General discussion thread - keep the other threads clean 29 29

[thehumantorch]

2 minutes ago, Patriot6 said:

Got it. Thanks for the reply .

I got nailed with GST today....hard...almost paid more in duty than what I paid for the books. Win some, lose some.

Which company delivered it?  I refuse to accept UPS packages as their customs border broker fees are ridiculous.  Canada Post charges GST and a $10 collection fee and Fedex is similar.

[Patriot6]

Just now, thehumantorch said:

Which company delivered it?  I refuse to accept UPS packages as their customs border broker fees are ridiculous.  Canada Post charges GST and a $10 collection fee and Fedex is similar.

It was CP. I have never received a parcel from UPS, so I will keep that in mind. I have found so far that Fedex is the worst. They collect no matter what. I have only had to pay with Canada Post if I was not home and the parcel ended up at the post office. If I am home and answer the door, I have never had to pay a cent. 

[thehumantorch]

1 minute ago, Patriot6 said:

It was CP. I have never received a parcel from UPS, so I will keep that in mind. I have found so far that Fedex is the worst. They collect no matter what. I have only had to pay with Canada Post if I was not home and the parcel ended up at the post office. If I am home and answer the door, I have never had to pay a cent. 

Canada Post is hit and miss, they rarely collect on small amounts and sometimes they miss larger amounts.  If you owe duties they often just card it to the sub PO and don't attempt delivery, keep ordering parcels delivered through Canada Post and you'll likely have the joy of paying duty to your postman - got one at my door last week.

Fedex is more than Canada Post but you can create an account with them and they reduce the amount they collect because they can collect without talking to you.

UPS stinks.  I paid $150 in duty on a $300 auction win.  $15 in duty and $135 in border broker fees.  And their 'border broker' service is essentially an automated handshake as they move truckloads of packages across the border.  

[NP_Gresham]

20 minutes ago, thehumantorch said:

Some sellers don't want to fill out the customs form.  I think the US postal system allows for a sender to print postage at home and drop the package off without standing in line and that's not possible if a customs form is required.  Some Canadian buyers ask for the customs declaration $ amount to be under-declared to reduce GST,  I think it's also harder to track a package crossing boarders as I've seen a number of US sellers complain about packages to foreign buyers disappearing or damaged.

exactly.

Shipping to the US can be done at all hours no lines.

Shipping international is 9-5:00 with up to an hour waiting in line.

The costs of returns and risk of loss or damage is far greater as well.  Figure a cost of 10-15% over the cost of the book + the extra shipping.

Really not worth the hassle unless I know exactly who I am dealing with.

 

 

[Patriot6]

1 minute ago, thehumantorch said:

Canada Post is hit and miss, they rarely collect on small amounts and sometimes they miss larger amounts.  If you owe duties they often just card it to the sub PO and don't attempt delivery, keep ordering parcels delivered through Canada Post and you'll likely have the joy of paying duty to your postman - got one at my door last week.

Fedex is more than Canada Post but you can create an account with them and they reduce the amount they collect because they can collect without talking to you.

UPS stinks.  I paid $150 in duty on a $300 auction win.  $15 in duty and $135 in border broker fees.  And their 'border broker' service is essentially an automated handshake as they move truckloads of packages across the border.  

 Absolute robbery! Which auction house was that?

 What is the alternative? Waiting to find the desired book in Canada? Perhaps, but tough to find most of the books I'm after in Winnipeg. Might have to drive to oil land to take a peak next co  

[thehumantorch]

1 minute ago, NP_Gresham said:

exactly.

Shipping to the US can be done at all hours no lines.

Shipping international is 9-5:00 with up to an hour waiting in line.

The costs of returns and risk of loss or damage is far greater as well.  Figure a cost of 10-15% over the cost of the book + the extra shipping.

Really not worth the hassle unless I know exactly who I am dealing with.

 

 

I've bought thousands of comics here and various auction sites and there's never been a problem but I know the perception is that it's not as safe as shipping within the US.  I'm not sure how justified that perception is but I know it's there.

[thehumantorch]

Just now, Patriot6 said:

 Absolute robbery! Which auction house was that?

 What is the alternative? Waiting to find the desired book in Canada? Perhaps, but tough to find most of the books I'm after in Winnipeg. Might have to drive to oil land to take a peak next co  

First time I purchased from Clink.  UPS was their primary shipping method but they'll ship through other shippers when requested.

Take a few days and come to the Calgary Expo or the Edmonton Expo.  Lots of books for sale and the 'joyful' opportunity to hang with a bunch of fun boardies.  Calgary Expo is easily my favorite con and Banff is an hour away.

[Patriot6]

1 minute ago, thehumantorch said:

First time I purchased from Clink.  UPS was their primary shipping method but they'll ship through other shippers when requested.

