> Anyway, just a thought.  Sounds like your shipper might have used
> 2 or 3-day air?

UPS includes the brokerage fee in their expedited or express service to
Canada, but not in the standard service. So if it had been sent via 2 or 3
day air, there would have been no brokerage fee collected C.O.D. at all.
This is why, if you look at UPS's standard via expedited rates to Canada,
you often find that the latter is 5 or 6 times the price and really doesn't
even get the package there much faster. Much of the price difference is the
brokerage fee. UPS's rate chart and literature do not make this very clear,
in my opinion.  Furthermore, I have had just about zero luck trying to get
UPS to estimate in advance how much the brokerage fee will be on standard
shipments. It seems a bit unreasonable for you to be expected to pay a large
fee C.O.D. without being able to find out up front about how much it will
be.

This is why we ship US Air Mail to Canada whenever possible.  No brokerage
fees, reasonable rates, reasonably fast service, and generally less breakage
of fragile items as well.  The only drawback is that it is not trackable.
This can be a hassle, as the package must be missing for at least 30 days
before the post office will consider it lost and initiate an insurance
claim.  Fortunately, it is a very rare problem; we get only one or two loss
claims a year on airmail to Canada, out of several packages shipped each day
(although late delivery is more common, as even airmail shipments travel via
Canadian surface mail from the border on).

- Ron Salmon
  The Bus Depot, Inc.
  (215) 234-VWVW
  www.busdepot.com

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