Does this bother anyone else?

S

SNobles

Patrick Roy BTP Collector,
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You sell a large dollar amount of cards to a destination outside of your county so you want to obviously send with tracking and insurance. To make sure you are actually covered you have to declare the actual contents total but the buyers want you to declare a lower amount (under $25 for international) so they do not have to pay fees. This means I take all of the risk for the package and I am not willing to do that.

One recent case a shipment to Finland, $400 worth of cards (that is what they paid) cost me $70 to ship it xpresspost as was agreed upon in the terms (only made them pay $20) and now they are refusing to pay the fees on their end so that cards will be shipped back to me (likely at my cost) and I will have to issue a full refund.

Really starting to hate this part of the hobby. lol

Rant over.

UPDATE: I have now received positive feedback from the user, it still doesn't show as delivered via the Canada Post website but it would appear the user paid the tax after all and has the cards.

Thanks for all of the support from members and because of this I now have a more detailed listing.
 
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Yep, happens all the time. They pay crazy amounts of duties in Finland & Czech Republic. Unless I know the buyer very well, I refuse to declare less than actual value. In cases where they ask me to declare $20 or less, I get a written statement from them saying they take full responsibility if the package is damaged or lost since the insurance coverage is insufficient
 
frankiefives said:
Yep, happens all the time. They pay crazy amounts of duties in Finland & Czech Republic. Unless I know the buyer very well, I refuse to declare less than actual value. In cases where they ask me to declare $20 or less, I get a written statement from them saying they take full responsibility if the package is damaged or lost since the insurance coverage is insufficient
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The worst part is in this case they did not even ask me to declare less, just asked what was declared once it was received, I told them $392.46 and I get this message:

Package is now in the customs and i have to pay about $100 taxes to get cards. Right now i think i won`t pay those. They keep package until october 8th and send it back to you.

What a joke.
 
That's why all my sales on here are North America only. I love European collectors, BUT not the postal headache. Rather just avoid it altogether. I feel a little guilty too having to charge the amount of postage necessary also. Insane, but reality.
 
I would keep the email and allow Paypal to sort it out. Not your fault that they refused the package because of customs. you fulfilled your obligation and you SHOULD be protected by Paypal
 
cmcdonald1 said:
I would keep the email and allow Paypal to sort it out. Not your fault that they refused the package because of customs. you fulfilled your obligation and you SHOULD be protected by Paypal
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I did a report buyer right away, so we will see but knowing this side of the hobby normally they side with the buyer 90% of the time.
 
I haven't had any issues overseas. A few lost packages in Russia that turned up 5 months later and the buyer contacted me in all cases and paid me back.

I have regulars in Europe that I deal with on a semi regular basis for the past 10 years. I trust them explicitly and everything has been great on that end.

Sorry to hear about this Scott. I hope it works out,.
 
To declare otherwise would constitute postal fraud. If they have a problem with the fees being charged, they should stop buying outside their country, or speak with their votes.
 
Unless it was someone I knew very well, I wouldn't lowball the value either. If your country wants you to pay taxes on it - that's your problem, not mine, and it's a chance you're taking (I recently had to pay duty on a package from the USA.... second time in nearly 15 years) every single time you order from out of the country.

Last time I mailed something expensive out of North America was 2011? I think?? It was so expensive ($60 to get tracking / signature) I have never done it since. I'll still sell lower valued cards overseas, but that's it.
 
I never have problems shipping overseas. If i ship by registered mail - or regular mail - just put an airmail sticker on it - put on the right amount of postage - get the post office to cancel the stamps, and away it goes. People tend to make things too complex. I only ship as a small packet to the USA when tracking is required (as they no longer will accept registered mail from Canada). No need to ship anything as a light packet IMO as all you are really shipping is paper / cardboard.

Just my two cents for whatever it is worth.
 
SNobles said:
The worst part is in this case they did not even ask me to declare less, just asked what was declared once it was received, I told them $392.46 and I get this message:

Package is now in the customs and i have to pay about $100 taxes to get cards. Right now i think i won`t pay those. They keep package until october 8th and send it back to you.

What a joke.
Click to expand...

What is the buyers username to avoid this kind of things in the future?
 
TanguayFan said:
To declare otherwise would constitute postal fraud. If they have a problem with the fees being charged, they should stop buying outside their country, or speak with their votes.
Click to expand...

Dude seriously stop buying from other countries? Do you even know the population of Finland, Sweden or Czech? We don't have that many choices, in Sweden there is ONE store that retails cards, yes ONE!!!

