Datasheet Fluff

This happens with clients outside the US. I've asked a few times for justification but never got a response.

Man's gotta do what man's gotta do :-)

IMHO our banking system is one of the things where we are lagging compared to Europe (I've lived and banked there). In Europe nobody uses checks much. Even 20 years ago it was all wire transfers, either electronic or you drop a stash of wire orders off at the bank while on the way to the bakery. You don't even have to go in, you can drop them into a secure box while on the way to the pub at night. Here I heard that if a wire comes in from overseas it can happen that someone at a transfer bank actually has to cut a check which is then sent snail mail to your bank. Now I don't know the details about this and whether or not they still use the stage coach but the guy who told me was a banker ...

I pay virtually all my bills electronically. To such an extent that I had to order deposit slips without the usual accompanying checks.

...Jim Thompson

I found my oscilloscope UPS receipt. :P US >> BC

Value for duty: $487.00 UPS Brokerage: $53.83

Ok, looked up my oscilloscope:

Value for duty: $1544.86 Freight UK to US: $15 (via Emery) Customs fees: zilch Brokerage: zilch Ship on to California: free (took less than 24h!) Sales tax (or use tax): $112

That's it. I didn't cost me a dime more than as if I had bought it here (impossible, since they only had Tek and HP which I didn't want). Except for the $15 freight but that is very reasonable for about 6000 miles.

yes, not far from Sphero. Customs (as in duty) isn't usually much of an issue. Most of time duty is small or zero. Occaisionally an item surprises me, my sister recently got an easel from the US and was charged duty for instance.

Sometime shipping seems excessive but the country is spread out a bit and less populous than its southern neighbour.

The biggest gripe I've got is brokerage which seems to be a big profit centre for some carriers.

Robert

international

At least the GST is pass through and with relatively few complications.

Robert

That's good. I can't get across the country for that.

In my experience Americans are often protected from the reality of the border. At a previous place of employment we covered the brokerage since it was easier (and probably cheaper) than educating Americans about the concepts of brokerage.

Robert

:Clifford Heath wrote: :> Joerg wrote: :>>> It used to be hard to get hold of the latest parts in Australia and :>>> New Zealand (forty years ago), and Antarctica could well be worse. :>> As far as I have heard from Australians that's because of the :>> exorbitant tariff burden. :> :> False. There is no tariff on components here. It's just that being a small :> market, a lot of stuff isn't economical to stock locally, and international :> postage is slow. Some suppliers insist on premium shipping services, who :> always put the package through customs inspection ($48) even for low-value :> packages for which they're not required, and who then charge you for the :> privilege of paying the $48 customs charge for you. Are you listening, :> Maxim? :> :> But I've had good luck with USPS, from suppliers who allow that. : : :Well, no matter how they call that, has your government considered :dropping this customs fee (a.k.a. tax)? Or have they given it some :thought as to why other countries do not levy such fees? I never had to :pay $48 just to get a few parts and I've lived in Europe and in the US. :Roadblocks like that entice entrepreneurs to start their companies :elsewhere.

Generally, for the average Aussie wanting to buy stuff in from O/S, Customs is NOT levied against the importer UNLESS the value of the goods would attract duty of AUD100.00. This amounts to saying "unless we can get AUD100 to cover our costs of assessment, then we don't want to know about it." In other words you can buy in an awful lot of components without any duty being assessed. So far I haven't had to pay for anything.

Items under $20.00 imported into Canada have no duty. (There's some limits to that but I don't know'm.)

Example: Bought an E*bay gizmo (from US) with a declared value of $10.00. Found it in my mail box one day... No duty, no taxes, no brokerage.

D from BC British Columbia Canada.

duty

Right. But here, you're talking about duty, not the screening charge. The components I've brought in don't attract duty in any quantity.

ven

Won't catch the real professionals though. They will work to clean room standards.

You have to be joking. Even post 9/11 the US "security" system has let people board aircraft with live ammunition in a coat pocket. They go through Heathrow in transit and get pulled. US security screening is staffed with myopic ex taxi drivers. And before 9/11 it was even worse some guys were not even trained how to use the high end kit.

