International buyer wants me to pay his customs duties?!

JVC · May 17, 2012

Sold a card for $135 to Canada a week ago. I normally send all of my international packages via registered mail to have tracking and insurance. In order to get the insurance you have to declare the value of the merchandise in the package. Well, I get a message today from the buyer stating that he had to pay $48 in duties on the package and he wants me to split the cost with him. Has this happened to anyone else and if so, what did you do?

All The Hype · May 17, 2012

Haven't had this happen myself, but I just don't ship internationally anymore. There are enough collectors in the US to make the sales you want to make without the headaches of shipping out of the country.

cstmleather · May 17, 2012

He should know this can happen. Save the email incase he decides to leave a negative cause of it. Only way around this is to send as "gift" but I wouldn't recommend it.

TopOffLikeWALLACE · May 17, 2012

$48 dollars? Either he's scamming you, or the gooberment is scamming him.

RiceLynnEvans75 · May 17, 2012

Does he have a receipt?

jcmint · May 17, 2012

the customs fees are fierce. I had a guy bitch about it but i told him it was insured and had a declared value they should know better. In short its not the sellers responsibility to pay the buyers customs fees. this is like a buyers premium at auction.

hockeyfights · May 17, 2012

http://pages.ebay.com/help/pay/international-shipping-rules.html

Scroll down a little ways to the "Who Pays For Customs" section. If I list an item that I allow bidding outside the US, I copy and paste that disclaimer in the description of the auction. This doesn't answer your question, but will help in future disputes with an international buyer.

nyc3 · May 17, 2012

JVC said:
Sold a card for $135 to Canada a week ago. I normally send all of my international packages via registered mail to have tracking and insurance. In order to get the insurance you have to declare the value of the merchandise in the package. Well, I get a message today from the buyer stating that he had to pay $48 in duties on the package and he wants me to split the cost with him. Has this happened to anyone else and if so, what did you do?

Tell him to take it out of your taxes that he will be paying half of this year since you guys are going halfsies.

daveyou · May 17, 2012

sigh~ jeff, honestly, that sucks...

as a buyer in canada, number one, he should've known about the possibility of the customs fee. i guess he thought US buyers would mark it as $1 value or something. however, with the fact that this wasn't even discussed before your transaction was placed, you are not liable for even a cent, man..

if you do not meet that half, he can neg you for it. as for him opening a dispute, i guess it's harder since he's already "paid" for customs fee so sending it back to you for the money back doesn't make sense...

as long as the delivery shows as delivered, as well as saving all incoming emails about him receiving the card and "extorting" for half the customs fee, the worst case would be a neg if you stand your ground..

i wouldn't go halfsies no matter what...but that's just me

keep us posted and a id would be swell

hope it just blows over, bro

dave

gonzagacubs · May 17, 2012

I had this happen to me a few months back. Basically the guy got mad because I wouldn't lie about the value of the package. As a seller, it is not our responsibility to pay the tariffs and or customs taxes. If he has a problem with it, he needs to take it up with the Canadian Postal and his government.

Now, if you really want to get technical, by putting a value of $1 or somethin of the sort on a package that clearly has more value than what you declared, that's mail fraud.

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