Dec 19 2007
The Canada Border Services Agency Can Blow Me
I ordered a bunch of Greg Brown CDs from Red House Records a few weeks ago. The CDs arrived yesterday. But I had to pay the mail man $12.78 before he’d give me the CDs. I’ve ordered CDs from the US before, but I’ve never had to pay to get them across the border.
I prefer to order CDs directly from the artists when I can (or directly from the independent label), but I’ll go to Amazon or just buy the MP3s if I get nailed like this again. An extra $13 is little bit too much for me.
The enlarged image of the receipt shows that I paid $7.78 in taxes and a $5.00 handling fee. What a gyp! How is it I’ve ordered items from the US before of much greater value than these CDs, and I’ve never had to pay taxes and handling fees? Does the Canada Border Services Agency pick these packages at random? Or do they target items from certain companies? I’m not sure how it works, but to play it safe, I won’t order from Red House Records again. I can’t afford it.
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Tags: canada
Does that say “Paid Visa”?? You can pay your postman with a Visa card? Wow - I don’t think we can do that but I wouldn’t know as I’ve never seen our postman.
MP3 quality being so much lower than CD (.wav/.flac/etc) quality, I await the day when you will be able to routinely download CD QUALITY tracks. When that day comes governments will have to start taxing internet bandwidth in order to make up for all the theft they’ll lose with random charges like these.
> Does that say “Paid Visa”??
Yup, I paid it with my Visa. First he asked for exact change, which I didn’t have, so I used my Visa card instead.
I don’t want to resort to buying MP3s. Since I hooked up my stereo to my PC, I’ve been listening mostly to high-quality MP3s, but I still enjoy listening to CDs (especially with classical music) and having them around for back-up. I also like looking at the pictures and reading the liner notes. There’s a lot to be said about having something you can hold in your hands. My CD collections grows slowly, so space isn’t an issue. If space ever becomes an issue, then it means I’ve already spoiled myself and should slow down on the consuming anyway. Consumerism. Yeah.
Daniel Lanois’s current album is being released for download in WAV format. Cool.