Pitfalls of International Purchases on EBay?

[John Koehrer]

China,Japan,Canada,UK, All shipped by their respective postal service. Never a fee or duty of any sort.

UPS has absolutely the worst reputation for fees. Fed-Ex to Canada is pretty bad too.
I don't know about FX to the rest of the universe.

[Drew Wiley]

Japan has gone smoothly. But a couple months ago I ordered a Norma view camera from England. The actual seller was wonderful, but FedEx was the problem. They gave
me exactly 24hrs to fill out some esoteric customs information or they were going to
send the shipment back. If I had been out of town or not adjacent to a FAX machine
there would have been a real problem. The paperwork implied that any kind of camera
purchase amounted to access to the Brits electronics technology, which I found amusing because the camera is half a century old and distinctly pre-electronic; and living next to Silicon Valley, I doubt anyone around here gives a damn if the Brits have discovered the soldering iron or not.

[Steve Smith]

I doubt anyone around here gives a damn if the Brits have discovered the soldering iron or not.

Just in case someone does, we have!


Steve.