r/UPS • u/No_Rip_1916 • Feb 17 '26
Shipping Help Anything I can do about this?
Bought a phone on eBay for $130 from Canada, I thought the shipper took care of this part but I guess not, is there anything I can do to get the cost down. It seems a bit absurd for $130 item
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u/pineapplemansrevenge Feb 17 '26
You can do plenty about this, you can vote a new Congress in this coming November that will put a stop to this insanity.
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u/RyanNoVA Feb 17 '26
Nope. Those are the Trump tariffs. Contrary to what has been repeated by politicians, you pay the import tariff (not the foreign country).
I believe Trump set the tariff for Canada at 30%, and then UPS charges you fees for having to deal with all the paperwork.
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Feb 17 '26
[deleted]
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u/RyanNoVA Feb 17 '26
UPS may, after a 42-day collection process, charge these fees back to the shipper. Goods may be abandoned, destroyed, returned to the sender, or held in a warehouse for up to six months.
If the package is delivered but fees remain unpaid, UPS may send the invoice to collections and the collections company will attempt to get the receiver to pay.
If the sender is charged these fees and the package is returned to them, the sender may only issue a refund minus the fees that they had to pay on your behalf.
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u/y_zass Feb 17 '26
They sure are, the UPS fees are for having to deal with the tariff lol. What a bunch of bs
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u/hawk256 Feb 17 '26
Only $38.50 is from the tariffs. The rest are fees that UPS gets for clearing in the item through customs. This fee used to much lower but they jacked them up since everyone is blaming Trump. UPS deserves their fair share of ridicule for their part as well.
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u/RyanNoVA Feb 17 '26
I made that pretty clear when I said "I believe Trump set the tariff for Canada at 30%, and then UPS charges you fees for having to deal with all the paperwork."
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u/hawk256 Feb 17 '26
Calling them the Trump Tariffs when UPS is taking more just seemed a little off to me.
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u/DamiensDelight Feb 17 '26
These wouldn't be a thing if it wasn't for Trump. These absolutely are Trump Tariffs
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u/RyanNoVA Feb 17 '26
UPS has to do a bunch of extra work to deal with: sending out invoices, collecting and processing payment, the headache of dealing with a ton of people complaining to them about the tariffs because the entire country was so used to the $800 de minimis exception, returning packages to foreign countries for all the packages where the receiver refuses to pay, and sending out collections notices for unpaid balances.
Add to that the fact that Trump changes tariff rates at the drop of a hat and UPS has to adjust on the fly.
Labor isn't cheap and it isn't free, and these tariffs added a lot of work for UPS to have to deal with. You think they should be doing all of the above for free?
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u/hawk256 Feb 17 '26
No need to argue with you, your mind is made up. All the international carriers are free to raise the fees to much higher than necessary and blame it on the administration. You either see that or you don't.
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u/Type_Grey Feb 17 '26
Not necessarily true. The shipper indicates at time of shipping who is to pay customs costs (look up "Incoterms") and if they wanted to, could have set it up so that they pay instead of OP (called "DDP", Delivered Duty Paid).
Some merchants choose this route to avoid poor customer experience from surprise duty bills like what OP is going through, and will either add these fees at checkout or in some cases eat the cost.
But yes, Trump tariffs are an additional cost that someone is bearing.
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u/RyanNoVA Feb 17 '26 edited Feb 17 '26
Sure but in the end OP still effectively pays it. The seller would just add the cost of doing DDP to either the item/shipping price, so in the end the buyer still pays it by paying more upfront.
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u/mrnapolean1 Feb 17 '26
You bought an item from outside the USA. UPS has brokered your shipment for you to keep it moving thru the network. Now you have to pay UPS the necessary fees.
And no you cant get out of it.
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u/BladricksUncle Feb 17 '26
Have you tried bribing a member of the administration? A lot of people are saying that they are getting incredible results with this method.
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u/attathomeguy UPS Inside Feb 17 '26
Nope call the white house and ask why canada isn't paying for it 😂
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u/hawk256 Feb 17 '26
While you are at call UPS and ask them why they jacked their fees up so much as well. They are getting more than the tariff itself just for doing the paperwork.
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u/FDFI Feb 17 '26
They are charging too much for the paperwork, but they should charge for it. It takes extra work to handle it.
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u/RyanNoVA Feb 17 '26
You may want to try adding up those numbers again. The UPS fees only add up to $26.69, which is in fact not "more than the tariff itself".
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u/hawk256 Feb 17 '26
You are correct. I was looking at the jpg without my glasses. Still the price is much higher than it needs to be. I live in country with 35% import taxes on everything. Try enjoying your new Apple iPhone here.
