Re: Apple promotional items for a user group event
Re: Apple promotional items for a user group event
- Subject: Re: Apple promotional items for a user group event
- From: Jim Foster <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 17:39:06 -0500
Hi There!
Well, I live in Canada where, perhaps due to the proximity to the U.S.,
I have a LOT of experience with having parcels delivered to my home
from places in the U.S. I can confirm that what you have experienced,
while at the upper end of the kind of single package expense that I
have seen, is something that happens when packages come from other
countries, particularly when they come via a courier firm like UPS or
FedEx rather than through the Postal system.
Here in Canada, anything that I buy from a U.S. source, even if it is
used and sometimes even if it is marked as a gift, is subject to the
same Federal and Provincial Retail Sales Taxes as would just about
anything that I buy at retail here in Canada. So, the Post Office or
the courier firm handling the delivery of the item is subject to laws
that say they have to take the U.S. value of the goods, convert that to
Canadian dollars, and collect the total of 15% retail sales taxes
represented by the Federal and Provincial taxes.
Further to this, there CAN be import duties. For the most part, the
parcels I get contain computer hardware or software and the current
import duty rate on that category of merchandise is zero percent. But
sometimes, especially I find with apparel products, there can be duty
to pay.
Finally, and this is where the real irritation comes, there can be a
charge for what are called "brokerage fees". Brokerage fees are
basically a charge for reimbursing the carrier for all the paperwork
and such that they have to do to get the package into the country and
collect the other fees that they then have to send off to the
appropriate level of government. If a package is handled by Canada
Post, meaning it was sent by the U.S. party via the U. S. Postal
Service who then turn it over to Canada Post at the border, there is a
flat charge of $5.00 Canadian for this service. But I find that when a
parcel comes via FedEx or UPS or many of the other courier firms, the
charge for brokerage services can and is much, much higher, all without
any very good explanation of what factors lead to a certain charge.
I do everything I can to ask American sellers or exporters to use U.S.
Postal Service, but on many occasions they are not able or prepared to
do this because they have procedures set up with a specific vendor
which they feel are most cost effective for them and provide them with
a means to track delivery.
Most times, if there is going to be a charge by the delivery person at
my door, they ask for the money or cheque at the time they drop off the
package. But I have also seen situations where the delivery person's
job is just to deliver and get a signature, and then you get a piece of
mail a week or so later telling you how much you owe! I sometimes think
this is because their experience is that people refuse delivery of
packages when they know at the door how much they are expected to pay.
All this is in a real "grey area" as far as fault is concerned. It is
not necessarily the fault of the sender in the U.S. if they are not
aware of charges which are going to be levied by their carrier at the
receiving end. My experience, however, is that when an organization
does a LOT of shipping to Canada, and it might apply to the UK as well,
they can sit down with their carrier and inquire about ways to ship
products which don't result in such charges. Sometimes this means that
THEY have to pay more at their end, but at least if they are armed with
this knowledge they can build it into any proposed charges BEFORE the
shipment goes out.
I have seen situations where the receiving party refuses to accept
delivery of an item because of these charges, and then if it is
something which they have purchased from the sender they ask the sender
for a refund. The problem with this is that the carrier will ship the
item back to the sender but will then expect the sender to pay them a
bunch more money for that service, which the sender has no desire to
pay either. Messy, messy, messy.
All I can say is that this is something which one learns about and then
makes sure doesn't happen again. One thing I have found which sometimes
works is to have the U.S. sender declare the items to have a zero
value. Trouble is sometimes the folks at the border do not agree ..
they can certainly open the parcel and give it any value they feel
appropriate. But it is worth a try.
Good luck!
Jim Foster
President
Macintosh Users East [MaUsE]
http://www.mause.ca
On 16-Mar-05, at 5:10 PM, Ippei UKAI wrote:
Hello,
In January, while we were planning our first event in early February,
we found that we can request promotional icoun from Apple
(http://www.apple.com/usergroups/request/). How supportive! We
requested some posters and clothes for the event. After a while we
received AUG T-shirts that our members wore at the event (posters were
not available) and two notepads which most visitors loved. The event
wasn't as popular as we hoped to be, but it was OK considering it was
the first time :) We thought it was very good of Apple being very
supportive to the user groups.
After more than a month later, last Saturday, I received an invoice
from DHL saying we need to pay £57 for those items. I'm very confused
about this. We have never agreed to pay any money. I checked the
online form above. It just says if a user group needs Apple
promotional items, they do the best to send it. I checked the email
from the User Group Swag team. It says they don't have posters right
now but the T-shirts were sent out for us. Neither of them says there
is any charge for the items. This is totally unacceptable. We are
still very small group which has just founded in last November.
Currently the money that the group has is only about £20 which is
absolutely needed to run a event at the Freshers Week next September.
We would not have 'requested' any item if we had to pay. I hope this
is just some kind of mistake.
Regards,
Ippei UKAI
President of EUMUS
Email: email@hidden
-------------------------------------------
Edinburgh University Macintosh Users' Society
Email: email@hidden
Homepage: http://www.eumus.org.uk/
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