I'm Choked! OverPaying for Duty + taxes + broker fees on Lens Shipped From Japan

[ivan35mm]

My experience with Japanese sellers has always been positive. I find that they tend to underrate items.

exactly... when ordering from a Japanese proxy site like Buyee (Mercari / Yahoo Auctions), I've purchase items that were sold as "poor" / "for parts" / "damaged", only to arrive to me in functional / near mint condition lol

When it comes to eBay sellers located in Japan, I would only buy from 100% feedback sellers.

 

[GregY]

How many of these do you have now

Quite a few. Japanese buyers IME come through...beats buying from KEH with their generic photo of the object....

 

[mshchem]

Quite a few. Japanese buyers IME come through...beats buying from KEH with their generic photo of the object....

Yes, I agree.

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

Me too..... better than described & 4 day delivery from Japan to my door (over a weekend)!
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Beauty!

 

[xya]

How many of these do you have now

During the last 5 years I had none. Cameras rated excellent and many ++++ being crap and junk. So I stopped buying from Japan completely. And yes, fungus was often another problem.

In my opinion there has been a change indeed. I have bought quite some stuff years ago and those items were better than described. But these days are over and gone....

 

[GregY]

During the last 5 years I had none. Cameras rated excellent and many ++++ being crap and junk. So I stopped buying from Japan completely. And yes, fungus was often another problem.

In my opinion there has been a change indeed. I have bought quite some stuff years ago and those items were better than described. But these days are over and gone....

I haven't had that experience. Quite a number of purchases in the last several years.....Plaubel, Nikon, Pentax, Leica, .....and lenses and hard-to-find filters (40mm for Canon LTM) & Perkeo.....no issues

 

[Sirius Glass]

{Moderator Note - thread title tweaked}

I needed to rebuy a bunch of lenses for a system I sold off a year or so ago. I started with one this week that cost $99 US dollars, which with exchange is $143. With shipping I paid a total of $204 Canadian. So it was sent to me via DHL Express from Japan. So today I get the customs payment request and its asking me to pay a whopping $167 Canadian before they'll clear it. That is more then the lens actually cost! WTF? How the heck can duty add up to this much, and I dont believe even the tarrifs would cost that much?! Does anyone know why my duty is more then the item itself? I sent a heated letter to the seller asking him why and threatened to have it returned to sender for a full refund.

Very painful at best. I think that tariffs are most if not all of the added cost.

 

[MattKing]

Very painful at best. I think that tariffs are most if not all of the added cost.

@braxus is in Canada.

 

[Kodachromeguy]

Me too..... better than described & 4 day delivery from Japan to my door (over a weekend)!
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Gorgeous! I saw this listing. Are you in USA and were you charged extra tariff or processing fee? Thanks

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

Gorgeous! I saw this listing. Are you in USA and were you charged extra tariff or processing fee? Thanks

No such tariffs here. Greg is from Alberta (noted under his avatar), which is a province in Canada.

 

[loccdor]

I have another lens from Japan arriving today. This time, they charged $150 for shipping, but it's all-inclusive of tariffs/fees. Tariffs/fees would have been almost $100 of that, so shipping price was not bad for a big 6 pound box halfway around the world.

 

[David R Williams]

I've never had anything but stellar experiences with sellers from Japan.

I'm quite selective about the products that I've purchased, but with most such sellers providing:

• excellent photographs of the actual item up for sale,
• very good descriptions of the mechanical/optical/cosmetic characteristics,
• free returns by many,
• really great packaging,
• fast dispatch,
• faster delivery to Canada from Japan than I can ever get for anything from elsewhere (including within Canada!),
• never having received any product that I consider to not have fully met the condition of the item as described, and
• receiving the occasional origami and almost always, a personal note of thanks within the package...

...my default location settings for used equipment search is Japan.

 

[loccdor]

I'm absolutely astonished by how quickly mail can get delivered these days. 28 hour delivery from Japan.

 

[braxus]

Granted that one time I had a bad duty charge was this thread. I just bought a $100 dollar lens from Japan, and the customs charge on it was $32. 32 Canadian for a $100 US dollar item. I wish couriers werent the only option from Japan, as they charge at least 20 dollars just to import an item.