On Wed, 25 Jun 2003 Henning Wulff wrote: Subject: Re: EOS Re: B&H and UPS
> If B&H is now using UPS exclusively, I'll have to find another > company to buy things from in the States. UPS's border (into Canada) > handling fees are such that only very high priced items will be > worthwhile. > > Even when their are no duties or taxes, UPS typically charges around > $50 per delivery; since B&H often ships from two locations, an order > such as my recent 50/1.4 and 1Gb CF card would incur an extra $100 > charge from UPS. Pointless. > Hi Henning, If Canada is anything like Australia, then UPS may not be (directly) to blame. Australian Customs levies an additional (hefty) charge on parcels delivered by COURIERS coming into Australia - over and above any duty or taxes that may be normally be payable. They do NOT levy the same charge on international POSTAL deliveries to Australia. I suspect the reason for this is that the Australian postal service is government owned, whereas courier companies are not. Sending by courier reduces the governments postal volume and therefore the profits made from the postal system. Charging an additional levy on incoming courier deliveries not only makes the gov't some additional tax income, it encourages Aussies to use the postal system next time for international deliveries.... BTW, EMS (Express Mail) which is the postal services equivalent to a courier, doesn't get charged the extra levy either. But then it's also a government owned service.... So the (private) courier companies are passing on the gov't charges to us, plus if I recall rightly a handling/transaction fee to cover the costs of them passing the gov't charges back to the gov't. This is probably why Tim Munro got his RRS plates without additional fees as they were delivered using the postal system.... Now I don't know if the situation is the same in Canada, but it sounds pretty much like what we have here. Of course on the other hand the postal system can lose things, as I've found recently. Admittedly not very often and maybe couriers are no better, but at least they can track things. So from now on it's EMS for me (best of both worlds). Cheers Gary The following message has been received from the Internet. Please use with caution the message and any attachments * **** ******* *********************************************************** * For list instructions, including unsubscribe, see: * http://www.a1.nl/phomepag/markerink/eos_list.htm ***********************************************************
