mpc 3000 or mv 8000

Ahhh, we are lucky down here in that anything coming into the country that is valued under $1000 attracts no taxes or import duties.

Local retailers want that changed, as they feel they are losing business to overseas online sales, but the government says it will cost more to implement a lower tax free threshold that what it would collect in taxes.

In reality, even if the 10% goods and services tax (GST) was implemented on imports under $1000, the imported price would still be much lower than what the local distributors/retailers are asking.


In terms of US-Canada shipping, I wouldn't have thought it would be that much more expensive than US-US shipping (if across the whole country), and that shipping something from say Florida to Vancouver would be any more risk in terms of damage in shipping than Florida to Seattle would be.

Is USPS airmail really that more expensive if being sent into Canada, rather than a US destination at similar distance?


I find that probably 50% or more of the time, if the seller lists it as US shipping only, they will send to me in Australia if I ask.

SimonInAustralia wrote:Ahhh, we are lucky down here in that anything coming into the country that is valued under $1000 attracts no taxes or import duties.

Local retailers want that changed, as they feel they are losing business to overseas online sales, but the government says it will cost more to implement a lower tax free threshold that what it would collect in taxes.

In reality, even if the 10% goods and services tax (GST) was implemented on imports under $1000, the imported price would still be much lower than what the local distributors/retailers are asking.


In terms of US-Canada shipping, I wouldn't have thought it would be that much more expensive than US-US shipping (if across the whole country), and that shipping something from say Florida to Vancouver would be any more risk in terms of damage in shipping than Florida to Seattle would be.

Is USPS airmail really that more expensive if being sent into Canada, rather than a US destination at similar distance?


I find that probably 50% or more of the time, if the seller lists it as US shipping only, they will send to me in Australia if I ask.

I would have thought it would be cheaper going from new york to montreal.. than it is from florida to oregon. But a couple of years ago a new rule came in for usps... now they can only ship from the US to canada using USPS priority mail or one of the even faster shipping methods USPS offers.... the standard is no longer available. The reason for this is because the priority mail goes through a different avenue in custom that duty and things get checked. (to elaborate, before... the trick was to choose usps standard mail and you wouldn't pay duty when it came in)


now here is the kicker for things like fed ex... they have a thing now where at customs they pay the duty for you and charge you interest (it's like 15% of the duty amount or something, plus an added service fee of 18 dollars for the transaction). On the paperwork it's considered a loan... but you have no choice but to take it. In fact, unless it's hidden in some small fine print, you wont even know about it until a week or so after you got your item, (already payed for, shipping is already payed during the purchase) and you receive a bill in the mail with a deadline to pay it... I bought 4 gigs of ddr2 from crucial a few years ago.. right from crucial on their site. It was 39.99 at the time. in the end, in total... it cost me over 85 dollars. I dont use fed ex anymore for that reason.

USPS doesn't do this. They ship, it get's handed over to canada post (fed ex and ups have trucks in canada) and you pay at the door, they have a credit card machine.. no interest or mark ups... if you dont have a credit card on you, they take the package to the location and give you a card to pick it up where you can pay in cash or bank card.. if you dont pay, I believe it gets sent back after a certain time frame.


pretty lame... but as you said, sometimes it will be cheaper to buy on ebay. Hell, I got a 2000 classic, with eb16, 8 outs, smpte, in brand new condition... pretty much never used.... 230 including shipping and all. The seller thought it was broken because it prompted him to insert the disk when he powered it on and he didn't research the issue.

mr_debauch wrote:
pretty lame... but as you said, sometimes it will be cheaper to buy on ebay. Hell, I got a 2000 classic, with eb16, 8 outs, smpte, in brand new condition... pretty much never used.... 230 including shipping and all. The seller thought it was broken because it prompted him to insert the disk when he powered it on and he didn't research the issue.

He didn't bother to find out about the OS loading from the disk? He must've been a first-timer or a guy making the move from software to hardware.