Canada Customs and UPS

I compared prices and terms for a number of online retailers, specifically asking, where their websites seemed less than clear, whether they could and would deliver to me, to my PO box in Canada, by USPS (US Postal Service). Now, as it happens, the manager of the Canada Post outlet where I rent my box is a particularly nice and helpful lady who takes care of her customers, and she does, in fact, accept UPS deliveries for me, and has done so. But I still wanted USPS because I don't want to presume on her graciousness and to reduce the likelihood of complications.

I eventually placed an order for several items through the website of one of the Long Island, New York retailers. When it came to shipping, their checkout facility said "UPS or USPS." I am quite sure that I specified USPS, because I wouldn't have gone through with it if I hadn't been able to do that.

My order turned up at my PO outlet with a rapidity that I should, in retrospect, have found suspicious. As I carried it away, I noted the Canada Post sticker on it, and interpreted this as confirmation that it had come by USPS, as I had specified. I hadn't been asked to pay any customs charge when I picked it up; sometimes I am, sometimes I'm not. I've always assumed it's a hit-and-miss thing.

That was a few weeks ago.

On Wednesday of last week, I found in my PO box a bill from UPS for a sum ten dollars short of half of what I paid for the order itself, equivalent to about $12.00 added to the price of each item.

When I got home I looked more closely at the box my order had come in, and realized that it had, in fact, come by UPS.

Apart from the customs charge itself, the largest item on the list is what UPS calls their "Entry Prep Fee." I got online and started researching it, and quickly found horror stories of outraged Canadians refusing delivery of UPS packages when told what UPS wanted to gouge them for for the privilege of having UPS handle customs for them.

I emailed the retailer, asking them to review my order and see if I had not, as I thought, identified USPS as my chosen method of delivery. The reply I received simply ignored my question, and repeated the information on their website about how they are not responsible for customs charges. I replied to their reply, stating that that was not what I had asked, detailing the highway robbery UPS was engaging in, and asking the rep who had sent it to refer the matter to someone higher up. I then received a further reply, stating: "Thank you for your email. I apologize as our systems are automated and shipping methods are choosen (sic) by our system. We apologize for any inconvenience."

My reply to that elicited only an automated response with no content.

I don't, needless to say, anticipate their getting any more of my business.

Canadians be warned.

The lady I mentioned who runs the Canada Post outlet where I have my box told me, when I related all this to her, that she used to work for UPS, and she said, "A lot of stuff goes missing."

Gaius, I've PM'd you regarding the retailer.

When I looked on the WWW for other Canadians' experiences with UPS, I found one account where the author quoted a response he had received to a complaint he sent them. In it they actually used the phrase, "UPS provides a charge" for dealing with customs. The notion of a "charge" being something they "provide" surely qualifies for some sort of Disingenuous Use of English award.

The reason I have been able to receive occasional courier deliveries at my PO outlet is that it is at the back of a store in a mall. The address is actually that of the store, albeit the box number appears at the top. I once had an adventure of several days' duration trying to find out why something I had ordered by mail from the US to be sent to my PO box was delivered to my street address by Purolator, and others where things I ordered to come by mail to my old PO box, where courier deliveries weren't accepted, were sent by courier, and I had to go looking for them. I ended up writing to the appropriate minister in the federal government, complaining that especially since NAFTA, there ought to be coordination of such services. The minister's office replied -- tersely, as if any idiot ought to see it -- that that wasn't feasible. I have often thought that if enough people complained vigorously enough, it would become feasible very quickly. But studies have shown that, rather than complain, most people will simply not return to a store where they've received bad service. And my own experience tells me that Canadians will put up with almost anything.