Did any other Canadians get charged Duty for their Matty purchases?

[ctc]

>considering the amount of parcels that my wife receives from Japan, we've only got dinged once or twice

I've never paid duty on a package from Japan. I'd always suspected it's 'cos duty charges are applied at the final location, and nobody around here speaks enough Japanese to properly asses the charge. (So as long as the box isn't big enough for a car or somesuch they don't bother.)

>fees are all over the map, and UPS .... is known for rather high rates

I once paid a $70 fee for a $50 package. Moral: USPS is fine.

Don C.

[palitoy]

UPS are awful, I got dinged horribly many times.

I once asked a driver if he get yelled at a lot, his face was so expressive he said "Buddy, I had a guy take a swing at me once!".

[Mikey]

My nephew worked at UPS during his college summer break.

He said if you seen how they operate you would never use their service.

No kidding, he said they would use packages as furnature to sit on during breaks.

He said boxes would crush left and right and they'd just laugh and get another one that's stronger.

[cjefferys]

I've never paid duty on a package from Japan. I'd always suspected it's 'cos duty charges are applied at the final location, and nobody around here speaks enough Japanese to properly asses the charge. (So as long as the box isn't big enough for a car or somesuch they don't bother.)

Hard to say. Most of our parcels come from my father-in-law in Japan. He understands English so he always fills out the Customs form in English, and for some odd reason he overestimates the value of the items, but we still don't get dinged on his stuff. I think I've been charged on two Japanese parcels, one was a shipment of two DVDs, and one was a gift for my niece (baby clothes). Luckily for that second one, my sister knew some people at the brokerage that was charging us, so she got them to waive the fees.

UPS is horrible. I used to work at a brokerage that ended up getting bought out by UPS, I only lasted there another six months before I quit in disgust. I'm now at another brokerage and we still have to deal with UPS for some of our customers' shipments and they are a total PITA to deal with, very inept too. I personally would never use them to ship anything, and we usually tell our customers to avoid them as well.

[palitoy]

Got my animal man set in, was charged $2.06 for GST and $6.00 for processing fees, yeah that's fair...

[hartley0]

Well, at long last my seven Green Arrows arrived today!!! After this freakishly long wait, some positive kharma finally – didn't get charged any duty or customs (there is a tiny chance that Customs will send me a bill after the fact, but a very low probability). They valued the package at $80, an amount that would normally have been subject to customs/tax. The return address on the box was "Mail on the Move" in Andover, Minnesota.

Funny and frustrating aside: A few days ago I emailed mattycollector asking for an update on my shipment. They responded on Feb 1/10 with a sort of form-email saying (1) that my items had shipped and then went on to say (2) that I will be notified when they ship!!!!!! So, wait, they shipped but they didn't ship?

But, wait, it gets nuttier!! I then get another email from mattycollector yesterday (Feb 3/10) stating "Thanks for ordering from MattyCollector.com on February 3, 2010" and showing that I just ordered seven Green Arrows (my original order)!!!! Needless to say, this confused the heck out of me and I've emailed them to be sure they haven't sold me seven more Green Arrows!

Methinks Mattycollector/Mattel need some help in the organization department!!!

I'll post some thoughts on the actual item in the "My Green Arrows Are Here!" thread soon....