chrisbtoo's tumbl

On the Perils of International Commerce

I Live in Canada. Back in December, I bought my daughter a lava lamp, from a company in the US - $24.99. Shipping with FedEx Ground was a further $16.92.

Today I get a bill from FedEx for another $13.69. It turns out that the import duty and GST (total $3.19) hadn’t been factored into the original shipping price, and they’d paid it on my behalf. Then they charged me another $10 (+GST!) for the privilege.

I called FedEx, to be told it was the shipper’s fault for not charging me ahead of time. In my view, though, the responsibility lies solely with FedEx: They know they’re shipping from the US to Canada; they know that there are going to be fees associated with it; they will happily pay them on your behalf, in the knowledge that they’re going to make some more money off it.

FedEx should be giving shippers a quote with the customs and GST rolled into it. If the shipper pays an intra-national delivery cost for an international delivery, Fedex should refuse to take the package. If that means the shipper has to contact the receiver to get the difference, fine. We’d be paying it anyway and, the way it is now, we just get the shaft a few weeks later.

Ten bucks isn’t a lot of money. What I object to is being told a price for a job and then charged something else without my agreement.