UPS and Shipping to Canada
Hi Brian and anyone else who is interested, shipping to Canada in my experience is a crap shoot. The item will probably get there, but in what shape and how much it will cost you are big variables. The first saw I shipped to Dennis, a 385, was shipped from a local shop "Parcel Post" so I am assuming USPS. It cost $40 and arrived 10 days later in a box that must have been dragged behind the truck. Just by pure luck nothing was missing or broken although the box was ripped open. The next saw, a 357 shipped from the same shop via the same means of transport for $30 and arrived unscathed, although it was held up in Customs for a bit. I don`t know if these shipments were insured but I was not assesed any brokerage fee for paperwork when they got to Dennis. The 260 Pro and the Camo Poulan I sent went via UPS. Under $30 apiece insured. Checked with the UPS people about the exact wording of the shipping manifest to insure that there would be no tarriffs for "Return and Repair", there were not, but since I had chosen to insure these shipments, I got hit with a $50 brokerage fee on the Stihl when it arrived at Dennis` shop. The Poulan for Dennis inexplicably had no such fee. So the point is, yes, you can ship "Repair and Return" and be duty free with a declared value of less than $20, but if you want to insure your package you MUST declare a value of the item and pay an additional fee for the insurance, and this leads to the calculation of the brokerage fees by UPS Canada. I did not have a warm fuzzy feeling about shipping a new box clearly labeled with Stihl and MS260 plastered all over the outside without insuring it after hearing so many horror stories of lost saws. Shipping from Canada to me has always been quick and trouble free, both from Dennis and Walkers, no nasty surprises. The people from UPS Canada whom I called when I got buggered with the brokerage fee were the most rude people I have ever dealt with on the phone, and bear in mind I was trying to get a refund so I was using my "honey" tongue when I spoke to them. They were perturbed that I would even suggest a refund of an undisclosed and usurious fee, and when I finally suggested that I would have to find a different means of shipment to Canada they essentially concurred, since I didn`t like they SERVICE they provided. Bear in mind also that this wasn`t just one phone rep, I spoke to people all the way to the manager level. For future saw mods done in Canada, unless it was a pet saw that I had to have built, I`d suggest buying from Dennis, or if you have to have a Stihl, Walker`s who can set you up even though they are not dealers, and avoid the hassles and additional expense of the initial shipment there. I checked with a local post office about the cost of shipping a 260 to Dennis, after the brokerage fee fiasco, and it would have been about $40 dollars insured and they could not tell me if there would be any additional fees for brokerage once it got to Canada. You`d think I was shipping to a third world country or something. I will put much more research into any future shipments north of the border. Russ
