Thanks
I have no intention of buying anything via eBay. I too prefer to go and pay for something and take it with me once I've handed over my money. Sometimes I go to flea markets and pick up some nice used things, but again, I can inspect the item and see the actual condition of it before buying it and take it home with me.
I do shop online quite a bit too. Mainly because I haven't been well and it's hard for me to get out to the stores, plus it's convenient to have it delivered to my door. However, usually I buy from places I know such as Canadian Tire, Staples, Office Depot, Amazon, The Shopping Channel. A few times I've bought things that needed to be sent by snail mail, from other sites, but I find that most of the time the "stores" are in the USA and sometimes the item is subject to border fees/duty, brokerage, taxes etc before it arrives at my door, and then there is the currency exchange rate on top of all of that.
I'm a nurse and a few years ago I ordered a cardiac stethescope. A really good quality one. I paid for it by Visa and after 8 weeks I still hadn't received it so I contacted the company. They said they shipped it by UPS. I waited some more and 4 weeks later I still didn't have the item (12 weeks total), so I called again. They said that they hadn't received it back and was going to check into it for me. They found that it was hung up at the US/Canadian border.
A few days later UPS shows up at my door asking me to pay them $175.00. I told them that I had already paid for the item with my Visa and it was just to be delivered. I was told that the $175.00 was UPS's fee for processing the border papers at customs, plus taxes.
The stethescope was something like $250.00 or $275.00 plus exchange rate at that time of 1.67%. Now UPS wanted to add $175.00 to that?!!! I refused shippment and called the company and told them what happened. They agreed that I should send it back and they gave me a full credit on my credit card. They said that they wouldn't be using UPS anymore after that.
I ended up buying the stethescope here for about the same price as the US base price plus exchange.
So I know what you mean about things can get expensive if you use eBay, and I'm sure many eBay sellers use UPS and UPS rips off Canadians with that stupid border processing fee based on dollar value of the item being shipped.
