UPS Rip-Offs
I’ve written in this blog before about UPS and their brokerage fees. I just today had another example. I ordered something from the U.S. (knitting gadgets I haven’t found in stores in Canada) and the order was $US50. Works out to about $53 Canadian at current rates. The brokerage fee that UPS charged me to bring it into Canada was $29.55 plus GST. That plus the normal GST of $6.85 (to which I have no objection) brought the total charge to $38.18. On goods worth $52.73. When I called up UPS to ask what was going on, I was told that’s the fee. Nothing I can do about it. Except, of course, for making sure that I never ship via UPS. Oh yes, I did email the seller of the goods to warn her of the problem and ask her to not ship via UPS for her Canadian customers. And my local shipping store, which used to be an MBE and is now a “UPS Store”, will suffer as well, since they have to use UPS to ship anything outside of Canada (within Canada they still have some choice). Not that I ship a lot, but when I do, it won’t be UPS if I can possibly avoid it.
If you want the gory details, they’re here. $19.45 fee, plus $4.25 COD fee, plus a $5.85 bond fee because I didn’t prepay the brokerage fee. Adds up to $29.55.
Shipping via UPS ground is a great deal within the U.S., so vendors seem confused or hurt when I beg them not to use UPS ground to ship to Canada (the brokerage fees don’t apply to UPS overnight or two-day, I think). USPS air mail (via DHL in Canada) is faster and cheaper than UPS, and the brokerage fee is $5.00 when they bother to collect it at all.
Unfortunately, sometimes vendors still mess up and ship UPS ground after agreeing not to. I’ve seen fees very similar to yours. The only alternative to paying the brokerage fee is to refuse delivery.
I never, ever use UPS when receiving stuff from the US. I won’t even buy from people no matter what the product is. I’ve miised out on some nice auctions on Ebay because of that but the deal would have disappeared once UPS got their hands on the package.
As mentioned the way to go is USPS (ground or air). You can refuse the shipment from UPS it’ll go back. Also note that MANY UPS shipping centers/services in the US don’t know that the Canadian receiver of the goods will get ripped off in fees. My sister in law sent something from the US and the customer service person told them no additional fees would apply (besides duty).