Good morning.
I have a piece of rolling stock for repair that is to be shipped via Canada Post to the US. Anyone had experience on how to expedite through customs etc.
Thanks, Derek.
Just take it to your local post office and mail it. the postal service will mail almost anything to anywhere. I get stuff shipped from Canada to my home in Texas all the time via the postal service.
Derek,
I have no personal experience, however, I recently saw this on another forum:
" Always use Canada Post and fill in the slip as RETURN FOR REPAIR.
It always come back OK with the same comment on the custom paper:
RETURN FROM REPAIR and there are no charges. "
HTH,
Steve
Steve is correct, fill out the form that the posties will give you, suggest in clear terms that it is a used item being repaired, and the repairer will fill out an appropriate slip when they return it. No matter what, count on a total of at least five days between the two border crossings…more if at Christmas. [:D]
I’ve always used Canada Post to ship stuff to the States. Usually I send it by Air Mail as it gets there faster.
Thank you all for the info. Package is on the way.
Derek
You might get dinged duty on the cost of the repairs. I’ve had that happen to me.
Canada Post and Customs makes me wonder sometimes.
Customer sent be a large loc for repair, went to the local Canada Customs house and has a numbered sticker attached to the cab roof.
I get it, return it repaired, with a large note:
“Attention Canada Customs! See tag # XXXX attached to unit indicating owned by Canadain” or some such rot.
Three weeks later (went Air Mail) I get a call from Canada Customs wanting to know the value of the article so they know what to ding the poor sap for.
They never even looked at the box or contents.
I lived in Canada once. Always put “Returned for Warranty Repair” on the tag and then there is no value to the repairs to be taxed.
Curmudgon wrote:
Three weeks later (went Air Mail) I get a call from Canada Customs wanting to know the value of the article so they know what to ding the poor sap for.
They are supposed to charge duty only on the value of the repairs. But, like you said, they didn’t bother to find out that it was a repaired item.
Canada Post (and the U.S. Postal Service) is still better than dealing with a courier. They will often use their brokers to process the item then charge the recepient with the brokerage fees, which can be obscenely high. I once got a shipment from the U.S. by courier and received a notice to pick it up at their warehouse at the airport. Went there, was directed to their brokerage office in another part of the airport grounds. This place was set up to deal with brokers, not ordinary citizens. Spent the best part of an hour there while they were shuttling me from person to person while they tried to figure out how to deal with a non-broker. Or, more likely, give me a rough time for daring to invade their sanctum and upset their routine. (They had to act as my broker and do the paperwork themselves.) When they finally processed the mounds of paperwork and figured out how much duty I owed them, I tried to pay for it with cash. They didn’t know what to do with my cash because they deal only on paper and only with brokers. They finally found some place to get change for me and I was off back to the warehouse to claim my parcel. Never again! Since then I’ve always insisted on using the mail. It may have its shortcomings, but it’s better than trying to deal with couriers and brokers.