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USPS woes on irreplaceable vintage part - don't suppose any of you work there?

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USPS woes on irreplaceable vintage part - don't suppose any of you work there?

Old 12-13-20, 04:08 PM
  #101  
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Sounds like a good way to travel around the world....now let me find a box large enough for me to fit into.
As they say in France, "la merde arrive"!
Best, Ben
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Old 12-24-20, 07:14 PM
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Awesome call to get on Christmas Eve: USPS just called and said Canada Post is holding the package and won't release it until someone pays $15.40 CAN in outstanding duties. I already paid $26.90 on the package, which I presumed covered the declared value and duties etc. Never had so much issue shipping something across the border. This is insanity!

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Old 12-24-20, 08:00 PM
  #103  
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What was the declared and determined value of this?

( why I have totally avoided buying anything from Canada, maybe the new administration will have better priorities )

I know this was going the other way, retaliatory perhaps.
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Old 12-24-20, 09:07 PM
  #104  
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Old 12-25-20, 04:25 AM
  #105  
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The package has landed but I do not have it yet. My wife brought home the post office final notice of delivery card yesterday PO box, which I use, always get the card, not the package, in the box. Needless to say, the post office is closed on this holiday day but something that I owe something on is waiting for me.

I have shipped hundreds of components, bike frames and bikes all over the planet, touching every continent except Antarctica (penguin legs are too short to ride bicycles). In all of those shipments, only two have gone astray...

The first, a set of Maic SSC brake levers and calipers. 92 days to get from Canada to Australia but the brakes did, finally, arrive.

Second, a lovely NOS Turbo saddle in blue arrived one day after Ebay/PayPal took back the money the buyer paid me for the saddle. When I informed Ebay that the saddle had arrived at the buyer's address, Ebay did nothing. They kept my money for the saddle and shipping cost, leaving me high, dry and without saddle or cash. Pooey stinko!

So, for this stem to get off track but finally found, to me, is not insanity. Just a problem that cropped up due to human error. What amazes me is that the post office could manage to track and find the piece. Well done for that.

Anyway, will go to the city in a few days. Pretty sure that the post office will still be available to me (due to my nomadic lifestyle, I use a po box rather than a mailing address to my lake cottage) in a couple of days (Thunder Bay went into full lock down yesterday at 4:00pm).

I will let you all know what the results are when I next go to the city.
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Old 12-25-20, 09:49 AM
  #106  
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Much ado about nothing, francophile . The importer is responsible for paying charges assessed by Canada’s Border Services Agency. Import duties do not usually apply under NAFTA for goods from USA & Mexico although there are important exceptions. But CBSA also collects our national and provincial sales taxes just as if the article was purchased in an Ontario retail store. In Ontario this is 13% of the Canadian dollar value after any duty is charged, which exceeds most pre-FTA duties. And they add a service fee on top. So the amount Randy has to pay to ransom his “priceless, irreplaceable” stem sounds about right. What the exporter paid to ship it is irrelevant. That it was a gift is irrelevant. And our “de minimis” exemption is next to nothing. Canadians are well used to this, it’s no biggie. (Hey, gotta pay for free health care somehow, right?) I’m sure Randy regards the delivery notice itself as a nice Christmas present.

The odd thing is that nothing i’ve bought from U.K., Europe, or Asia this year has been stopped for border charges of any kind. Everything has been released by Customs and delivered right to my mailbox. I even signed up for a service to be notified of impending delivery of parcels with border charges owing, so I could prepay them and thus save a trip to the P.O. Never paid a cent. (Most U.S. stuff has gone through eBay’s Global Ship where those charges are prepaid by me.). And the mail from France, U.K., and Switzerland is both faster and cheaper than shipping charges from the U.S. Of course the choice is much broader in the world’s biggest marketplace....

