Nightmare selling to Canada

Pilotboy,
The last paragraph of Hack's response above is a good summary about brokerage fees. The sad part about UPS is that you will pay a significant brokerage fee even if no taxes or duties are owing as in your case. UPS does have more expensive shipping options (eg. "Expedited") where the brokerage fee is built into the higher cost.

Markphd, I think you've got it wrong. I think it's only a crime if you insure it for MORE than what the product is worth. To my knowledge there's suppose to be a difference between "declared value" and "insured value" but for private transactions, I believe most people treat the two as the same thing since there doesn't seem to be an option to separate the two on the forms. The private seller has already paid his taxes (and the taxes for the product), he cannot and should not be forced by his government to pay full insurance. The only problem is that if a problem does occur, the difference between the insured value and the actual value of the item needs to be covered but that's between the buyer and the seller. A shipper is allowed to insure an item for less. The buyer is the one paying for insurance. Obviously, if the seller insures the item for less than what the buyer asked/paid for, the seller is responsible. But if it's the buyer who requests the seller to insure the item for less than the paid for value, you would hope that the buyer takes responsibility.

It is illegal for companies to not charge the full amount for taxes. But if they are allowed to ship overseas and don't incur export fees, they cannot charge their foreign buyer their local taxes and so again should not be forced to insure the item for more than the amount the buyer is willing to pay for. Some companies refuse to insure it for less than their cost of course but that's another story.

In terms of money order. The number of days it takes to clear a money order is a bit rediculous but any other payment option would pose similar risks of fraud except for escrow, which would take just as long of a time anyways.

To me, I hate dealing with people who's all business. I rather trust and get hurt than to have never found someone I can trust

Howie, insurance fraud is a separate issue from what I was talking about.

My only purpose in pointing out the legal issue is that if you lie about something like this, you could get in serious trouble. From the responses of some of the other posts, many people think it's a trivial matter. Doing 81 km/hr in an 80 km/hr zone, or jaywalking, does not put you in the big house. This can. I had the RCMP show up at the door of a friend of mine once. They seized his product and it was only because they felt really nice that day that he wasn't charged. And I don't think that having lots of positive feedback from AudiogoN members will reduce the sentence. And wouldn't it be nice to have a cellmate who's a 300 pound Hell's Angel biker who starts referring to you as his "bunk muffin".

Markphd, what exactly are you talking about? What are you referring to as illegal? A buyer asking a seller to insure the item for less? A seller insuring the item for less? Or both?

Like I said, there should be a difference between declared value and insured value, but I don't believe anyone including the shipping companies do much to separate the two, so the insured value ends up reflecting declared value. The shipping companies will tell you that it's illegal to insure it for more than what your product is worth because you might end up cheating the shipping company, but it's not illegal to not buy enough insurance. If I'm shipping an item that is worth $5000 to me and my buyer, I can see how it's illegal for me to declare it to be anything less, but it doesn't make sense for me to go to jail because I refuse to pay $5000 worth of insurance or for my buyer to go to jail because he refuses to pay. That cannot possibly be a crime (again the bigger problem is that the insured value is treated as the declared value). In Canada, it is illegal to drive a car that does not have insurance, but we are not required to purchase extra insurance just like we are not required to purchase extra home insurance.

And lets not forget that there's no law or official pricebook governing the price structure of used audio gear. A product can be priced at whatever amount the seller whiches to sell it at. Perhaps you're not telling us something about your friend and what he did that may help explain why the police went to his place. At the very least, since it's HIS products that got confiscated, he's not the seller, and as it should be, if it's the buyer who requests the seller to insure the item for less, the seller should not be responsible for anything other than the insured value including customs and duties. I think almost everyone here would agree with me that this is the accepted norm.

Markphd,
I have to agree that it is wise to pay all applicable taxes when you buy an item new from a dealer, especially if you expect warranty and all else that being a new owner might entail. A transaction involving a used piece between two private persons is a little different and here I think there can be a lot of subjective leeway in how much the item is valuated for tax purposes.

Let's say you lent an amp to a friend who brought it with him Stateside for grad school. A year later, he decides to send it back to you in Canada. Surely you don't feel that any taxes should be paid? Although no money exchanged hands here, I see this as being analogous to a private transaction for a used product. I feel this is consonant with the spirit of the GST although I admit I don't know what the letter of the law is here.