Take a few days and come to the Calgary Expo or the Edmonton Expo.  Lots of books for sale and the 'joyful' opportunity to hang with a bunch of fun boardies.  Calgary Expo is easily my favorite con and Banff is an hour away.

So I'm assuming no more CLink? 

When is the next Calgary Expo? 

Don't get me wrong, the Winnipeg comic con is OK and I have bought some cool books there, but I feel like since it is always late in the year, and after the bigger cons, that the wares are pretty picked through by the time most dealers arrive in Winnipeg. 

[thehumantorch]

Just now, Patriot6 said:

So I'm assuming no more CLink? 

When is the next Calgary Expo? 

Don't get me wrong, the Winnipeg comic con is OK and I have bought some cool books there, but I feel like since it is always late in the year, and after the bigger cons, that the wares are pretty picked through by the time most dealers arrive in Winnipeg. 

No, Clink and Heritage will both ship through Fedex and most ebay sellers use the PO.  Just check to see how they're gonna ship to you before paying.

Calgary Expo is in April.  Attendance is around 105,000 and it's a 4 day show.  It's a great show and we have a group of about 10 boardies who go out for dinner every night. 

[Patriot6]

4 minutes ago, thehumantorch said:

No, Clink and Heritage will both ship through Fedex and most ebay sellers use the PO.  Just check to see how they're gonna ship to you before paying.

Calgary Expo is in April.  Attendance is around 105,000 and it's a 4 day show.  It's a great show and we have a group of about 10 boardies who go out for dinner every night. 

12 hour drive to check some books of the ol' list isn't too bad. Better start saving!

[skypinkblu]

51 minutes ago, thehumantorch said:

Some sellers don't want to fill out the customs form.  I think the US postal system allows for a sender to print postage at home and drop the package off without standing in line and that's not possible if a customs form is required.  Some Canadian buyers ask for the customs declaration $ amount to be under-declared to reduce GST,  I think it's also harder to track a package crossing boarders as I've seen a number of US sellers complain about packages to foreign buyers disappearing or damaged.

I'll ship to anyone here, but I will only ship to people who live out of the US on eBay, if I know them.

2 lost packages, 1 broken package. All 3 were to outside the US.  Two of those were to Canada, one to Peru.  1 additional package where the person (on eBay) claimed an expensive vase was chipped (that was Malaysia). At the time, he would have had to pay to ship it back to me so all of a sudden, he decided it was really fine, now eBay would make me pay for the shipping or the entire item. 

Now those 4 were over a 17 year period, but I've never had any of those problems with US shipping. As a matter of fact, other than one package that was sent to the wrong address (my fault), I've never had any problems with US shipping, but I've had 4 that I remember were to out of the US that were disasters.

This is not counting the time it took 4 weeks for a book to get to France (priority from here) and the person was understandably concerned, and the one time someone was not happy with my description and it cost me a fortune to pay for return shipping (that was on here) ...and the time I forgot not to make out of the US  shipping free ( I just said free shipping, nothing else). I honored the free shipping, but it cost me $40 to ship something it would have cost me $10 to ship here. Now it would probably be $70. At least it was to a nice person.

The forms take a little longer, but once you figure out what numbers they are talking about, they are not so bad and if you have a priority package with the out of the US package, or the out of the US package is priority, the PO will pick them up. If not, the lines are indeed long. Tracking is abysmal unless you do Fedex or UPS, and no one in Canada seems to want  Fedex or UPS.

In addition, I pay for private insurance, so if something is worth more than $200 and I don't know the person well, it has to have a signature. That never goes over well, because it makes the item more expensive. 

Some people seem to forget that we don't get the shipping money if we sell something, so they want a discount. Or I'm asked lots of times for a discount because of the exchange rate   I said OK  once and my husband told me I lost my mind;)

So, you know I love you, Dave...and every time I THINK of not doing out of the US shipping here, I think about you and Andy...and a few other nice souls and I figure what the heck...but it's riskier. 

So I can understand people avoiding it.

I would not avoid it, if I were a professional dealer and I put food on the table selling books. I'd take the risk, but most people here, are not dealers.

Edited October 2, 2017 by skypinkblu

[skypinkblu]

BTW, there are people from other countries (Canada and elsewhere) who never ask you to lie about the value, pay the postage without saying boo and are just wonderful. It's not about them, it's the general lack of control on the packages that concerns me. Once it leaves the US, it's in the twilight zone. Here you can actually call someone if there is tracking;) and they usually even answer, lol;) 

So for all those lovely nice people, I do ship to Canada  and anywhere else;) (here)

Sorry for the semi rant;) 

[Patriot6]

7 minutes ago, skypinkblu said:

I'll ship to anyone here, but I will only ship to people who live out of the US on eBay, if I know them.

