Just a general plea to offer an alternative to UPS for Canadian shoppers (I don't know about how well or poorly UPS works in other countries).
In Canada, UPS is well known for incredibly excessive charges to the extent that, like myself, many people no longer accept deliveries from UPS.
As an example, last year I received on shipment via USPS with total brokerage charges of $5, and no GST or PST (~15%) charges. A roughly equal value shipment via UPS came with an invoice for $35 for brokerage and "paperwork", taxes for the content, taxes for the shipping, and taxes for the brokerage and paperwork (!). All in all, it was almost $60 -- nearly as much as the ordered item!
To give full scope to the idiocy, I also left some DVDs in the US while on vacation, had a friend sent them back to me (who unfortunately used UPS) and received an invoice for $85 on top of the shipping charge. Far more than the DVDs were worth (they were old.)
New-age highway robbery indeed
