Canadians, Post your GSP gripes on US ebay, it's now 'Selling'

Question

Heaven or Lithium alone knows why the old thread suggesting this was both bumped and locked, but the point remains valid. Go to the US 'selling' board and post your gripes there, and keep posting them  because amalgamating half a dozen boards makes posts vanish of the front page in a few hours. The thousands of posts in the pinned threads if posted where sellers might have some chance of seeing them would satnd more chance of being an eye opener to the often unaware US sellers using this program.

Answer 1

I am a US seller and if not for my International Buyers posting on the US site I would hae had no clue as to this GSP program for two reasons:
1. I do not use it and never will so when it came out I never even paid attention to the program
2. I was only reading US Sellers complaints on occasion. What perked my interest was the "confiscating" and reselling of items that the GSP center was deeming undeliverable or items that could not be shipped to another country that I knew could be.
I was shocked to discover "Art" or Guitars" or Certain clothing with Fur was being confiscated and resold on eBay by a company that is partnered with PB and eBay
I was shocked to hear packages were being opened and repacked?
I was shocked to READ that fees some buyers were paying for duties, taxes and tariffs appeared to not only be unrequired in many cases, but also possibly not being paid to the entities the money was being collected for when those taxes or customs fee's were not required?
Then after digging around and reading the buyers terms and conditions pages on your ebay sites because I do not see the buyers terms and conditions on the US site I was shocked even further at all the legal mumbo jumbo and the talking in circles...they cover themselves legally every way they can and the buyer is really the one eating it.
This program is nothing exceot a profit making service. It would not exist if profits were not had to be made plain and simple. Shipping as a small seller, heck shipping period should never be a profit making scheme. If my buyer pays me and for some reason shipping comes to less I refund the difference. I have felt guilty in the past when postage was even 50 cents less!
To boot why would any buyer pay double shipping costs? You buyers are paying for the cost of us US sellers to shlp your item to the US center...that's one postage fee, then you pay again to FedX for the international shipping costs and all the other fee's they tack on that cover the following costs for PB and GSP:
International priority shipping" (or "Shipping"): this Program Fee consists of charges associated with the parcel processing and shipping services described above and is comprised of the following variable amounts: your Seller's shipping charges to ship your order to the U.S. Shipping Center; third party international shipping charges to ship your order from the U.S. Shipping Center to your designated delivery address;
fuel surcharges; charges for selling, general, and administrative expenses, hardware, software development and licenses, operations, and hosting by Pitney Bowes;
charges from third party parcel processing service providers and for the management of the parcel processing service providers and related software systems;
charges relating to the management of insurance for lost or damaged items; charges for operational expenses associated with short-term loss recovery and the management of variances between the quoted Shipping amount and actual costs; and any referral fees paid by Pitney Bowes to eBay for referring you to the Program.
"Import charges": this Program Fee consists of charges associated with the customs service described above and is comprised of the following variable amounts: sales, goods and services, and value added taxes, duties, tariffs, excise taxes, and other amounts assessed or levied by any government authority in connection with the importation of goods into the applicable country of importation
(but excluding income taxes) ("Commodity taxes"); third party brokerage fees (including advancement and disbursement charges and customs brokers handling and filing fees); penalties
(but excluding any customs duties, taxes, surcharges, fines, penalties, or other charges which may be imposed on you by customs or tax officials after a GSP Item has successfully cleared customs and been delivered to, or made available for pickup at, the delivery address that you specify); classification charges associated with the assignment of a Harmonized System ("HS") classification code;
charges for export compliance screening and verification and the assignment of an Export Control Classification Number (ECCN); and operational expenses associated with short-term loss recovery and the management of variances between the quoted Import charges and actual costs.
Note: at eBay's discretion, applicable classification and export compliance charges, third party brokerage fees, and operational expenses may instead be included within the Shipping amount that is quoted to you.