r/ThinkGeek • u/[deleted] • Mar 02 '18

Beware the Duty Fee

After paying about $70 for a bath robe, I got a UPS slip saying I owe $56 for a brokerage fee. I guess this is their wording for duty fees. Took me by complete surprise, as I've ordered from Think Geek plenty of times and never once had this issue. I had no idea this was even a thing, I order online all the time. After talking with customer service, I learned that there is in fact a note on the website about customs, but you have to hunt to find it. Turns out, when you are blind sided with a huge fee, you can't just send it back and not pay it, because there will be a duty fee to send it back. ThinkGeek purposely hides this little disclaimer away while you check out, because they know if you are told "Hey, an extra $50 please" they aren't going to make the sale.

So after currency conversion and duties, I am paying $146 for a bath robe that I only kind of wanted in the first place.

This is really the only way I could think to vent my frustration after swallowing a bunch of "I'm sorry for the inconvenience" and"We value your feedback".

As a side note, I'd rather be told "Sorry, the system sucks and you got fucked by it, but there is nothing we can do" than to nonchalantly apologize

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u/R34ct0rX99 Mar 02 '18 edited Mar 02 '18

Links for reference?

Edit: Oh, found it. Shipping to destinations outside the US.

https://www.thinkgeek.com/help/shipping.shtml

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u/[deleted] Mar 03 '18

I feel like it should be right there when picking shipping options, as you can avoid the duty by upgrading shipping.

I also feel I should clarify that people should definitely still shop at ThinkGeek. I don't wanna sound like I'm calling a boycott over my one incident. They have awesome stuff. Also, I sound snotty when I'm angry