[Hack&Lube]

Wow, it was almost exactly more than 1 year ago that I started this thread. Where does the time go?

And yes, again, I must state the economy of using Canada Post. I shipped a guitar to Hong Kong a month ago. The UPS store quoted me $250 in shipping for standard service.

Canada Post delivered it within 6 days to Hong Kong from Calgary using Xpresspost for only $110.

Anyway, the difficulty with UPS usually arises from American sellers not knowing how to ship to Canada and simply lumping in your parcels with their other items and everything gets shipped the same way (standard or expedited) and you get charged brokerage fees that may cost as much or more than the actual item's value. I really cannot stand those sellers who can't seem to understand this fact and simply give you "I always and only use UPS". Sorry then, you are not getting my business.

IIRC, there was a class action lawsuit in the works to fight against the kind of grossly unadvertised brokerage fees treatment many Canadians have been recieving.

The only other option is to find somebody like my mother who called UPS and complained for days on end that she was never warned about these fees and it was UPS's duty (a duty they almost always fall short on, intentionally or unintentionally which I think should be criminal negligence to the consumer) and UPS ended up refunding her brokerage fee after awhile for this miracle chopper she bought off an infomercial. It was $19.95 + S&H. She was charged an additional $25 in brokerage fees at our doorstep by the UPS guy! (Again, the case of a large US seller which you cannot communicate with and has no idea about shipping to Canada).