2 lost packages, 1 broken package. All 3 were to outside the US.  Two of those were to Canada, one to Peru.  1 additional package where the person (on eBay) claimed an expensive vase was chipped (that was Malaysia). At the time, he would have had to pay to ship it back to me so all of a sudden, he decided it was really fine, now eBay would make me pay for the shipping or the entire item. 

Now those 4 were over a 17 year period, but I've never had any of those problems with US shipping. As a matter of fact, other than one package that was sent to the wrong address (my fault), I've never had any problems with US shipping, but I've had 4 that I remember were to out of the US that were disasters.

This is not counting the time it took 4 weeks for a book to get to France (priority from here) and the person was understandably concerned, and the one time someone was not happy with my description and it cost me a fortune to pay for return shipping (that was on here) ...and the time I forgot not to make out of the US  shipping free ( I just said free shipping, nothing else). I honored the free shipping, but it cost me $40 to ship something it would have cost me $10 to ship here. Now it would probably be $70. At least it was to a nice person.

The forms take a little longer, but once you figure out what numbers they are talking about, they are not so bad and if you have a priority package with the out of the US package, or the out of the US package is priority, the PO will pick them up. If not, the lines are indeed long. Tracking is abysmal unless you do Fedex or UPS, and no one in Canada seems to want  Fedex or UPS.

In addition, I pay for private insurance, so if something is worth more than $200 and I don't know the person well, it has to have a signature. That never goes over well, because it makes the item more expensive. 

Some people seem to forget that we don't get the shipping money if we sell something, so they want a discount. Or I'm asked lots of times for a discount because of the exchange rate   I said OK  once and my husband told me I lost my mind;)

So, you know I love you, Dave...and every time I THINK of not doing out of the US shipping here, I think about you and Andy...and a few other nice souls and I figure what the heck...but it's riskier. 

So I can understand people avoiding it.

I would not avoid it, if I were a professional dealer and I put food on the table selling books. I'd take the risk, but most people here, are not dealers.

That was a very thoughtful post.

I as a Canadian buyer understand that I will pay more for shipping, plain and simple. Do I like that? No, but it is necessary for me as a collector to accumulate the books I desire since many of the books I chase are not readily available in my home town. I have adjusted the way I buy tremendously lately since I refuse to buy anything off of eBay when the seller is using GSP, another story. Instead, I try to buy what I can here on the boards or in person at cons. I buy very little on eBay these days and sell even less. I am not scolding anyone for not choosing to ship outside the US. At first I simply wanted to remind everyone to include whether or not they ship to Canada in their shipping rules and then wondered why some felt it was strenuous to ship up North. 

Your reply was very enlightening, thank you! 

[Patriot6]

6 minutes ago, skypinkblu said:

BTW, there are people from other countries (Canada and elsewhere) who never ask you to lie about the value, pay the postage without saying boo and are just wonderful. It's not about them, it's the general lack of control on the packages that concerns me. Once it leaves the US, it's in the twilight zone. Here you can actually call someone if there is tracking;) and they usually even answer, lol;) 

So for all those lovely nice people, I do ship to Canada  and anywhere else;) (here)

Sorry for the semi rant;) 

I hear you.

I don;t know where all of this asking to declare as a gift stuff is coming from? I have never asked anyone to do that, but have had several people ask me if I wanted them to do that, all here on the boards. Really at the end of the day I feel like if the gov. really wanted to they could still nail you because at some point it will become evident that you are cheating when they notice 300 gifts a year arriving at you house . 

[skypinkblu]

12 minutes ago, Patriot6 said:

I hear you.

I don;t know where all of this asking to declare as a gift stuff is coming from? I have never asked anyone to do that, but have had several people ask me if I wanted them to do that, all here on the boards. Really at the end of the day I feel like if the gov. really wanted to they could still nail you because at some point it will become evident that you are cheating when they notice 300 gifts a year arriving at you house . 

 

I was a little carried away thinking of a few ...people, MOST buyers here would be the same as you. But trust me, when I hear how much the tax costs people, I can understand them asking.  I find it mind boggling, that Canada would charge so much.  

[thirdgreenham]

7 minutes ago, skypinkblu said:

 

I was a little carried away thinking of a few ...people, MOST buyers here would be the same as you. But trust me, when I hear how much the tax costs people, I can understand them asking.  I find it mind boggling, that Canada would charge so much.  

Well, I used to ask people to declare my packages as a gift.  Now I don't.  Call it a sale, if you want, no big deal.  

As for the declared value, after I pay for the goods, can I not sell them for however cheap or however expensive I want to? After I pay, they're now mine, no?  If I ask someone to call my comic books $20, that's what they're "worth" to me at that point in time.  Sure, I may value them higher after they reach their destination, but that's my prerogative. 