They usually charge extra for international transfers everywhere and offer poor exchange rates. When I lived in Japan we used to split the difference for UK travellers cheques with the service engineers for local currency.

Even more sophisticated in some countries like Belgium. There you can do just about any banking transaction you like from a hole in the wall machine terminal (actually situated in the banks outer foyer), or if you prefer with HomeBank from your computer at home using an extremely heavyweight cryptographic method. Belgian cryptography is so good they have had ecash on their bank cards for more than a decade now.

UK still uses paper cheques and the banks deliberately take ages to clear funds for outcome. We have finally got our own brand of chip&pin last year. Security on it has already been compromised. France & Belgium have had it for ages - and the Belgian one is still secure.

Wierd. I seem to remember a scam in the US that involved forging cheques with human readable routing info that was different to the machine readable version so the cheques kept going around inside the system.

Regards, Martin Brown

Turns out most of the time even they make mistakes. Maybe not as blatant as the guys who wanted to blow up trains in Germany (they forgot that a detonation requires lots of air).

It's never going to be perfect. Whether the switch to TSA made any sense, I don't know.

Yes, you really have to watch it in order to avoid or minimize fees. For really small favors such as paying someone back for postage it's cheaper to simply mail a $10 bill. Even if 50% of those letters would get lost it's still less expensive that way.

That's how it always was in Germany. The outer foyers are for privacy and because of bad weather.

I've never heard of that one ;-)

What brokerage? For huge industrial gear, ok. But I have ordered lots of stuff across borders and always been my own "broker". Sometimes customs had to be paid, other times GST, VAT or whatever, and for properly declared shipments into the US it was usually the least hassle. Either there is customs due (and then you pay that) or there isn't.

Sure, but where we live it isn't exactly a metropolis either. A couple months ago I got a delivery and they told me that they had to do a 2nd attempt a couple miles down the road. The first truck didn't make it because it lacked 4WD. They had to go back to the main road, almost a whole mile in reverse.

Then vote with your feet. Don't use those carrier that try to fleece and if a vendor insists on one drop that vendor.

I've been meaning to look into that someday.. How to be my own broker.. Some US vendors on E*bay only ship by UPS (evil brokerage). The UPS driver won't give me the package until I pay the UPS invoice (brokerage and other charges).

I'm 20 minutes from the US border. Maybe UPS has a holding center on the US side, I can pick up the package, then let a customs officer check it out?? No brokerage??

I paid $53.00 of UPS brokerage on a $487.00 item. I've spotted somewhere that UPS brokerage goes up using price brackets. So if I buy a $4000.00 oscilloscope from the US and have it shipped by UPS...Yikes! Brokerage black eye ;(

D from BC British Columbia Canada.

In Germany I had to go to the local customs and pay. Later, I guess after they knew me well enough, they sent stuff on with a bill attached that spelled out the tariff and VAT which I then paid same day or next day.

If UPS is so expensive, why do you use them? There is plenty of competition and if a vendor insists on using them just move on to another vendor. Digikey offers a whole laundry list of services. Last time I used US mail because I didn't need the parts the next day. That dropped the shipping charges to around five bucks.

Yes..I dodge UPS like I dodge biker chicks on online dating.. :P Initially I thought "How bad could UPS brokerage be?" And didn't check.

I know US customers get many shipping options from Digikey but not me. When I order parts, the only Digikey shipping option I get online is Purolator courier, that's all. :( My parts come from Digikey's Winnipeg warehouse. How strategic... That's right in the middle of Canada and near the US border. So.. no brokerage :)

D from BC British Columbia Canada.

Actually they come from Digikey's MN warehouse. If they spend any time in MB, it's just a few hours. You're indirectly paying for brokerage, but probably they do one big customs entry for every shipment on a given weekday.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

Yeah...I just noticed all my Digikey pack lists have the MN address. Indirectly paying for Digikey brokerage still doesn't seem as bad as UPS (US to Canada). I've yet to figure out how to completely dodge Digikey brokerage.

For fun, I found a Google satellite photo of the winipeg warehouse.

I'm guessing it's the building (upper left of arrow) with all the trucks.

Interesting...There's a building with a photo glitch (near runway)

D from BC British Columbia Canada.