But I would like all of you guys to see it from our eyes. I often buy cards and asks them to lower the value. If I buy something from US/Can I pay around 30% i taxes and in Sweden they add on the amount that the shipping cost. So here's some simple math

Cards
100$
Shipping
50$

150x1,3=195$

I don't see a problem with lowering the value. I do the same when I send cards from to US/Can. I spend between 600-2000$ each month on cards and I bid a lot higher then many US/Can residents do because I can't buy cards as you guys "around the corner".

Neither do I understand how much harder it is to ship outside US? It's just a simple sticker where you add some extra info. About 30 seconds of work!!

There's a lot of complaining each and every day how low bids are and cards should cost more. Maybe if some sellers did open their eyes and realized how devoted collectors from other countries are you wouldn't be crying that much.
 
mralex69 said:
Dude seriously stop buying from other countries? Do you even know the population of Finland, Sweden or Czech? We don't have that many choices, in Sweden there is ONE store that retails cards, yes ONE!!!

But I would like all of you guys to see it from our eyes. I often buy cards and asks them to lower the value. If I buy something from US/Can I pay around 30% i taxes and in Sweden they add on the amount that the shipping cost. So here's some simple math

Cards
100$
Shipping
50$

150x1,3=195$

I don't see a problem with lowering the value. I do the same when I send cards from to US/Can. I spend between 600-2000$ each month on cards and I bid a lot higher then many US/Can residents do because I can't buy cards as you guys "around the corner".

Neither do I understand how much harder it is to ship outside US? It's just a simple sticker where you add some extra info. About 30 seconds of work!!

There's a lot of complaining each and every day how low bids are and cards should cost more. Maybe if some sellers did open their eyes and realized how devoted collectors from other countries are you wouldn't be crying that much.
Click to expand...

I have sold 100's of cards to overseas without issue at all. I get that it sucks paying extra fees but if you know it is a possibility then make your bid or total below the amount that requires tracking and insurance. I am sorry but I am not a heavy hitter with a store or run this for a business so $400 is a big deal to me. So the way this is looking is that I will get the cards back but be out $70+ for shipping. Oh well I guess I will make a better note in my listings.
 
SNobles said:
I have sold 100's of cards to overseas without issue at all. I get that it sucks paying extra fees but if you know it is a possibility then make your bid or total below the amount that requires tracking and insurance. I am sorry but I am not a heavy hitter with a store or run this for a business so $400 is a big deal to me. So the way this is looking is that I will get the cards back but be out $70+ for shipping. Oh well I guess I will make a better note in my listings.
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I have a perfect 100% on ebay, HI, SCF CnC and when I ask them to lower the value I say that I (the buyer) take full responsibility if they get lost. So far never happened. In Sweden it is very uncommon and I mean VERY uncommon for tracked packs to get lost.

Another thing is that if the seller don't want to lower the value I don't cry about it. I bought a card I knew what the seller could say...

You don't say if you agreed or not when the buyer asked you to lower the value?

If you told him that you would lower the value you should take the cost. If you didn't agree the buyer is a douche.
 
mralex69 said:
You don't say if you agreed or not when the buyer asked you to lower the value?

If you told him that you would lower the value you should take the cost. If you didn't agree the buyer is a douche.
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I thought I did say that above but I was never asked to put a lower amount at all, just blindsided this morning by this.
 
99goals said:
I haven't had any issues overseas. A few lost packages in Russia that turned up 5 months later and the buyer contacted me in all cases and paid me back.

I have regulars in Europe that I deal with on a semi regular basis for the past 10 years. I trust them explicitly and everything has been great on that end.

Sorry to hear about this Scott. I hope it works out,.
Click to expand...

Ditto!!!
 
mralex69 said:
I don't see a problem with lowering the value.
Click to expand...

I don't know about Europe, but here it is called TAX EVASION, and if you do it by mail, it is MAIL FRAUD as well. For some, it's not a big deal, for others, it is... if a business does that, they can get their license to operate pulled, fined and potentially jailed. Individuals can have the same thing happen. Most here would consider it a white collar crime, but note the word crime...

Taxes are unfortunately one of the costs of living in the countries that we do.

So yes, I totally feel your pain SNobles - you got screwed.

Cory
 
Damn postal services! It's a problem across the planet or what! who cares what the packages is worth for duties fees, etc. I HATE capitalism! A package is a package, charge for the weight and size and that's it! can't believe this. Everyone is always trying to find a way to make more money out of tax payers! Take the US postal services by example. in 20 years from now, we will be back to in person trade only because of these $%?$%?$?!.
I feel good now :)
 

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