carry a different duty %.

I'm dealing with UPS right now where they just randomly assigned their own tariff code to 3 of our recent shipments, resulting is a 2-8% duty charge (vs 0%). The customers ended up with a $80 brokerage bill and not happy about it.. been 6 weeks and we are still trying to sort it out. Huge PITA.

[SneakyNeek]

UPS confuses me, I ended up paying a company in the states 25$ shipping for my product, then UPS charges me 25$ in fees when its here. So i essentially paid 50$ to receive a 2 pound box 4x4x4". The kicker on top is because of the fees they only allow you to pick up at the ups location next to the YVR airport because their UPS access point locations dont take them, this is an hour from me. so 50$ and 2 hours of my time to receive a 2 pound box, seems logical.

[speedog]

Originally posted by SneakyNeek
UPS confuses me, I ended up paying a company in the states 25$ shipping for my product, then UPS charges me 25$ in fees when its here. So i essentially paid 50$ to receive a 2 pound box 4x4x4". The kicker on top is because of the fees they only allow you to pick up at the ups location next to the YVR airport because their UPS access point locations dont take them, this is an hour from me. so 50$ and 2 hours of my time to receive a 2 pound box, seems logical.

Just curious, was the item you got available locally for that $50 price difference and your time's value?

[Maxx Mazda]

Originally posted by speedog

Just curious, was the item you got available locally for that $50 price difference and your time's value?

This. I used to buy shit online all the time but with the dollar the way it is now and shipping fees / wasted time I'm willing to spend a bit more in Canada just to avoid the hassle and have it immediately.