Top posted because it's getting long again.

As far as I can see, UPS contracts their brokerage workings rather than
doing it themselves. I once received a copy of one of these UPS broker
invoices by mistake from our regular broker. Although UPS probably
still makes a huge profit, adding a middleman to the mix probably is
part of the increased cost.

As to Don's comment about being held at the border trying to explain,
been there...done that. There is a NAFTA booklet (about 40 pages IIRC)
that is downloadable from the Canadian Government that explains what you
can and cannot get away with in terms of going to Canada. I suggest you
try and find it (sorry, no time to find a link right now) and adjust
what you tell customs to match those requirements. Often it's a matter
of semantics for the border people. Simply using the wrong word sends
up a red flag that costs you hours in customs.

Koz


Don Foreman wrote:

They do seem to, but it's not limited to US suppliers. I just
bought some stuff from Future Electronics (based in Canada).
No duty charges because the goods were shipped from a US location, but
shipping charge was $9 for stuff that could have been shipped USPS
for 60 cents in a small padded envelope.

I think many suppliers defer to UPS to deal with Canadian customs, and
UPS makes a tidy profit for doing so. The Canadian gov't does not
like money flowing south, makes it as inconvenient as possible. I
say this from personal experience as a consultant. I was detained
for over an hour in Vancouver until I was able to make it clear that I
was supporting a Canadian division of a US Corp and was being paid by
the US corp in US funds from US accounts. I still had to assert
several times that I'd be doing "no useful work"; I'd attend
engineering meetings but I'd not make anything useful that they'd
rather a Canadian should be making.

If your government creates impediments to trade that cause you
inconvenience and discourages US vendors, perhaps you should direct
your rants at them. Perhaps they're convinced that your
inconvenience serves the greater overall economic benefit of Canada
by keeping Canadian money in Canada as much as possible.




On Tue, 7 Sep 2004 20:51:40 -0700, "Ken Davey"
wrote:



Rant mode
Do these assholes have some sort of a lock on internet material suppliers in
the USA?
Shipping to Canada is so expensive with this outfit that I automatically
cancel an order if that is the only shipping option offered.
Aside from the fact that many US distributors seem to deliberately ignore
the Canadian market those that do ship to Canada seem to be in love/bed with
UPS.
Get with it guys. We have money too but we are not going to be stupid with
it.
/rant mode
Regards.
Ken.