What causes you the most frustration as a card collector?

[auggiedoggy]

Originally Posted by Bosox Blair

Hi Scott,

I'm not an expert on this - just an eBay buyer. But my understanding is that recently (in the last year or so) eBay introduced this GSP option for sellers to use when the buyer was outside the US - including Canada. The pitch is that by using it the seller avoids all the complexities of shipping to a foreign country. Instead, if the seller selects this, eBay automatically calculates shipping, and also certain estimated cross-border fees the buyer would incur, and those are all charged to the buyer.

From the buyer's perspective, the fees charged through this method are exorbitant. It would be WAY, WAY cheaper if the seller just mailed the item using USPS.

Using cards as an example, in many cases the buyer would never incur any of the fees grabbed by eBay's GSP program.

As a collector in Canada, I avoid sellers who are using GSP. Or I message them and work a way around it.

Cheers,
Blair

The "Import fees" are exorbitant but remember this, the seller is still charging his/her own shipping fee as well so it is a double hit. Unfortunately I see more and more USA sellers buying into this GSP. Here's an actual example:

A US seller has an N310 Mayo Cut Plug John L. Sullivan card listed at $499.99, the shipping cost to Canada is $15.46 and the import charges are $74.69.

Unless he is agreeable to shipping the traditional way, this seller has a snowball's chance in hell of getting my business. It is Canada Custom's job to deal with import (duty), not eBay and certainly not the seller! I can count on one hand the number of times since 1999 that I actually had to pay duty. Why should I have to pay this ridiculous fee for an item that I most likely won't have to pay duty on anyway? I question its legality. I'd love to get a Canadian lawyer's opinion on this.