PDA

View Full Version : Not Free CDs If Value is Declared



globewalker
December 18th, 2005, 07:49 AM
To Whom It May Concern:

Quoting "While the CDs and the shipping are completely free of charge.." from your website, this statement ought to be changed if a value is declared on the shipment.

I recently ordered 50 CDs (not the first time) and somebody at your end declared the value of shipment as $25, thus customs and taxes were slapped on the $25 worth of CDs when shipped to Canada! I have no problem with the $11 duties paid but I can't do that if I am helping Ubuntu to fulfill requests for these CDs by schools and non-profits I am working for in long term. I hope somebody can clarify this asap, or better still, refund me the $11 that were imposed this time, as this has not happen on previous occasions when ordering the same quantity of CDs. If $25 is it, then you should declared on your website about the value of each CD before people request them under your "ShipIt Free" label. This is only fair to the community supporting Ubuntu by helping distribute the CDs, while a clear cost of the CD is posted.

jeremy
December 18th, 2005, 09:19 AM
I understand what you are saying, but I don't think that because you are being given the CD's free means that they have no value.

Deaf_Head
December 18th, 2005, 10:56 AM
Oh Canada!

kosmic
December 18th, 2005, 11:54 AM
You have to reply to your governemt when your package get's to your border the people responsable for the packages that comes from the outside, declares if they charge for it or not, sometimes it passes other they charge you, Canonical doesn't have nothing to do with this issue

I can give you an example I've ordered plus 100 + discs to portugal and I've payed nothing, but i've also ordered 50 to brazil and i've payed 30 euros, because the local tax agent charged the CD's at the airport, other time I've ordered 80 to brazil and was not charged.

Kvark
December 18th, 2005, 01:59 PM
I think the tax agents will guess a value if the CDs are declared as worthless and if the tax agents guess for example that the CDs are worth the same as Windows XP CDs then it'd be a lot worse.

orev
December 19th, 2005, 06:20 PM
To Whom It May Concern:

Quoting "While the CDs and the shipping are completely free of charge.." from your website, this statement ought to be changed if a value is declared on the shipment.

I recently ordered 50 CDs (not the first time) and somebody at your end declared the value of shipment as $25, thus customs and taxes were slapped on the $25 worth of CDs when shipped to Canada! I have no problem with the $11 duties paid but I can't do that if I am helping Ubuntu to fulfill requests for these CDs by schools and non-profits I am working for in long term. I hope somebody can clarify this asap, or better still, refund me the $11 that were imposed this time, as this has not happen on previous occasions when ordering the same quantity of CDs. If $25 is it, then you should declared on your website about the value of each CD before people request them under your "ShipIt Free" label. This is only fair to the community supporting Ubuntu by helping distribute the CDs, while a clear cost of the CD is posted.

A) This is may or may not be the place to post this type of comment. Probably not.

B) The CDs are completely free of charge. The "clear cost" of the CDs are posted. Free, with no shipping cost.

C) The Canadian Government, however, charges a duty on imported items of value. This is not the responsibility of anyone having to do with ubuntu.

D) Regardless of what you are doing with non-profits and/or schools with ubuntu, if $11 of cost can not be absorbed somewhere for 50 CDs that can be installed on a theoretically unlimited amount of desktops, it may or may not be a sustainable proposition. To put it another way, If the people you are working with can not see $11 worth of value from this, you could maybe consider why these entities do not see the value of what you are doing.

E) I respect what you are doing (whatever it is) with non-profits and schools, but why should the community (or anybody) refund you $11? I wouldn't have even responded to your post if you had not written this. Some people are investing time, others investing money, and yet others are investing other resources to make ubuntu/kubuntu a valuable tool available to everyone. From what you have written, you have received at least 100 ubuntu/kubuntu CDs for an out of the pocket cost of $11, and you want a refund?!? Consider yourself lucky to be part of the great ubuntu community and be happy.

Value has nothing to do with the amount of money you pay for an item or service. Value is intrinsic.

earobinson
December 19th, 2005, 06:23 PM
This thread belongs in the community chat since is is not a support issue could a mod please move it.

EDIT: Thanks

jeremy
December 19th, 2005, 06:30 PM
...if the tax agents guess for example that the CDs are worth the same as Windows XP CDs then it'd be a lot worse.
Maybe the tax agents think, as I do, that Windows XP CDs are worthless.

jeremy
December 19th, 2005, 06:43 PM
This thread belongs in the community chat since is is not a support issue could a mod please move it.
It already is in the community chat place, it was double posted in the first place.

majikstreet
December 19th, 2005, 10:33 PM
ubuntuforums.org is NOT Canonical!!! ubuntuforums.org is owned by someone who does not work for Canonical, so it is not "us" who declared the value. But we are the offical forums :)

It seems as if this is a Canadian problem... There have been a few threads on this before. And, if you had looked on the shipit faq site, you would have found this:


Will I have to pay taxes/duties?

While the CDs and the shipping are completely free of charge, taxes and duties that customs in your country decide to charge you is not within Canonical's control. The larger the order, the larger the chance of the shipment being stopped and the larger the duty that could be demanded.

For the vast majority of shipments (including the vast number of small or relatively small shipments), duties have not be charged and CDs have passed through borders without problems. In several countries (e.g., Croatia, Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro and others), even small shipments of CDs have been stopped.

Currently, because most shipments are passing customs untaxed, we do not include a list of the values for the CDs on each package. However, in some situations, this has made customs officials suspicious. In the future, we will list a value on shipments to the most problematic countries in regards to customs and all of those shipments will be taxed. That list will be posted here.

At the moment, here is our advice in regards to taxes/duties:

* Anyone ordering a large shipment of CDs should first check with their local customs officials before they place an order in the database. Explaining that the CDs are free before could save a huge headache in the future.
* If your CDs have been stopped, download the generic letter to customs officials.

*

If you need a personalized or signed copy of the letter or if you need a letter FAXed directly to customs officials, email Shipit Help directly.

There is also now the following other version of the letter:
o Translation into Danish
o Translation into German
o Translation into Spanish
o Translation into Swedish


You can find the FAQ site here: http://www.ubuntulinux.org/support/documentation/faq/shipit/

It must have something to do with Canadian Customs.

beast2k
December 19th, 2005, 10:58 PM
I ordered 15 Cd's to be shiped to Ottawa Ontario Canada a month or so ago and they arived at my front door FREE no charge for anything. This seems very strange that your being charged.