Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1996/12/23
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]I certainly cannot argue with Mr Henning J. Wulff's posting on this subject as he is living the Canadian experience. But I buy-and-sell a lot with Canadians, and it is my experience that they get dutied both ways, coming and going, on all photo gear. As recently as a month ago, I had a camera sent me from Ontario which was levied an export tax. This may not have been done legally, but 'Imposte du Canada' collected their levy at the seller's expense before it left the Dominion. Also, here is THE BIG PROBLEM with UPS and FedEX: When shipping from the US to ANY foreign destination, including Canada, they will NOT insure 'unique items', meaning items bearing a serial number which are not in current production. The evil part is that they will take your money for insurance but, if a claim is made, they will chuckle and say, 'oh, dear, we made a mistake and shouldn't have insured this' and refund your insurance payment. The insurance is NOT any good unless the item is still in production or lacks a serial number. I was warned of this by a friendly UPS delivery person when I was getting ready to ship off an $8,000 lens to the Orient. I spent a day on the phone with both UPS and FedEX and confirmed this: they do NOT insure unique items outside the US. The Postal Authorities do so, to a dollar limit varying by treaty from country to country. Marc msmall@roanoke.infi.net FAX: +540/343-7315 Cha robh bas fir gun ghras fir!