Has anyone been charged a tariff/brokerage fee from Netparcel after delivery?

[steve-02]

This morning I get an email from Netparcel saying I owe them $183.29. I found this strange because I haven't used them in months. I check my account and it's for a package that was delivered to the US back in June. It appears the package was delivered however I am getting charged the tariff/brokerage fees the buyer was supposed to pay.

I found this strange because the item was delivered even though the tariff was owed. When I check the tracking, at one point it even says "awaiting payment for release". It was eventually released so I assumed the buyer payed, but I guess they didn't! Why would they deliver the package then??

Has this happened to anyone else?

[ypdc_dennis]

Have you tried contacting the Buyer to see what happened on their end ?

[john_koenig99]

The moral is simple. If you want to sell to the US, do it via eIS. (Assuming it can be listed that way). 

[mrdutch1001]

During the Canada Post strikes I utilized Purolator via netParcel through PayPal and I always got an email message  following the processing of a shipping label that was worded"You authorized a payment to Net Parcel Inc".....then sometime thereafter I'd receive an email message titled"Invoice Notification"xxxxxxxx"   with the wording "A new invoice has been generated under your netParcel account. A copy of the invoice is attached."... the Summary of Invoice /the total/ previously paid/ Balance Due $0.00 and a due date...

I always kept those emails but never received any further emails regarding any payments due and there were never any additional charges requested.

I just chalked up that second email message to being their way of providing a "receipt" for the transaction by their accounting system.

[steve-02]

That’s great but this happened almost 6 months ago before EIS was available in Canada.

[marnotom!]

Not all carriers demand (re) payment for customs-related charges upon delivery. For example, FedEx will deliver the item and then send the recipient a bill in the mail afterwards. If the bill goes unpaid by the importer, FedEx will bill the exporter instead, as per the carrier’s terms and conditions.

Sounds to me as though something along those lines happened here. Tough break. My commiserations.

[steve-02]

This makes the most sense, however, at one point in the tracking info it states “Awaiting payment for release”. Why would they say that and then release it even if payment wasn’t received? That is the part that is most confusing.

[marnotom!]

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@steve-02 wrote:

This makes the most sense, however, at one point in the tracking info it states “Awaiting payment for release”. Why would they say that and then release it even if payment wasn’t received? That is the part that is most confusing.

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Someone may have selected the wrong scan code when scanning the item or perhaps the carrier's website interpreted the code differently when displaying the associated message.  You could try looking up the tracking on a third party site (I like Parcelsapp) and see if there's a different message or series of scan events that comes up for you.

[dinomitesales]

What company did you ship the item with? Canada Post? UPS? FedEx?

What was the value of the item and what country was it made in?

[recped]

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@dinomitesales wrote:

What company did you ship the item with? Canada Post? UPS? FedEx?

What was the value of the item and what country was it made in?

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I'm going to guess that it was FedEx since they have always done the deliver first, bill duties and fees latter method. UPS on the other usually demands payment at time of delivery which often results in the buyer refusing delivery, UPS will return but you have to pay the bill before they will hand over the returned package to you.

[transtraders]

I had two customers that got a bill in the mail a week after UPS delivered their package.

[recped]

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@transtraders wrote:

I had two customers that got a bill in the mail a week after UPS delivered their package.

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Yes I've noticed a couple reported here on the board. It's been quite a while since I've used UPS for cross border, when I did they were not doing "drop and bill" unless the recipient was using their UPS account.

[steve-02]

It was UPS. $250 US die cast truck made in China. I assumed UPS would bill the buyer before delivering. I even appeared to say that in the tracking.

[recped]

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@steve-02 wrote:
It was UPS. $250 US die cast truck made in China. I assumed UPS would bill the buyer before delivering. I even appeared to say that in the tracking.

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In the past they did exactly that, payment on delivery or carded for pick-up. It seems from quite a few reports they are no longer doing that.

FYI - The only tariffs in effect at the time of this sale was for goods from China and the de minimus for China was also gone at that time.

[dinomitesales]

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@steve-02 wrote:
It was UPS. $250 US die cast truck made in China. I assumed UPS would bill the buyer before delivering. I even appeared to say that in the tracking.

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Yeah, sadly this sale occurred during the inopportune time when then de minimis was removed for only China, so all sorts of issues were happening with Chinese goods entering the United States.

It was all-hands-on-deck levels of unpreparedness from UPS  (and others) around this time. If I had to guess the item was delivered to your buyer and UPS tried to bill them after the fact. The buyer failed to pay and the charges were charged back to your NetParcel account because, well, someone needs to pay them.

These days UPS wouldn't even hand the parcel over if there was duty owing on it, but I think things were a lot more confusing back in June. Crazy that it took over 6 months for them to apply the charges to your account though.