conurus

[conurus]

For ground service, they charge the recipient a brokerage fee. It is a hidden fee that they never proactively inform you, the shipper, about. Notice that this fee is not a tax or a duty. It goes entirely into UPS' pockets for clearing customs on your behalf. They would for example charge about $70 for getting a VS17-35 lens into Canada. You wouldn't know it unless you dig up the fine print yourself. Here is the fee schedule that they publish:

http://www.ups.com/content/ca/en/shipping/cost/zones/customs_clearance.html

Ever since we opened our conversion service in 2006, we have been asking our customers not to send us anything by UPS, but stick with the EMS service of the post office instead, or Global Priority Mail, Global Express Mail for those of you in the US. Thank you to all customers who listened to our advice. For those of you who insisted on UPS, there was not even once it arrived without delays and hidden fees, in our experience.

Please! UPS may be great for national deliveries, but do NOT use their ground service to send big ticket items to international destinations!

The post office charges us nothing at all most of the time when we receive your package. On a few occasions they charge us tax plus a $8 handling fee, but we always apply for a tax refund and the $8 handling fee is not that significant.

[ManWearPants]

Is it alright to use EMS?

[conurus]

Yep EMS is perfect.

But don't go with any more expensive service than that! Express couriers sold through post offices and the ones to avoid are China Express (TNT in disguise), Chronopost (France) and Speedpost Express (Singapore, handled by DHL).

As a rule of thumb, go with the cheapest air mail service with tracking number.

[upallnight]

in this thread (3rd post), you mentioned one should avoid EMS and use (USPS) global priority. looks like above you are saying EMS is fine.

wish i'd known as global priority does not permit insurance >US$675...and my package has been sitting in canadian customs for 8 days.

i'd hope to use EMS to get it in your queue faster but avoided it based on what you'd said. i'll be happy if it gets there -- i'm a little nervous at this point, though i doubt there will be any problem (other than this delay). just feel like i'm losing my spot in the line.

[conurus]

Sorry for the confusion, in the United States you are suggested to use USPS Global Priority Mail. Do NOT use Global Express Mail because it may route through FedEx.

For other countries it is usually called EMS. When I was asked "was EMS alright?" it did not occur to me that the question was with regards to the United States, so you caught me on that one and I stand corrected.

[upallnight]

hi bo-ming:
no worries -- all the terminology is confusing, particularly when the same service is called different things in different places.

just wanted to clear things up for those residing in the US.

thank you!