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When UPS charged me a $684 tariff on $355 of vintage computer parts

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Re: When UPS charged me a $684 tariff on $355 of vintage computer parts

#151
post #139
post #74

And herein lies the rub: It's been like this in many countries for the longest time. In Thailand, say, you receive an order from abroad, the post office sends you a slip and you have to pay the assessed duties to receive the package. It often ends up feeing arbitrary; some stuff comes through, others get assessed at a higher value and you have to show receipts and convince them that no, this isn't that expensive of a…

>America had no idea how good they had it, in the before times. The downside is the insane consumption associated with that. Americans are responsible for an insane amount of pollution, far more per capita than any other people in the history of the world, much of which is tied to how easy/cheap it is to order shit we don't need. So, good if ya wanna buy cheap pollution, pretty bad if ya care about the next generatio…

> Americans are responsible for an insane amount of pollution

So does Canada.

> far more per capita than any other people in the history of the world

Not even remotely close to true. Aside from that it's down 20% from it's peak 40 (!) years ago.

> much of which is tied to how easy/cheap it is to order shit we don't need.

The data does not support this conclusion.

> pretty bad if ya care about the next generation.

Speaking of trends.. care to guess which country has doubled it's pollution in the last 10 years?

Re: When UPS charged me a $684 tariff on $355 of vintage computer parts

#152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> tariffs are surely paid by the buyer, not the seller. The US has declared import tariffs are to be paid by the importer/shipper, not collected from the end purchaser after... The opposite of the rest of the world. If you look through eBay, at items coming from China, you'll see most are noted as: Import fees: Includes import fees This item includes applicable import fees—you won’t pay anything extra after checkout.…

> It seems to be a rare exception that you'll see the seller is not paying the tariffs The seller won’t take the hit if that results in a loss. Surely the price just went up to include the tariff?

I expect nearly all foreign sellers have increased their prices to cover the tariffs. However, there are items selling for less than eBay says an individual will be charged in fees, so it's not just a you-pay-or-I-pay thing. Either eBay is exaggerating, or sellers are finding a way to get a better deal.

It's a minefield for eBay buyers who likely won't notice the footnote means their $5 purchase will cost them $20+ in fees. They now have something else to lookout for that doesn't show up in the table of search results. Something only in a small note on the item's product page. Something that might mean significant extra cost if you aren't careful when shopping.

Re: When UPS charged me a $684 tariff on $355 of vintage computer parts

#154
post #6

Tariffs are great. They protect the struggling domestic IT industry and gives it time to ramp up its production of vintage computer parts.

We need manufacturing in the US. The service economy can't survive long term; you have to make things. Tariffs are not fun, but they are an important part of making that happen. But, tariffs on used cameras or vintage electronics does not help bring manufacturing back. Let's just bring back the de minimis exemption for things like this. More industry targeted tariffs, fewer blanket tariffs.

> We need manufacturing in the US.

Overall there is a lot of manufacturing in the US. What the US doesn't have are manufacturing jobs because labor is more expensive than automation.

Maybe you meant the US should make sure to have some certain types of manufacturing like chips. In that case, targeted programs are a better approach than any sort of tariffs. See the CHIPS act for example.

Re: When UPS charged me a $684 tariff on $355 of vintage computer parts

#155
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you run a business with good margin, good cash flow, optimally leveraged and for profit? If yes, please tell us more about how tariffs have helped you.

If you've been making the products locally, the tariffs on foreign products help you.

Depends on your supply chain's exposure to foreign markets

Re: When UPS charged me a $684 tariff on $355 of vintage computer parts

#156

UPS sucks today. I've had a UPS business account for over 35 years. In the past year or so they've become just terrible. Any call you make to them will have a hold time of at least half an hour. Many of my calls have gone over an hour. Usually you'll get transferred at least once. Also, earlier this year they outsourced their billing services to a third party, requiring additional consent on their website, and billin…

> UPS business account

> What triggered everything was a fraudulent shipment made using my UPS account

If your business allows for it, set your account to "Deny Inbound Charges" at https://www.ups.com/vip/view

UPS is still probably the best domestically for ground shipping, FedEx is the best domestically for express parcels, and DHL is the best for inbound or outbound international without question.

Re: When UPS charged me a $684 tariff on $355 of vintage computer parts

#157
post #101
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its funny how little US citizens know about this, meanwhile in the rest of the world we have been paying import duties our entire lives. When an item is posted abroad forms have to be filled detailing the sender, the nature of the goods and the value. Some sellers willl bend the law for you and decalre the value of the goods to be lower than what you actually paid if you ask nicely. The main danger being that if the…

> Its funny how little US citizens know about this Is it really? It sounds like you're implying it's some kind of woeful ignorance, but I say it's perfectly reasonable: 1. Each US state is already in a open-borders zero-tariff framework with all other states, which covers a very large portion of what people purchase. 2. Until recently, most individual consumers didn't need to think about tariffs on international good…

> AFAICT was in place for ~80 years

Sure, but it wasn't $800 for 80 years: the $800 change happened in 2016... the threshold was $200 from 2016-1994, starting at $1 (and tapering up) in 1938.

Re: When UPS charged me a $684 tariff on $355 of vintage computer parts

#158
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the other side of the Atlantic this sounds like straight Thatcherism, in which Chicago-school monetarism was an ideological anti-union weapon, and the Thatcher cabinet was not coy about it. However I think the US went that way first even if Reaganomics came later.

I think a lot of that in the US got spun up with Nixon, Reagan brought a lot of it to the mainstream though. Both of them hated unions with a passion that is for sure.

Unions are the best of all the bad solutions we’ve come up with so far for labor to compete with capital. The worst of course is collectivism through government, though that’s being tried again…

Re: When UPS charged me a $684 tariff on $355 of vintage computer parts

#159
post #148

If (when) SCOTUS determines that Trump's tariffs were illegally collected and importers are refunded, will end consumers who paid tariffs also be refunded?

nobody has any idea and you best bet trump is going to hold onto that money until it goes to the supreme court.

They are already making noise that it would be too hard to issue refunds, ie 'can't unscramble an egg'. So even when tariffs get ruled against, refunds may take years to get. People buying tariff refund claims are still only paying ~.25 on the dollar.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/wall-street-tariff-trades-sho...

Re: When UPS charged me a $684 tariff on $355 of vintage computer parts

#160
post #115

I had this happen with FedEx. They released the package and delivered it without me paying. I submitted a dispute, which they say could take up to 6 months to process. I hate having this hang over my head, as I don’t want anything going to collections, but figured if I paid it I would have a harder time getting my money back. Mine was for a watch I got serviced. My own watch that I shipped out being returned to me… n…

> I should have just risked getting it serviced locally… Sounds like tariffs working as intended?

Unfortunately the world is far too globalized for tariffs like these to ever be a good solution.

There isn't another niche guitar pedal hardware manufacturer that does the same thing as on in Belgium.

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