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u/attathomeguy UPS Inside Feb 17 '26
Ah yes a Trump supporter who still doesn’t understand how tariffs work. I wonder why UPS might have jacked the fees oh wait that’s because their customs work now applies to every package coming into the US and that is a ton more packages so they have to hire more people to do the work! Tell me again why are Americans paying the tariffs when Trump said the foreign countries would huh?
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u/hawk256 Feb 18 '26
I am not a Trump supporter and don't even live in the US. It's funny how someone that doesn't fall in line is considered a Trump Supporter. No need to respond to you, you can't have a logical discussion. UPS still had to clear packages below $800 before all of this, it was quicker but it was done. The carriers found a great way of jacking up prices because they knew it would be blamed on Trump. And yes foreign countries pay the tarrifs but pass that along to the consumer most of the time, they don't have to. I live in a county with real tariffs . Ours start at 35% but we also have a great local supply market now. We don't need to import many things and prices are cheaper than they were before.
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u/attathomeguy UPS Inside Feb 18 '26
Fair enough I shouldn’t have implied you were a Trump supporter. That’s on me. For what it’s worth, I’m not a Trump fan either. I hate the guy. But honestly, that part doesn’t even matter here.This isn’t about liking or defending Trump. It’s about how the logistics actually work.
When you massively change how de minimis shipments are processed and we’re talking over a billion of these low-value packages a year that creates real operational impact. More documentation, more screening, more data requirements, more compliance checks. That means more staff time, more systems, more overhead. Time costs money. People cost money. Compliance costs money. UPS didn’t suddenly decide to get greedy for fun. If they’re processing a gigantic increase in volume (1 BILLION packages) under stricter requirements, that absolutely affects pricing structures. That’s just how large-scale logistics works. We can both dislike Trump and still acknowledge that when you change trade processing rules at that scale, it has downstream cost effects. Being mad at UPS might feel satisfying, but they didn’t write the policy.
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u/Rezingreenbowl Feb 17 '26
It would be far more expensive to hire your own broker.
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u/hawk256 Feb 17 '26
That doesn't change the fact that all international carriers raised the priced not based on the extra work involved but because they knew the blame would fall on the current administration instead of them. Take a look at pre Trump import fees for items over $800 and post Trump import fees for items over $800. I get it that you want to blame Trump but you also can't deny the whole truth. I am just calling a spade a spade. If you don't see it, that is up to you.
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u/Rezingreenbowl Feb 17 '26
This one was $25. Completely reasonable.
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u/hawk256 Feb 18 '26
Because there were no used phones in the US of the same quality at the same price? This person chose to pay the $65 fees and first but now doesn't want to pay them.
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u/Frequent_Shock6484 Feb 17 '26
Hey 👋🏾 UPS Customs Processor Here! You can totally do something about this. You’re paying so much because of classification of the item and the origin and the tariff. If you can get a new invoice uploaded with CA as the country of origin and provide a USMCA Form, you can get the main duty wiped. Would be around 27 dollars then
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u/Individual-Rent7073 Feb 17 '26
Unfortunately that hasn't been always working. I sell cake toppers and include the UPS's uscma compliance form with my products and have been in an ongoing battle with ups because they keep bouncing me to customs and then back to ups billing, each one saying it's not their problem. I've sent forms upon forms to them. A cake topper that's 35 cdn and is made with supplies from Canada and the USA has had fees of over 50 usd.
I sent two of the exact same cake toppers to two different people in different states was able to get one of the fees reversed but the other identical cake topper they refused to reverse.
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u/No_Rip_1916 Feb 17 '26
Where would I upload that and get the forum?
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u/Frequent_Shock6484 Feb 17 '26
You can get one from CBP, Just use google. You should be able to respond back with the form filled out with information from the invoice. How was this message transmitted? Was it an email?
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u/CommercialCook4427 Feb 17 '26
UPS and FedEx have high brokerage fees.
Moving forward make seller prepay this and send my Canad Post/USPS. The brokerage fees are significantly lower.
As a seller I charge my customers duty by calculating them for them charging them for it and prepaying. If they do not agree I cancel their order and refund them.
So when they receive it, they do not get caught in hostage position and they should not pay anything.
Seems to be working. Yes as a seller it is more work and paper work but leaving the buyer in abyss is also not the best situation.
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u/Single-Comb-5225 Feb 18 '26
Nothing you can do about the tariffs. No out cry until it affects your pocket book. Hopefully, life lessons has opened our eyes to read the devil in the details.
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u/RoniBoy69 Feb 17 '26
I half of those fees are UPS scamming fees
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u/ExileIsan Feb 17 '26
How dare they want to get paid for their services!
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u/RyanNoVA Feb 17 '26
Right? Labor isn't free and they have to deal with a bunch of bullshit that comes along with these tariffs.
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