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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

#221

Post by thepryz »

Teever wrote: post #215
WalterBright wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's concern that if all our chips come from one country, they could cut the supply off and make demands. That's called an "embargo". It's also done to protect local industries, hence the term "protectionism". For example, Canada's large tariffs on American milk are there to protect the local Canadian milk producers. AFAIK, Trump's tariffs are meant to serve the following purposes: 1. so critical supplies, like ch…

What leads you to believe that the implementation of tariffs under this administration was done for the purposes that you have enumerated? It seems that you're operating under the normally reasonable assumption that these policies were implemented after careful consideration with specific goals in mind. I don't think it's reasonable to assume that the people involved in this are doing what they're doing for well-thou…

Agreed. Tariffs should be used like a scalpel, precise and targeting very specific things to encourage development or even the playing field. The tariffs that have been implemented so far are more like a sledge hammer, used to extort and intimidate.

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

#223

Post by brobdingnagians »

inferiorhuman wrote: post #86
ericd wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever read about people burning piles of German currency because it was better than using it to buy firewood with? Not to say we would get there, but allowing inflation to run is not kinder.

I think these days folks typically use Zimbabwe or Argentina as examples.

Those are more recent examples, but I think Germany is still a more visceral example for a lot of Western nations because Germany was a high tech, educated industrial nation that was hit with such massive problems from government policy. It's closer to home. Other countries are (wrongfully) easier to dismiss as being just too different from our wealthy and enlightened selves.

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

#225

Post by aleph_minus_one »

Terr_ wrote: post #96
JSR_FDED wrote: 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.

The best time to manufacture vintage computer parts is 28 years ago, but the second-best time is today! :p

> The best time to manufacture vintage computer parts is 28 years ago, but the second-best time is today! :p

What was so special about 1997?

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

#226

Post by msephton »

UPS also tried this with me on a competition prize I won from Atari. I'm not paying to receive a mystery prize box. Thankfully I queried it and Atari stepped up and agreed to reimburse the fees, at which point I paid them to UPS. And that was shipping from United States to England, United Kingdom!

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

#227

Post by CPLX »

maguay wrote: 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 de minimis exception was absolutely insane. It was a full-blown loophole that caused tens of billions of dollars in goods to come through the border almost completely unregulated, ranging from the stuff that should have had tariffs on it, to knockoffs, to drugs and chemicals that shouldn't be in the United States at all.

Even if you are a free trade enthusiast, having 100 million individually wrapped packages not checked by anyone rather than organized container shipping and warehousing is still insane and wasteful and makes a mockery of the concept of even having an international border.

Closing that loophole is literally the only sane path forward. Yes, also, it is a rule that government regulations should be easy to follow and well-administered to avoid the confusing and difficult process of trying to send a package to your friend or order some computer parts.

But, way we had it in the "before times" was absolutely unworkable. It was being exploited to the detriment of American businesses.

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

#228

Post by bombcar »

15155 wrote: post #156
anonymousiam wrote: post #117

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.

We used UPS for everything and an old job - except anything international. That would be ONLY USPS and if absolutely necessary, DHL. UPS or FedEx would happily lose the package and then still try to bill both sender and receiver for “customs brokerage”.

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

#229

Post by bombcar »

rkagerer wrote: post #205

Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum, which required me to fill out a UPS-specific form attesting to the steel and aluminum content I ordered a specialty lock and some keys valued at about $400, and paid an extra $400 in duties because of this. It's insane. Plot twist: I'm in Canada and was ordering a made-in-USA product from a US vendor. The duties were due to matching countertartiffs at the time. Sorry, but th…

At those prices it’d be cheaper to fly to the US and walk up to the company and buy it and fly back.

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

#230

Post by bombcar »

thrw888 wrote: post #220

This was before current administration. FedEx charged me $60 AFTER delivery of $30 hat gifted to me from my US peers (yep, no warning, I got an email that I owe them $60 a few days after parcel was delivered). I originally thought it's a scam, but it was not. I diaputed this stating I should be informed BEFORE, not after delivery. After 6 months of back and forth I found that it's actually EU tarrifs.

The secret to international shipments is to ALWAYS demand it be sent by the government postal service.

You might still get hit with tariffs but you won’t get hit with insane brokerage fees.

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