Canadian Residents - UPS Brokerage Fees

[Zoomie]

Greetings from Nova Scotia!

I noticed several posts about problems with UPS brokerage fees. I experienced these unexpected brokerage fees first-hand after I bought a few items from EBay and US retailers.

The Bad News:
I spoke with Cybereality and he said that Oculus will be shipping to Canada via UPS standard. They are unable to change the shipping method this close to units being shipped. UPS will show up at your door with a C.O.D. that includes taxes, a brokerage fee for clearing your Oculus at the border, and a $6 charge for posting a bond. The bond is what allows them to ship the item to you before they have paid your taxes. The brokerage fee is what they charge to deal with CBSA on your behalf. Given the value of the Oculus, the Brokerage fee and Bond fee combined will be in the neighbourhood of $60.
Here's a link to their fees (edit: fixed this link)

The Good News:
There's a way around the brokerage and bond fees if you don't mind doing a little bit of work. It's called self-clearing your item. It's completely legal for you to self clear and save yourself from this UPS cash-grab. Or you can let them do it all for you and pay $60 more.

Here's a link to a CTV news article on self-clearing. There are many other resources online if you look up "how to avoid UPS brokerage fee Canada" in google.

Cheers,
Z

[kaswardy]

great thanks. reading this up.

[kaswardy]

so this means, I will need to goto a US/Canada border to get this cleared?

[Zoomie]

No, look up CBSA offices and find one near you. If there aren't any nearby then it may be worth your while to just let UPS do it. However, if you live in any major city center then you WILL have a CBSA office nearby and can easily do the clearance. Here's the site for Ontario

Essentially you get your paperwork together, pay Taxes/Duties at the CBSA office, then go with your receipt and pick up the Rift at the UPS depot - or Fax them the paperwork and they'll schedule your delivery. I self-cleared a fibreglass trunk for my car and the whole thing took maybe 15 minutes.

This guy has a pretty good walk through of what to expect. I posted the CTV link in my original post since it's more reputable than some random blog.

[kaswardy]

There is an office 10km from my place, however this is an excerpt that I read from the blog:

Time-wise, assume that once your package gets to the entry port (Richmond/Vancouver in my case), it will be tied up in this process for at least another week.

I just can't wait for the rift anymore. So I would just suck it up and pay the brokerage fee just to get it delivered on time.

[Tails-]

This brings our cost to $500 -_- ffs..

[Darcanis]

Wasn't there a ton of complaints about this before which lead Oculus to use regular post which was way cheaper? I got my dk1 just after the shipping change to postal from UPS.

You would think they would remember this...

[GoesTo11]

"Darcanis" wrote:
Wasn't there a ton of complaints about this before which lead Oculus to use regular post which was way cheaper? I got my dk1 just after the shipping change to postal from UPS.

You would think they would remember this...

Ya, this is nothing new. I'm not sure why companies insist on UPS shipping to Canada. They must get a great deal. I usually get my stuff shipped across the border to Blaine then I bring it over the border but as I understand it, Oculus doesn't allow for that.

Zoomie: thanks for the info. UPS isn't getting my money this time.

Cyberreality: is it possible to request that "self-clear" be written on the outside of my rift box as suggested in the CTV link?

[firstdayreviews]

I didn't get charged on my first DK1 but I had issues with the screen and Oculus sent me a replacement and that time I got dinged 50$ or more on COD... I emailed Oculus as asked... why did I not get charged the first time but get nailed the second time?

Oculus said that customs will do random select of packages, some make it through without a COD and others will get tagged and charged there is no way to predict who will pay and who will not.

[cybereality]

@GoesTo11: I don't think we can write anything special on the box. However, I was told we will try to minimize any additional fees. Of course, we can't control all the fees, whether from UPS or your government. But we are hoping it will be less of an issue that with DK1.