What I can't wrap my head around is how there's no taxes or duties charged to US residents when we Canadians ship across the border....  

Also, I find it very interesting that the US shipping to Canada used to be so incredibly cheap and shipping from Canada to the US used to be so damned expensive.   Now, it's a complete flip flop. I can ship a box with tracking for $20-25 CAD and most packages from the US are now $45 USD.  

[Patriot6]

2 minutes ago, skypinkblu said:

 

I was a little carried away thinking of a few ...people, MOST buyers here would be the same as you. But trust me, when I hear how much the tax costs people, I can understand them asking.  I find it mind boggling, that Canada would charge so much.  

Well, I have thought of this many times as well and in reality it sort of makes sense. this will be really boring by the way 

Because of certain factors such as language rights, each product sold in Canada must have a label in both French and English, and smaller population, 35 million people, scattered across the second largest country by area in the world, things cost more. Take any household product and it will cost about 15%-20% more in Canada versus the US. This led to many people crossing the border to shop, especially when the dollars were at par or buying products on the internet and having them shipped. This became a problem for the government since all of those millions of dollars were not being taxed in Canada. This led to changes in the amount, in dollars, of goods you could buy before being taxed when returning from a shopping trip in the US. Then the Canadian dollar tanked and cross border shopping waned, yet the rules remained as if cross border shopping was at an all time high. Funny how that happens with taxes. 

 

I know I said it sort of makes sense, that's this part. As I said above Canada is the second largest country on earth. Now think, if one wants to send one lousy letter from one end of the country to the other. They buy one lousy stamp for next to nothing, a dollar I think, some will debate me on the next to nothing part, and away it goes. So, for one dollar you can send a letter 5.5 thousand kilometres. Do you think our government run postal system makes a profit or loses money? It loses. The high cost to maintain the service in all parts of our sparsely populated country coupled with outrageous wages that are paid to postal employees due to the fact they are unionized government employees make any chance at profit impossible. Thus, the tax paid on goods coming through the mail, in my opinion, aids to offset the loses it takes to maintain a decent mail service in this country.    

 

[thirdgreenham]

2 minutes ago, Patriot6 said:

Well, I have thought of this many times as well and in reality it sort of makes sense. this will be really boring by the way 

Because of certain factors such as language rights, each product sold in Canada must have a label in both French and English, and smaller population, 35 million people, scattered across the second largest country by area in the world, things cost more. Take any household product and it will cost about 15%-20% more in Canada versus the US. This led to many people crossing the border to shop, especially when the dollars were at par or buying products on the internet and having them shipped. This became a problem for the government since all of those millions of dollars were not being taxed in Canada. This led to changes in the amount, in dollars, of goods you could buy before being taxed when returning from a shopping trip in the US. Then the Canadian dollar tanked and cross border shopping waned, yet the rules remained as if cross border shopping was at an all time high. Funny how that happens with taxes. 

 

I know I said it sort of makes sense, that's this part. As I said above Canada is the second largest country on earth. Now think, if one wants to send one lousy letter from one end of the country to the other. They buy one lousy stamp for next to nothing, a dollar I think, some will debate me on the next to nothing part, and away it goes. So, for one dollar you can send a letter 5.5 thousand kilometres. Do you think our government run postal system makes a profit or loses money? It loses. The high cost to maintain the service in all parts of our sparsely populated country coupled with outrageous wages that are paid to postal employees due to the fact they are unionized government employees make any chance at profit impossible. Thus, the tax paid on goods coming through the mail, in my opinion, aids to offset the loses it takes to maintain a decent mail service in this country.    

 

Yeah, that was boring.  

[Patriot6]

4 minutes ago, thirdgreenham said:

Well, I used to ask people to declare my packages as a gift.  Now I don't.  Call it a sale, if you want, no big deal.  

As for the declared value, after I pay for the goods, can I not sell them for however cheap or however expensive I want to? After I pay, they're now mine, no?  If I ask someone to call my comic books $20, that's what they're "worth" to me at that point in time.  Sure, I may value them higher after they reach their destination, but that's my prerogative. 

What I can't wrap my head around is how there's no taxes or duties charged to US residents when we Canadians ship across the border....  

Also, I find it very interesting that the US shipping to Canada used to be so incredibly cheap and shipping from Canada to the US used to be so damned expensive.   Now, it's a complete flip flop. I can ship a box with tracking for $20-25 CAD and most packages from the US are now $45 USD.  

Spot on. The declared value thing grinds me too because if you bought a bunch of books for say 30$ US, but the seller declares that they're worth 200$ for insurance or whatever, you end up paying more tax than you paid for the books 

[Patriot6]

Just now, thirdgreenham said:

Yeah, that was boring.  

I did label it as such. Fair warning !