ChristopherC
TVWBB Super Fan
Isn’t Canada the 51st state? Really want that Signals.....
2020 TVWB Christmas Prize Drawing
- Thread starter Chris Allingham
- Start date
Tony-Chicago
TVWBB Wizard
Great prizes. I would feel guilty if I won. As much as I want a smokefire, a dependable thermometer would hit the spot.
There's no reason to feel guilty. If you win, you win. The people who win always tell me, "I never win anything!" And the odds of winning a prize in this drawing are much better than probably any other drawing you'll ever enter! In 2019, we had about 1,100 entries. In 2018, about 1,700 entries. In 2017, about 1,500. I'm guessing there will be more entries than last year because of the SmokeFire prize, but your odds will still be pretty good!
Timothy F. Lewis
TVWBB 1-Star Olympian
I’m in! I don’t really need any of the stuff but, it would be really cool to win anything these days!
The smokefire would look great on the new deck!
The smokefire would look great on the new deck!
Timothy F. Lewis
TVWBB 1-Star Olympian
More members too, Boss.
Bob Correll
R.I.P. 3/31/2022
I'll swear there's a new member or two every day, that's a good thing.
More folks at home with time to grill, or fix up grills, is most likely the reason.
ChristopherC
TVWBB Super Fan
Idea...
Separate giveaway for your Canadian or International folk. Just a gift, not a prize. Wink.
Separate giveaway for your Canadian or International folk. Just a gift, not a prize. Wink.
I don't know if you already read the tiny link at the bottom of my initial post in this thread, but as much as I'd love to offer a prize to our members in Canada and UK and France and Germany and Netherlands and Spain and Turkey and Thailand and Australia, it's not going to happen. To be honest, every time I interact with customs paperwork and fees to send things to Canada or Europe, it always ends up biting me in the butt. It even bites the recipient in the butt, too.
Let me tell you about my most recent experience.
Earlier this year, one of our forum members wanted to buy a $87 USD set of Weber cutlery that Weber does not sell in Canada. I agreed to buy it from Weber.com and reship it to him. It cost $40 USD to ship it to Canada via UPS. I rounded up the value to $90 USD and put that value on the customs paperwork, not knowing the gift limit to Canada was $60 CAD. Even had I known, I would not have lied on the paperwork.
Anyway, UPS put a hold on the package because I made a small error on the customs paperwork. I corrected the error and five days later the package arrived at Canadian customs. I got a notice from UPS saying that import fees are due for this package in the amount of $46.64 CAD. When I looked at the breakdown of fees, there was a Government Charge of $9.80 CAD for HST or GST + PST. Then there was a UPS Customs Brokerage Charge of $36.84. That breaks down into a Brokerage Fee of $32.60 CAD and a Brokerage GST/HST fee of $4.24 CAD.
At that point, I was beginning to understand why Weber does not ship cutlery to Canada! It looked to me like UPS was screwing over this shipment with big fat brokerage fees all because of a mere $9.80 CAD in government import taxes. The recipient had to pay the import fees to release the item from customs, plus reimburse me for the original purchase price and UPS shipping.
Even shipping t-shirts to Europe was a pain in the butt this year. Some of our 2020 Smoke Day t-shirts shipped by Represent.com to Europe this past May were delayed forever, stuck in U.S. customs due to pandemic service delays. They certainly didn't arrive in time for Smoke Day, and frankly I suspect some folks never got theirs and didn't tell me.
It's those experiences that sour me on international shipping.
I love, love, love our members that reside outside the U.S., but no prize or "gift" for you.
Lynn Dollar
TVWBB Emerald Member
WOW !! That's some nice prizes.
Richard in NS
TVWBB Wizard
Chris, I totally understand. Been there when I order stuff from the USA. If by chance you or others ever need to ship stuff to Canada at least, I have found that using the USPS avoids these extra fees, brokers and hassles. Never had a border issue with regular ground USPS but almost always do with any of the private couriers. It will take longer to arrive though.
I had priced it both ways, USPS and UPS. USPS was $51.55 USD and UPS was $40.65 USD. My instinct was to use USPS, but the buyer suggested UPS to save money. Wish I had trusted my instincts, I'm sure the buyer felt the same way in retrospect, too.
ChristopherC
TVWBB Super Fan
Ya USPS is always the better way in the end if there is no rush.
Steve Madden
TVWBB Super Fan
Wow! Great prizes Chris!
There are times when I need to contact a winner to arrange for choice of prize, color selection, prize delivery, or prize substitution. I always try email first. But you'd be surprised how many times email fails. Either people use an email address that they rarely check, or my email attempts go into their spam folder or are blocked by their ISP. So phone number is the last resort for trying to get a prize to a winner. And when I call, it's always a big surprise and the winner says they didn't see any of my emails.
Please be assured that I only use the entry form information for administering this one contest, then I delete it from the Google Form. It's not sold, traded, loaned, etc. to anyone.
Thanks for asking,
Chris
I had to ask the "why no Canadian shipping ?" question some years ago. Not a big deal really. Thanks for all you do Chris.
I had a UPS shipment this past summer, from the US to Canada. Unless you opted for an expensive service level, the charges really added up. You can pay 'em sooner, or pay 'em later it seems.
Good luck to the members entering, and remember - we'll need pics of the prizes in action.
I had a UPS shipment this past summer, from the US to Canada. Unless you opted for an expensive service level, the charges really added up. You can pay 'em sooner, or pay 'em later it seems.
Good luck to the members entering, and remember - we'll need pics of the prizes in action.