All that said, I can’t blame American businesses for not wanting to ship to foreign countries. It is a PITA, hardly worth it economically, especially if you can do nicely with your domestic customers. For us, we’d all starve if we couldn’t export.
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Old 12-25-20, 04:22 PM
  #107  
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Originally Posted by repechage
What was the declared and determined value of this?
Declared value was a fair $80 USD and there were added fees included with the postage which I recall being collected to cover import/export duties, those nearly doubled the postage and varied depending on the value I declared when buying the label. No clue what CAN post's determined value is, won't know until this is returned from disposition. The whole thing seems a scam to me, nearly as bad as what we go through importing to our staff in Brazil. Due to no other compatible option, I insured "up to $200" (which was my only option above $50 if I recall) because I expected it could take that much $$ to replace if lost. My only hope is, once this is said and done, USPS will at least refund the added fees I paid for USPS Priority after failing to meet guaranteed delivery window, as I've heard they will do in cases like this.

Originally Posted by conspiratemus1
The odd thing is that nothing i’ve bought from U.K., Europe, or Asia this year has been stopped for border charges of any kind. Everything has been released by Customs and delivered right to my mailbox
Understand, after somehow avoiding layoffs this year, I still work for an international company based in central Europe with offices on 6 of 7 continents. I ship internationally for work semi-regularly, misc stuff, but typically electronics-related. On a personal level, I haven't been shipping internationally much lately outside of eBay's global ship program for personal sales for monetary and employment uncertainty reasons, but I still ship internationally here or there. I've sent bike parts on my own dime to Canada and Mexico in previous years, sealed food products to Switzerland and France, and even some small parts to help a BF'er in Belize back in 2019, I've never needed to pay duties on anything previously beyond what was requested in postage. This includes sending stuff to parents of our close friends in Oakville, ON.

The whole situation is bizarre. Has really tarnished my faith in shipping anything internationally again related to hobby interests.
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Old 12-25-20, 10:07 PM
  #108  
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Originally Posted by francophile
Declared value was a fair $80 USD and there were added fees included with the postage which I recall being collected to cover import/export duties, those nearly doubled the postage and varied depending on the value I declared when buying the label. . . . I've never needed to pay duties on anything previously beyond what was requested in postage. This includes sending stuff to parents of our close friends in Oakville, ON. . . .
Check your recollection, considering it was so long ago that you mailed it. As an exporter, you surely did not pay "import/export duties". Not to Uncle Sam and not to Canada. The importer pays those, plus sales taxes, to his own country's treasury. The exporter has to fill out the paperwork that will satisfy the destination country's Customs people and if the shipper charges you for handling this as part of shipping/postage, that's their business. (Normally you pass those costs on to the foreign customer.)

The U.S. Constitution's Export Clause prohibits the federal government from applying any tax or duty on exports from any State. (This is one of several explicit limits placed on the federal power, including that of Congress.) So it makes sense that you have never been charged "export duty" before, nor will be in the future.

Anyway, I am generally curious about this. If you have evidence that this is incorrect, that your federal government did apply export duty to that stem, I would love to be corrected. If you have to pay to export something, that means I have to pay twice, once to reimburse you (since you aren't normally going to just eat that cost), and then again to my own government to import it. And not only should you be due a postage refund for late delivery, you'd have a Constitutional case to argue over the "duty".
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Old 12-25-20, 10:20 PM
  #109  
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Makes me think as it went on a grand tour, the “system” thinks it was meant to.
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Old 12-26-20, 06:44 AM
  #110  
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When I was in the motorcycle parts biz people from countries outside the US prompted us to lower the value on paper for the items they purchased. Never looked into the import laws of those countries, but I am sure the taxes (tariffs) were somewhere in the 10%+ range, thus a 400 dollar part becomes 440 dollars. There ain't no free lunch in this world.
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Old 12-26-20, 08:23 AM
  #111  
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About a month and a half ago I bought a cool vintage wool jersey on eBay. I paid a lot for it but it was really nice and my size for my recently acquired Colnago.The seller shipped immediately but when I tracked it three days later it showed that the package had not arrived at the post office yet. I contacted the seller and he said he dropped it off on the day it was marked shipped. He said he would look into it. It turns out the package was part of a large group of mail that had been destroyed by a bad sorting machine . Some of the mail was either partially or totally destroyed by the machine , some only had minor package damage but all remaining packages were sent to a warehouse in Virginia! The seller refunded my money a few days later which was really great of him, but I really wanted that jersey which is sitting in a warehouse. I told him if it surfaces I will buy it. I don’t know the likelihood of that happening.
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Old 12-26-20, 10:00 AM
  #112  
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Originally Posted by conspiratemus1
Check your recollection, considering it was so long ago that you mailed it..
Yeah, I'm at a loss. I definitely remember starting the declared value at $120 and postage w/fees seemed high. Bumped the declared value to $100 and the amount dropped. I moved it to $80, that seemed like the 'sweet spot' for postage and other fees. I recall a note on USPS's site about fees and duties, clicked and read all their links to laws & regulations, saw their note saying "this may not cover all fees", but openly admit it's the first time I've used USPS's website for int'l shipment. I typically use FedEx or DHL, but DHL wasn't an option for me and FedEx & UPS rates seemed stupidly high.

All-in-all, combined [shipping + duties] exceed half the declared value for something 3speedslow and I ultimately worked together to gift to Randy. I 'get it', it's taxable property, but it's super disappointing knowing we could ship the same part anywhere inside the CONUS for $5. I've never had a remotely similar experience shipping across a contiguous land border and never dealt with this sending gifts across the border to my ex g/f in BC back in the day. Optimistically, one silver lining, I can expect some postage refund, but still feel bad Randy will pay out of pocket for customs on a gift.

I realize respective gov'ts don't care about gifts, tariffs are tariffs. Lessons were learned all-around on this one, I thought I knew better. The important thing is, it appears it's not lost forever, it'll find its new home.

Time to move onward and upward.
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Old 12-26-20, 10:35 AM
  #113  
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We should get your parts a visa.
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Old 12-26-20, 02:30 PM
  #114  
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Originally Posted by francophile
I moved it to $80, that seemed like the 'sweet spot' for postage and other fees.
The extra you paid was for insurance. Whichever is higher, the declared value or the insured value, that will be used for for taxes. Whatever gets them the most money.

So if I ship a gift, I put everything at $20, even if retail on a janky old bike part is more. Insurance goes to the sender. There is no monetary value to a gift, but I put in the token $20 not to raise flags.
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Old 12-26-20, 03:02 PM
  #115  
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Originally Posted by iab
The extra you paid was for insurance. Whichever is higher, the declared value or the insured value, that will be used for for taxes. Whatever gets them the most money.

So if I ship a gift, I put everything at $20, even if retail on a janky old bike part is more. Insurance goes to the sender. There is no monetary value to a gift, but I put in the token $20 not to raise flags.
Good advice on the $20. I've never needed to do that, never had this issue before either. The 'extra paid' you mention, are you talking about extra for duties or extra in postage? Label is back here with all the info they had for declared/insured info. Postage cost fluctuated even when the insurance stayed at 'up to $200'.

I always over-insure on packages with vintage anything, sale value is what it is, but if you need to replace something on a whim rather than waiting for a score, chances are it'll cost at least 50% more.
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Old 12-26-20, 03:29 PM
  #116  
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Usually it's the insurance that jacks up postage costs. I regularly ship to friends in Italy, Germany and Israel. Always USPs, it is cheaper than private shipers. It the hundreds of shipments back and forth (I but from ebay.it and ebay.de), I've had 1 lost. I don't see much need for token insurance.
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Old 12-27-20, 01:15 PM
  #117  
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Though hardly the end of this tale of the stem, the stem has landed. My most sincere thanks to the fellow BF members who pitched in to get this steering stem to me. It is targeted for a late fifties German racing bike...


Day before Xmas, the package hit the post office. I could not get it until today. I just picked up the stem (what a lovely piece) arrived and so did the handlebar tape that I ordered for the swap...
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Old 12-27-20, 01:41 PM
  #118  
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Originally Posted by xiaoman1
Sounds like a good way to travel around the world....now let me find a box large enough for me to fit into.
As they say in France, "la merde arrive"!
Best, Ben
From a FB page call 'A Simpler Time'


Until 1920, children could be mailed through the US Postal service! They had to be under 50 pounds, and stamps were affixed to their clothes. It was cheaper for many people to ship children than to put them on a train, and the children rode on a train (in the mail car) anyway---being watched and fed by mail clerks. The record distance? Over 700 miles from Florida to Virginia for a mere 15 cents in stamps. It really was "A Simpler Time"'. (courtesy of today's Wall St. Journal)

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Old 12-27-20, 01:45 PM
  #119  
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BG,
I have not seen any posts from you for a week or so. And I have not heard any grievances, so I am thinking Festivus went OK. Smiles, MH
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Old 12-27-20, 02:31 PM
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Originally Posted by Bianchigirll

Until 1920, children could be mailed through the US Postal service!
I had to look that up.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart...ail-180959372/
Finally, on June 14, 1913, several newspapers including the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times all ran stories stating the the postmaster had officially decreed that children could no longer be sent through the mail
https://www.history.com/news/mailing...en-post-office
Pope has found about seven instances of people mailing children between 1913 and 1915
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Old 12-27-20, 05:29 PM
  #121  
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Originally Posted by RobbieTunes
We should get your parts a visa.
Putting them on a no-fly list would be better. Then at least the stem couldn't have been put on a plane to China. And by truck all the way to TBay would have been faster.
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Old 12-27-20, 10:13 PM
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Originally Posted by Bianchigirll
From a FB page call 'A Simpler Time'


Until 1920, children could be mailed through the US Postal service! They had to be under 50 pounds, and stamps were affixed to their clothes. It was cheaper for many people to ship children than to put them on a train, and the children rode on a train (in the mail car) anyway---being watched and fed by mail clerks. The record distance? Over 700 miles from Florida to Virginia for a mere 15 cents in stamps. It really was "A Simpler Time"'. (courtesy of today's Wall St. Journal)

BG,
I guess it was a simpler time...glad there weren't any automatic sorting machines!
Best, Ben
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Old 12-27-20, 11:15 PM
  #123  
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Originally Posted by francophile
. . .

The whole situation is bizarre. Has really tarnished my faith in shipping anything internationally again related to hobby interests.
True enough. The best way to enjoy foreign shipping and de-tarnish your faith is to charge enough for it that it's another profit centre for you. The time it takes you to prepare an article for posting to Canada should reimburse you at some hourly rate for your time. It shouldn't be just at your cost, unless you want it to be, like as a gift, sure. If you are resenting the trip to the post office, you need to charge more. Then you'll enjoy it. Promise. Money has that effect.

Canadians have been conditioned by the big U.S. catalogue firms who actively solicit Canadian business to expect that shipping ("and handling") will be expensive. (And in reality it's enough for most things to produce buyer's remorse .. except for bike parts!) We know they are making money on it. Why shouldn't they be? They need an operating margin to stay in business. Shipping at cost would erode that margin. If we think the shipping is too much, we don't have to buy, do we? And if you lose our business, you have a domestic customer base that's 9X as big as we are, with 11X as much GDP to spend.

Small storefront businesses like my late father's don't charge S&H explicitly. But they don't pay it out of gross profit like rent and wages, either. They calculate their retail markup as 50% (example) of the sum of wholesale price plus the freight charge. Thus S&H is a profit centre for bricks and mortar businesses, too, because it's part of the cost of the goods sold, not overhead. People expect to pay more for imported stuff. Putting "Imported" on the label was good for business. Now it just means China.

Funny story about shipping to Canada. On a bike tour in Italy, our group -- all residents of the U.S. except us -- visited an enoteca in Cortona for a tour and tasting. Naturally we were encouraged to buy cases and have them shipped home. Naturally we were keen to. The wine was nice and, no surprise, considerably cheaper than home, even for the Americans and particularly for us. The owner, who had done this many times before obviously, assured everyone that he knew all the angles about how to get wine into every State in the Union -- "even Utah" -- without attracting full rates of duty and excise taxes. "We're Italians. This is how we do things." This consisted chiefly of supplying receipts for less than we were going to pay him for it, and advice to state on our own Customs forms that the wine was a "gift" (to ourselves???) We knew that latter wouldn't matter in our case, since gifts are fully dutiable on declared value. But I still had a feeling this wasn't going to work out.

We flew home, declared the case of wine as purchased abroad and arriving separately, duty to be collected on arrival. I didn't bother with the "gift" nonsense. (We also had two bottles each, our duty-free limit, with us, which we also declared.) A couple of weeks later, on schedule, we got notice from the Customs warehouse at YYZ that our shipment had arrived and to come claim it. The agents there knew what the Ontario government liquor store retail price was for every single bottle, even some rarer ones that we'd never seen for sale in Ontario. (We're not talking priceless vintages here. None were over $50-60 (2006 prices) which is more that we ever spend at home. I think we got them for something like 15-20 euros in Italy, and the receipts said less than that.) So under Canadian and Ontario law, we had to pay as duty and Ontario liquor tax the difference between what the receipts said and what the Ontario retail price was. We couldn't very well say, "No, wait, these are false receipts. We actually paid a lot more for it than what it says." So we and the agent just smiled politely at each other while we paid up. Fortunately the receipts were not wildly discounted but the folly of using bogus receipts to evade duty and tax on liquor coming into Canada was brought home to us.

So we had a nice souvenir that we drank slowly over the next year and a half. But we paid more for that wine than we would have at the government liquor store down the street from our house.

Friends of ours did the same trip the next year. We warned them about the enoteca tour. Sure enough, they told us that this time the owner said, "Even Utah......but NOT Canada. Sorry, but no way!" It seems his wiles and schemes on our behalf had run into so much cross-checking of his paper work by Canadian Customs that he had enough of Canada. A learning experience for him, too.
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Old 12-28-20, 03:54 AM
  #124  
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USPS finally called back, it's looking like someone maybe keyed this in as destined for CN (China) versus CAN (Canada). My label clearly says Canada.
This is the start of where the shipment went wrong - simple human error and we (human beings) error things up all the time. Blaming the shipping process is unfair, in my opinion. And the target destination country is clearly marked...


I have shipped hundreds and hundreds of items to almost everywhere on the planet and all but three items arrived in time and/or in good shape. I lost money on one of those transactions. The point is, the postal system on planet Earth is pretty good considering the size and logistics of the challenge (did you ever wonder how many letters, envelopes and packages get mailed every day, week, year? Error, sooner or later, will fall into a situation).

So, as far as I am concerned, two guys did something really nice for me (and the planet since "reuse" is one of environmental model challenges). Some one, somewhere (US most likely and no intention to point a finger) made a mistake. That mistake started a tale worth telling...

Five pages of posts, engaging others in the conversation, is a reward all by itself. Remember, life is about the journey not the arrival. In this case, the journey has, as is often the case, proved to be unusual, interesting and impressive. Impressive..?

Think about how tough it would be to find a box that is thousands of miles away from where it is supposed to be. Think about how the postal services (more than just one country's postal service in play here - US, China, Canada at the very least) actually found the package and got it to me. Impressive! I, too, thought the piece lost forever.

Anyway, I see a lot of negative comments about this interesting situation and I do understand the feelings that drive the comments. Some I agree with - others, not so much.

All five pages of "that" said, thank you Bike Forum members. And that thanks does not go just to francophile and 3speedslow, the two kind and generous fellow members, who came to my aid. My thanks goes to all members who spend their time sharing information and stories to help make my day go better and/or be a bit more rewarding, while learning a thing or two.
Thank you all very much!
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Last edited by randyjawa; 12-28-20 at 04:09 AM.
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Old 12-28-20, 07:24 PM
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Darth Lefty 
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After all that time, I’m surprised it didn’t germinate into an entire bicycle
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