I was skiing at Mt Tremblant last week and forgot my glasses, which I need when I take my contacts out. I had them shipped UPS (not Fed Ex or USPS) "overnight" on Monday from Rochester NY to Mont Tremblant, Quebec. It cost me $71 USD (OK, I'm really blind...). They arrived on Thursday afternoon! Do you think I can get a refund, or partial refund? Anybody had this problem before? I mean, even if they had arrived on Weds I might not have been so mad...

Not surprising-I have decades of experience with courier companies in Canada-they are IMO poorly run and not worth 10% of what they charge.
You're about to find out how <i><b>awful</b></i> what passes for customer service really is-expect a stony silence for a reply.

I will never ever use UPS again for mailing from the US to Canada (or for anything else). Was part of that ridiculous charge a 'brokerage fee?' Good luck in trying to get a refund from that outfit which has the worst customer service ever. I did, but only after numerous phonecalls and considerable arguing. My case might have been helped by the fact that the fellow in the San Francisco &quot;UPS Store&quot; (which UPS conveniently tries to foist off as not being their responsibility) charged me for express delivery when I had stated three times that I wanted to send my parcel the slowest way possible. A relatively small box of worn clothes ended up costing about $80.

A woman at Canada Customs told me they get many calls about the brokerage fee issue every day. I think the best bet is to use the regular post. She told me that if the post office charges a brokerage fee it is only about $5, although I don't know if that is the case today.

As for your parcel being late, I don't know how that works in regards to refunds.

I've used Fedex for many hundreds of shipments Canada / USA both directions in the past 10 or so years and have had maybe 3 or 4 delayed shipments.

Generally delays are due to incomplete or inaccurate customs documents.

Fedex tracking and customer service are ,IMO, outstanding.

Jerry

We use UPS at least once a month to ship from the US to Mexico, it's expensive but the service is reliable and quick.

But I'll never use UPS again to ship from the US to Canada -- over $100 for overnight service that ultimately took more than 10 days. And it was shipped by the same people at the same UPS store who do the packages to Mexico, so they know what they're doing. I was unable to get any kind of refund, and then had to pay again to ship the box back because we had already left Canada by the time it arrived. Fedex to Canada has been much more reliable.

I've used couriers within Canada and to ship overseas from Canada and not had any problems. Recently, however, we placed an order in the US to have shipped here to Canada. When the vendor provided us with the UPS tracking #, it showed it would take 2 days to get here according the the UPS website. It took a week and they charged more for brokerage than we paid in GST. According to the tracking info on-line, the package cleared customs and moved quickly when in Canada but had at least 2 delays in terminals within the US. Not my idea of a great courier company. I've never used them to send anything but this wasn't a great experience.