General Forum

Today I recieved a few envelopes of trades I had going on with our neighbors up North, they had been opened and inspected by US Customs, in over 20 years of trading internationally I have never had any envelopes opened, boxes yes but not envelopes with just a few cards. all 3 came from different parts of Canada and one even included a notice which explained the forms and taxes involved. Anyone have any new issues of this occurring? I don't want this to effect how I do trades in the future.

How were they sent? As packages or letters? Meaning regular envelopes as PWE or bubble mailers, photo mailers.

Last month, I had an U.S. letter opened by Canada Customs for the first time ever in 30+ of trading/sending/received cards by mail. It was resealed with their official yellow duct tape, but they didn't repacked the cards inside. The best I found is government modified laws here to search for drugs. I guess that the US is doing the same. Before all letters under 30 grams (about an oz) was private matters and they didn't had the right to open them. It was changed, because they claim that Fentanyl and similar chemical drugs produced in Asia (mainly China) are shipped it by mail and then redistributed it by mail as well. Its high potency make that they can send it in regular letter and they don't need to use larger packages as for cocaine or marijuana. IMHO, if they used X-Ray, they would see if contents is paper-based / cardboard or if it is some kind of powder, but that's not what they do now.

They were all PWE and only one used the larger size business envelope, I was lucky they didn't lose the cards as even thier tape didn't seal up the hole they cut.

Waving a flag from Canada here - between this conduct, EBAY shipping fees through that "global shipping program" that fleeces us here (buy a card for $1.00 and pay $20 USD shipping ?!?!?!?) and US collectors that just won't ship to Canada, it severly restricts us Cdn collectors that don't benefit from strong LCS presence. 

I wish there were proactive solutions 

Did you stamp it yourself, or did you use a service for postage? My postal clerk explained the new US postal changes to be imposed on self-stamped mail above several ounces (can't recall the amount). I wonder if it's a similar issue with international mail. I sent a PWE that hadn't been marked as received, and I'm curious if it was examined by Canadian postal inspectors. I used PayPal for postage, so according to the US they didn't have to see it prior to processing, but that has nothing to do with actually inspecting the contents.

These were all coming from Canada, the 2 from Ontario were stamps, the one from Quebec went thru thier postal office. all had the green US Customs tape on the envelope as well as one redid the cardboard protector that Eric R put to keep them in place

I don't think so. What your postal clerk explained to you is what's on the new triangle sticker put on the blue mailboxes. USPS requires self-stamped letter over 13 oz to mail in front a postal clerk. There was a thread on that topic about a month ago.

All the international mail stream is supposed to be inspected when it enters the destination country.  It is more or less the same thing as crossing the border by car. All vehicles stops at the border to be checked by border agents, but 95% of them are released in the next minutes.

Usually, if nothing illegal is suspected in the mail content, it will be X-Rayed and/or visually inspected and then it will be released right away and continue to be processed by mail workers. In Canada, they also collect sales taxes (in theory, on anything declared over $20) and duties (in specific cases, such as some stuff imported from overseas - not part of the NAFTA free trade treaty). In the U.S., you have a higher limit on what you can import duty free, but the processing should be about the same as in Canada. 

The latest news is both countries customs are now opening some envelopes for further inspection instead of just inspecting random parcels. In Canada, it is very recent that the Customs got the right to open envelopes under 30 gr / 1 oz to inspect the contents.

In my experience up here in Canada, mail from the U.S. and the Western industrialized countries is usually pretty quickly processed by the customs, unless they're slammed by the black friday or holiday rush. It is the mail from China that take a while to clear the customs. I suspect that they process mail arriving from the U.S. on reception and they have a backlog on items arriving from Asia.

The biggest delivery issue in Canada is the delivery standards are a bit random. Delivery is slower than their U.S. counterpart, but they used to say to a letter will be delivered all Canadian major centres in 3 days. Actually, one is sure the letter will be delivered, but it can take 2 days or 4 days or 10 days depending how the things are going at that time. If it is shipped with tracking (read: paying for that extra), it will usually travel on time.

The new amount is 10 ounces, the old was 13.

Kaline6, thanks for the info.

Also, I forgot to mention that all incoming or outcoming international mail has to be processed in one of the following 6 regional points in the U.S. (New York, Miami, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, San Francisco) and/or one of these 3 in Canada (Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver).

A letter from Detroit,MI to Windsor,ON (just across the river) will normally go to Chicago, then Toronto (Mississauga) before going back to Windsor.

Here's another example, I had a supplier in Charlotte,NC from whom I ordered often. USPS could have use the New York (Jamaica) location half-way before Charlotte and Montreal, but they always forwarded his shipments down South to Miami for exportation, then back North to Montreal (a 1 500 miles detour).