Canadian Customs

[Hardy_Boy]

Hey guys, I ordered new wheels from ECS in April. They didn't have them in stock at the time, so I've been impatiently waiting and destroying my blizzaks in the meantime. ECS finally received the wheels, and shipped them via UPS a week ago. But now they've been sitting in Winnipeg for the past three days (full 72 hrs) with the status, "shipment pending release from clearance agency". Is this normal? I've read horror stories regarding other peoples packages sitting in customs for up to a month. Is there anything I can do to get the ball rolling a little quicker? I'm tired of waiting!

the shipment tracker is slowly making me go insane.

FYI expected delivery date was for today. Have an appointment at Urban X for them to be mounted tomorrow...guess I have to cancel

[P Arkus]

Re: Canadian Customs

Unfortunately if its with Customs, there is a slim to nil chance you can do anything about it. Customs can go very smoothly or very stressfully, but you'll never know until it happens.

[aliencurv]

Re: Canadian Customs

Yeah I think it's a conspiracy. And i'm serious. I beleive canada post being forced back to work pissed off another section (which i know is unrelated) but that's Customs. Every f'n thing I have ordered internationally has sat in customs for WEEKS. It's insane. And there is no one you can talk too. I have dozens of international packages shipped to me in a week, and never before have I experienced these problems with Customs.

[Canadian Turbo]

Re: Canadian Customs

I would imagine there may have been a huge backload of items that were sitting with Canada Post or foreign postal agencies waiting for the strike to end and then Customs got slammed with a ton of packages so probably just a huge delay as they catch up with processing. I just got a package from the States yesterday that was sent around the 27th of July, yet the package I ordered on the 27th of June is still no where to be found.

[Kor]

Re: Canadian Customs

Pretty regularly have stuff get stuck for up to about a week.

[Hardy_Boy]

Re: Canadian Customs

I was called by UPS this afternoon and apparently the receipt that ECS supplied wasn't "sufficient" enough for custom officers. I need to e-mail and fax my copy of the receipt to UPS who then hands it over to the customs officials. Thumbs up for UPS, this was out of their control. Thumbs down for customs nazi's, I've been told shipping through manitoba is the worst.

[bitskyline]

Re: Canadian Customs

my salesman rob has had his subaru stuff at customs for 2 months... still says pending...

[AllGo'n'Show]

Re: Canadian Customs

I was called by UPS this afternoon and apparently the receipt that ECS supplied wasn't "sufficient" enough for custom officers. I need to e-mail and fax my copy of the receipt to UPS who then hands it over to the customs officials. Thumbs up for UPS, this was out of their control. Thumbs down for customs nazi's, I've been told shipping through manitoba is the worst.

Lots of stuff gets stuck in MB Get the receipt, fax it to the UPS # they gave you, call them again an hour later and it will be cleared by the end of the day.

[RONDAL]

Re: Canadian Customs

the amount of stuff sitting in customs to be processed due to the strike means right now they have a week of inventory of catch up. we recently had some stuff sent up from our houston office that sat around and after many calls and enquiries by numerous people someone in our office eventually got through the manitoba office (where everything seems to go through) who alerted us to the fact that the postal strike f'd them royally and they are now behind. They are just hoping they can get caught up before november and xmas stuff starts

[sabbySC]

Re: Canadian Customs

Sounds like BS to me, the problem was the postal lockout not the strike. Besides I had stuff sent to me recently that passed through customs with no delay, so there should be no more back log at this point.

The bigger issue at the moment seems to be increased enforcement from customs, they charged me 2 bucks in duties on an item and 7.50 in processing fees, so it seems someone has told customs to start applying to everything. Perhaps someone higher up has decided to start using whatever means possible to start attempting to curb cross border shopping, be it by mail order or in person.

[AllGo'n'Show]

Re: Canadian Customs

He shipped via UPS, not sure why everyone thinks the postal strike would affect UPS??

[Canadian Turbo]

Re: Canadian Customs

I was implying that customs got slammed with packages after work resumed by Canada Post so there is now a delay for all carriers at the border.

[Hardy_Boy]

Re: Canadian Customs

finally cleared this afternoon and is back in transit. I've also contacted Canadian Border Service Agency to figure out why the receipt from ECS wasn't sufficient

[Satnam]

Re: Canadian Customs

Sounds like BS to me, the problem was the postal lockout not the strike. Besides I had stuff sent to me recently that passed through customs with no delay, so there should be no more back log at this point.

The bigger issue at the moment seems to be increased enforcement from customs, they charged me 2 bucks in duties on an item and 7.50 in processing fees, so it seems someone has told customs to start applying to everything. Perhaps someone higher up has decided to start using whatever means possible to start attempting to curb cross border shopping, be it by mail order or in person.

seems right/fair, $40ish value, 5% GST = $2, the cutoff is probably $20 for no customs charge, it's too bad they have a fixed brokerage charge of $7.50, unlike courier companies, then you could really complain.