Courier Question
 

So, I had something shipped to me from China by DHL about 2 months ago... or rather it was shipped to my parent's house (I send everything there because mail is way too unreliable in an apartment with thefts and people stealing the courier notices... plus my parents are retired and always at home anyway).

Anyway, my Mom was home when the package came and she talked to the delivery guy and signed for it, he gave her the package and went on his merry way and she put it aside for me.

When I picked it up, I saw there was an invoice on the front... and I asked my Mom if she paid for it so I could pay her back... you know the typical B.S. brokerage charges and taxes... I was choked because it was like $50 for an item with a claimed value of $50.. rip-off... my Mom is confused and she is like "No, I just signed and the driver didn't say anything and he left"... so I was like... weird... didn't think much about it.

Now DHL is calling my cell phone 2 months later saying there was an "issue" with my shipment that I received back in November and that they need to discuss it with me and to call their 1-800 number to resolve it.

I'm thinking they just realized their driver didn't collect payment... and I'm inclined to say "Too bad, not my fault your driver didn't collect and I've got my package, peace" and ignore their calls LOL... weirdly enough the calls are coming from DHL in the USA too... what do you guys think will happen in the long run? Anyone experienced this before?

1. Take this as a blessing from DHL and keep ignoring their calls
2. Never order anything that ships with DHL
3. Never pay for the 'missed' payment ever again
4. ???
5. Profit?

But in all seriousness, if you ever get another package from DHL they will probably hold it, make you pick it up from their HQ/post office location where you'll have to pay that $50. They'll probably have you in their history logs or whatever.

Sounds like you got lucky and saved $50 lol

Oh god how I hate DHL and UPS. Last time my mother in law opened a door and had to pay like $30 in BS duties, she went along with it b/c she doesn't know any better. Turns out her bro from the US shipped her a cell phone charger for the car worth oh you know $10, $20 tops if you were dumb enough to buy it from a place like BestBuy. Duties costed more than the item itself, if you add it all up it turns out to be like a $50-$60 charger, wow.

They could get a collections agency to make you pay up.

holy shit, dhl still exists?
i fuckin hate them with a passion...i've only dealt with them a handful of times and 75% of the time they screwed something up


i'd prolly ignore it...not my fault they forgot to collect so i don't see why i have to go through the hoopla of dealing with it when it wasn't a problem i created to begin with.

As mentioned, they will withhold any future packages until you pay up and they will send you to a 3rd party collection agency. The drawback is that the unpaid invoice could end up being put on your credit bureau as an unpaid charge and will hurt your credit. If you don't care about either of these then don't pay the invoice.

UPS and DHL are fucking crooks. USPS for international to Canada and Fed Ex for shipments to PO Box in Point Roberts. Never had any issues.

Yah I only use USPS (or that country's local mail system) for the brokerage reasons but in this case the factory in China was sending me a sample and I had no control over what they used... And that's the shitty part too it's just a prototype so it literally has no value but for some reason the stupid factory wrote a $50 value in lol

DHL and Purolator have got to be the worst. I will send it via carrier pigeon before I use those two companies.

I've actually had pretty good experience with UPS though

so i work at fedex and just want to chime in here.

shipping companies (fedex, dhl, purolator, whatever) has NO control over duties and taxes. we don't even estimate them for people who want to ship stuff cause we literally have no idea how it's even calculated. all we handle is the shipping portion, once the shipment gets to customs it's out of our hands.

if you want to dispute any duties and taxes (incoming), you need to talk to the CBSA.

what happened in your scenario is that DHL basically paid the CBSA to have your package cleared into canada, with the expectation that they will hold your package until you repay them (the courier fucked up here). if you do not pay, it WILL get sent to collections, because they definitely have a legal right to collect duties and taxes from you (they are not making money off of it, they literally paid your tax for you). so yeah, i would highly suggest you pay it. DHL is not the bad guy here.

(also, none of the above shipping companies are better than any other in regards to avoiding/reducing duties. except maybe some are better educated at teaching you how to fill out commercial invoices/shipping forms etc properly)

duties and taxes vs brokerage fees

plus every other fee they can think of/get away with.............

As always, if you're forced to use DHL or UPS, you can always do your own brokerage at the airport. It's time consuming, but sometimes you have no other choice.

DHL has only ever charged me nominal brokerage fees (like $10, about the same as Canada Post/USPS) it's UPS and FedEX that are charging insane brokerage fees

DHL and UPS are fucking crooks.

