Not duty or tariff, but a $50 delivery charge?

[treadstone68]

I haven't finished converting my listings to the International Shipping program yet, and some items will not qualify due to their size or excluded category.... BUT... I sold some computer memory recently, which from what I looked up is duty-free for my American buyer, and he refused to accept the shipment when UPS was going to charge him a $50 delivery charge.   This is the first time this has ever happened to me in 3 years of eBaying.  HOW can I tell ahead of time if something I am shipping (outside of the International Shipping Program) will have a delivery charge?

I'm finding eBay more and more un-useable as time goes on.

[mrdutch1001]

"I'm finding eBay more and more un-useable as time goes on."...this is NOT unique to eBay and it matters not what online selling site is utilized there is going to be same/similar issues pertaining to shipping to the USA..Different carriers, different requirements, different fees, different processing methods...but the one thing in common is that shipping to the USA is/can be/will be He*L as long as the USA is ruled by insanity, incompetence, illogic, greed and corruption...

[byto253]

What was the HS code for the memory?    I checked for tariffs charges with the Zonos app with the HS code 8473.30 and tariffs were applicable.   This only shows the tariff not the brokerage fee a carrier would charge you.  If shipping by Canada Post/Zonos the fee would have been $5.99., which is cheap compared to the high mystery amount UPS charges. 

Per screen shots for COOs China and Japan:

[marnotom!]

---

@treadstone68 wrote:

HOW can I tell ahead of time if something I am shipping (outside of the International Shipping Program) will have a delivery charge?

---

As the make-up of that "delivery charge" is largely UPS charges, you'd have to check with UPS on that.

[reallynicestamps]

which from what I looked up is duty-free for my American buyer, and he refused to accept the shipment when UPS was going to charge him a $50 delivery charge.

EBay does not require any refund at all when the shipment is Refused.

https://www.ebay.com/help/policies/ebay-money-back-guarantee-policy/ebay-money-back-guarantee-policy...

https://www.ebay.ca/help/policies/ebay-money-back-guarantee-policy/ebay-money-back-guarantee-policy?....

This was confirmed by velvet@ebay some time ago

An ethical seller would refund the payment, less shipping costs, eBay fees, and international payment processing fees.
But it's my belief that eBay will not require any refund.
 
Hi @femmefan1946! You're correct in that a refused package is on the buyer and not the sellers responsibility to refund. As long as tracking shows the package was refused, then we would side with a seller if the buyer opened an Item Not Received claim. 
 
I agree that I would not withhold all the money, but it is up to the seller if they would like to withhold shipping, refund the buyer entirely, or keep it all. If the seller is okay with refunding the buyer entirely and being out the shipping costs, then they can cancel the transaction using the buyer requested option since in essence, they did by refusing the package. If the seller wants to retain the shipping costs, then they can message the buyer a heads up (not a requirement but a nice thing to do) and then refund them partially through this flow here. 
Velvet,


That being said, keep in mind that the Buyer also has recourse to their credit card and its chargeback policy.

I'd send a polite Message "I regret that you have Refused the shipment. When it is returned to me, I will refund. Please be aware that Refused and Returned packages are not a priority for any shipping service and this may take some time."

[ypdc_dennis]

UPS has a minimum processing charge for handling Trump's tariffs (even when there are none).

However, $50 sounds high for those fees. So UPS must of tacked on some additional charges.

[byto253]

There may have been tariffs.  

[reallynicestamps]

Was "recently" the $200+ sale onNovember 18?

Was it made in China?

Tariffs on computer parts from China have been as high as 143% of selling price.

[dinomitesales]

---

@reallynicestamps wrote:

Was "recently" the $200+ sale onNovember 18?

Was it made in China?

Tariffs on computer parts from China have been as high as 143% of selling price.

---

If I had to guess, it was probably the memory sticks he sold on Dec 30 for around $27 CAD. For which he received negative feedback complaining about the additional amount the buyer was asked to pay on delivery.

$50 USD seems crazy high for something like that, but none of us fully understand how UPS is calculating anything. They could have re-assessed it considering the high cost of RAM at the moment; or tacked on some crazy brokerage fees that exceed the value of the shipment. Who knows.

OP, stop using UPS if you haven't already. And reach out to eBay - they can probably get that negative feedback removed for you considering the circumstances.

[byto253]

In the 3rd post I have a screen shot of the Zonos result for $100 of computer ram made in China, it was $20.    

[recped]

---

@byto253 wrote:

In the 3rd post I have a screen shot of the Zonos result for $100 of computer ram made in China, it was $20.    

---

According to the OP's listing the RAM was made in Taiwan not China.

Regardless, the $50 charge would be for tariffs, Duty, CPB fee & UPS Brokerage fee.

When a buyer refuses to pay any/all of those charges, it will be billed back to the original shipper.

[byto253]

I was curious about Taiwan and it comes up with $20 tariff as well.  I did ask the OP what HS code they used but after the first post they have ghosted.  

$20 tariff and $30 in fees sounds about right for UPS.

[treadstone68]

Canada Post, which I no longer trust due to their strikes, is consistantly more cost and slower by up to a full week, so they are a non starter.   

[treadstone68]

I've never had issues with UPS for the past 3 years.  Canada Post is consistantly more cost to ship with and often quotes delivery dates that are up to a week later than UPS.  Fedex, is consistantly more expensive of the 3.  What point is it to use Canada Post if I start getting negative feedback for items showing up in 2 to 3 weeks instead of 4 days?

[treadstone68]

Can we keep the Trump Derangement Syndrome out of this.  I'm tired of hearing about politics in every single minutia of life.

[treadstone68]

It was used PC ram.   Buyer low-balled me to $10, then expected me to have some magical crystal ball that UPS would charge him extra fees.  Ebay policy is CLEAR that Buyers are responsible for import fees.

[treadstone68]

So I am going to get charged $50 in the near future?!   This is utter bull**bleep**.

[recped]

If you continue to use UPS for international shipping (especially to the US) this type of problem is going to continue to happen.

It's your choice.......

You never had these issues most likely because you never shipped anything valued at more than US$800. Everything changed at the end of August this year when the US$800 di minimis exemption was eliminated.

Prior to August 29th a shipment sent via UPS (actually any carrier) would be duty free and UPS would not have charged a brokerage fee.

[byto253 · Accepted solution]

The problem is that there is no mechanism for a buyer to know up front what those extra charges will be so it is a surprise.   Even on tariff free items there will be a minimum $10 fee charged by UPS.    Unfortunately with the removal of the $800 de minimus using UPS has gotten much harder as everything will have a charge on delivery for buyers.

With items like RAM that have tariffs the UPS fees will be higher. 

Your choice on how to ship, I sent about 300 items by Canada Post to the US last year with a delivery time standard of 5 to 10 business days and had no bad feedback as that was the stated expectation.   Not as quick as 4 days of course.  Up to you on how you wish to ship but CP is workable. 

Buyers think we have a magic crystal ball and a magic shipping wand as well.   I did send some packages by UPS last year but it will be hard to do again.

Just some thoughts.

[flipistics]

---

@byto253 wrote:

The problem is that there is no mechanism for a buyer to know up front what those extra charges will be so it is a surprise.   Even on tariff free items there will be a minimum $10 fee charged by UPS.    Unfortunately with the removal of the $800 de minimus using UPS has gotten much harder as everything will have a charge on delivery for buyers.

---

You can purchase UPS labels through Click Ship that are DDP and include either estimated (not including some of the fees) or guaranteed rates (provided the information you include is correct) that apparently include everything. I've never tried them, but they are a potential interesting option. Here's a guaratneed rate example of a 1kg book (made in USA) going from Ontario to Michigan.