Importing used Audio equipment to Canada

Customs fees resonable? I give a resounding NO to that question.

I live in Montreal and I bought a used pair of Sennheiser PX 200 for US$25 and got slapped with C$12 customs handling fee. More recently, I bought two pairs of Cardas 300B interconnects for US$120 and got hit with the same fee for plus sales tax for a total of C$40.

I sold some gear to someone in Canada... Made the mistake of not agreeing about what to do with customs, so when the UPS shipper asked me for a credit card for the customs form, I read the form and had to swallow hard before giving it to him... The oddity was that you had to put the credit card # on the form, and sign saying that if they imposed customs duties you would pay it--all w/o knowing what the scope of the duties potentially were. On the bright side, no charges ever showed up on my card, and the item was received. I think you definitely want to make sure that the item isn't overdeclared value-wise, and to make sure your note in the contents that its used--I think my form said "Stereo Amplifier (Used)"...

The shipper encouraged me to mark it a "gift," but that seemed wrong on a whole lot of different levels...

I recently had a Canadian buyer back out of a deal for some of my used equipment when Canadiam customs told him the duty would be 15% of their assessment of the value.

I am in Canada, and have been doing this for years. The problem is, our Canadian Customs tacks on 15% of whatever is declared as the value of the item, not to mention brokerage charges and any applicable duties. This seems ridiculous to me, as we are supposedly in a 'free-trade' society in North America. I have shipped many items to the USA, and they don't seem to have any of these same importing Customs fees we do.

The way to get around this is ask the U.S. seller to declare a minimum value and fill out the Customs form declaring the item as a 'gift' or 'sample'. Canada Customs NEVER questions the amount, and it will sail through with minimal charges. HOWEVER, keep in mind that with this strategy there lies a risk. If the item is for whatever reason lost or damaged, you don't have much recourse to get anything back for it due to the low declared value.

I tend to take the risk, and instead put the extra $$ into a quicker shipping method (i.e. Express/Air), meaning there are less depots/stations and hands touching the item, hence a higher probability of it getting to me quickly and not getting lost. This strategy has saved me a lot of $$ over the years on Customs charges, and I have been lucky nothing has been lost (yet). Even cheaper is USPS Express. It is a veyr good service, and the brokerage charges are always less than UPS/Fedex.