[Coco] Buying a Dragon from California Digital - Has anyone?

[Gene Heskett]

On Saturday 21 March 2015 16:38:36 Al Hartman wrote:
> Their shipping charges are outrageous!
>
> Maybe you can arrange to have it shipped to someone just over the
> border to you in the U.S., and have it trans-shipped to you via the
> Post Office.
>
> My bet is that they use UPS, or Fed Ex which are much more expensive
> than the Post Office.

Then you miss-understand Canadien Customs.  Just rying to carry it across 
the border without all the paperwork and tax receipts will get you 5 to 
10.

The citizens of Canada are proveably our friends.  But their government 
is so intent on collecting what they figure is their fair share of the 
taxes , and have done it for so long that they hace amply proved that 
they are no friend, but an enemy to be dealt with.

Why do I feel that way?  One piece of Norpac gear we had at the tv 
station needed repairs and they do not supply schematics, so I packed it 
and sent it back to some place not too far from the falls via UPS. 
Estimated time to repair & return 2 weeks when I tallked to them on the 
phone.  A month goes by, its not back.  I call, it was shipped 3 weeks 
prior.  Ask for trace.  3 days later its found, sitting out in the 
weather and soaking wet inside the chain link fencing outside the border 
shack at the crossing & needing several thousand dollars in sales taxes 
paid before they would release it.

Lesson learned.

I call cbs, who insisted we buy it in the first place and learn that 
every piece of paper that came with it originally, proveing the payment 
of the taxes and customs fees was supposed to be part of the shipment 
when it went north so it would be present and accounted for when it came 
back south.

Any such stuff we ever had would have been sent to corporate in Mt. 
Vernon IL, where Shiela probably pitched it once it was on the books as 
inventory.

I heatedly told CBS that it was their problem, if they wanted a CBS eye 
in the lower right corner of the screen, they could fix the "problem" 
and hung  up.

A month later, it shows up via ups, still soaking wet, I poured water out 
of one corner of what was left of its box.  I unpack it & stick it in 
the oven for another 2 hours at 175F a couple times a day for a week. 
Seems dry. Put back in circuit, it didn't work till some time the next 
day, worked for about a week & quit again.  I find a fresher box, pack 
it up & mail it to CBS, saying its your problem again . That took 
another 6 weeks but since it was late into the summer, it was dry when 
it came back. And it was still working when I retired, presumably till 
June 30 2008 when the analog transmitter was  turned off at midnight for 
the last time.

IMO, with all the triple and quadruplicate paperwork that is needed to 
get something across the border into Canada, or vice-versa is worth $25 
to the person filling out all those forms.  Every penny of it.

So $70 to Canada sounds about right. Lots and lots of paper has to go 
with it.

Fix your customs, they are killing any chance of any of your 
manufacturing facilities ever competing on the world market.

Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene>