Quote Originally Posted by tenax
in regards to shipping to canada, unless it's a prohibited item (i.e. chemicals that you don't want to "mislabel" to avoid custom issues for example) it's actually not difficult at all.


usps air has tracking, is inexpensive and best of all, no brokerage fees given that canada post and usps have an arrangement where they handle brokerage for items going into each country for each other.
Actually, it IS quite difficult, if you want to stay legal.

You can ship illegally, and not get caught. This was very fortunate for me, since I did it for awhile before I dug into the regulations. And even now, I'm not clear on who's liable: me or the recipient. What is clear is that the liablity if you DO get caught is quite large!

Regarding USPS, it's not legal, under current USPS regs, to ship many testkits by air even WITHIN the USA, much less to Canada. Some can be shipped within the USA, but only with extensive, expensive, and very time consuming paperwork. A prior approval process by the local Postmaster or each and every item is also required. Many PoolForum users discovered this this spring when my refill shipments to them were restamped "Surface Transportation Only", subsequent to regulations revised in April 2006. Neither I nor the local Postmaster knew about them, but we both learned the hard way! Fortunately for me, no fines were involved in this case.

Violating shipping regs is sort of like repeatedly running under Damocles sword. The odds that you'll get skewered, on any given pass, are small. But the consquences of being there at the moment the sword does fall are huge!

This season, I've had several people persuade friends to purchase my kits in the USA, and then reship them to Canada. That's their choice, their risk, and their responsibility. But, I can't do it.

Ben