Bought a $150 package from the US, and by the time UPS added their brokerage and stuff it cost me an extra $87. That's on top of their original shipping charge. THe scariest part about this is that the actual duties and taxes we're less than $20. The rest is BS charges by them.

As for DHL my brake kit was shipped through them, and customs was done through some BS company, same thing as you the $200 worth of customs was not collected at the time of delivery, rather a bill was sent to me like 3 months later through said crappy agency. I told them the charges are ridiculous, since the tax is like 30 bucks and their charges make it close to $200. I negotiated them down to like $150, and then just told them to go fuck a hat and ignored their letters.

Which is why places like 24/7 Parcel are so busy. Makes a shit load of sense. Get cheap gas while you're down there. Sometimes, on a good day, and depending on the item(s), you don't even have to pay duties or taxes.

More often than not, shipping costs to a US destination is cheaper and even free, as opposed to having it shipped up here from the US.

Couriers also have options where you can ship items for an additional cost that has all fees included and is faster. That's if the merchant will give you the option to choose the various shipping methods.

Nobody is arguing that, but they have full control over the bullshit brokerage fees they charge on top of the international shipping charges. What pisses me off is that they're already charging a premium up front to ship something internationally, yet they double dip and tack on the brokerage afterwards (when they know damn well ahead of time how much it'll be) because it makes them sound cheaper to the shipper.

Real life example:
$60 in parts + $30 shipping + $7 duty + $38 brokerage = $135 total

Meaning I paid the seller $60, the government $7, and the cunts at UPS $68. That's more than I paid the other two combined. I always request the seller send it with USPS (or the equivalent) but if they won't for whatever reason then I just won't order from them and I tell them why. Simpson made a mistake and shipped my helmet with UPS and after I contacted them it was cheaper for me to refuse the shipment, have it go back to Simpson, and have them reship it with USPS then it was to pay UPS brokerage ($55 USPS shipping or $150 UPS brokerage). In an absolute worst case I'll go to the airport and clear it myself to avoid giving those crooks even a cent more of my money than I have to.

Oh and I forgot the time UPS shipped the computers for my parents office, but dumped them with some random other brokerage and shipping company in Richmond without telling us and deleted all record of the shipping and tracking information. The only way we even found them was because my moms phone does voicemail to text so we were able to dig up the one short message left by this third company and go get them from their warehouse. Since they don't even deliver (so anyone without a car or time off is fucked) I ended up having to back up to a massive loading dock in my moms Hyundai Tuscon next to a bunch of big rigs to get them :lol

how do we fight back against this? Will refusing shipments that have a brokerage fee eventually affect the relationship between the retailer and the courier?

Fuck them in the head.. fuck

Long ago I ordered a pair of shoes worth $60. At the front door, after duties and other bs, I was surprised with an invoice which amounted to an additional $50.

I was young and was like wtf is this...and paid for it. Still pisses me off till this day..

I bought a pair of clear corners one time valued at $20 bucks, DHL made me go to pick it up at their airport location, then tells me no it's at their Loomis location down the road and charged me $30 brokerage. WTF

as in you gotta go to their depot by the airport right? or is it you do it yourself at the airport?

You get the paperwork from them, take it to customs, pay the tax, take the paperwork back, get your stuff

Recently dealt with this, bought a used $50 part from the US, seller sends it via UPS normal service.

At my door, they wanted $40 from me prior to releasing the package: their own "brokerage fee" for $20, plus taxes and duties on not only the part itself, but on the brokerage fee as well.

Proceeded to tell them to fuck off so I asked the driver for a copy of the package invoice, tracking/waybill number, and where it was being stored. Told him I'll go clear it through customs myself.

Go to their depot beside YVR and Iona Beach, they'll give you the invoice for which you then drive <5 mins to the CBSA office, show them the invoice and pay for taxes and duties, and then they'll stamp the invoice for which you'll bring back to UPS and use to pick up your package.

The best part? The CBSA officer saw the amount ($50), said that's bullshit for how much UPS is charging me on top, stamped the invoice and let me go without having to pay. Got my package, told them to fuck off.

I still remember getting burned when I was 14 and not knowing any better, paid $100 in fees on a $400 order. Never again.

This happened to me recently, DHL dropped off a package for me at my brothers house and didn't collect duty. Have a feeling I'll get a letter in the mail sooner or later asking to pay. Do I still have the option to do the brokerage myself?

Yep your going to get a letter in the mail, not sure if you can do anything about it now, but you can certainly just ignore the fucks who send you the letter. I have and so far more than a year later I havn't had any issues.

Yeah thats what Im thinking as well, not sure how they could send me to collection since it's not my address nor have I ever lived there