Masters of the Air

    There's a major detention intercom vendor that EVERYone on my industry uses. Nice company, nice people....been dealing with their head of tech support for over 20 years. PROBlem is they're in fucking Edmonton. To ship something THERE, it goes to an address in fucking Montana, sits there for 2 fucking weeks, THEN somehow ends up where it's supposed to go. Same thing when it comes our way, what a pain in the ass. They also have an absurd amount of holidays, else just days where noone comes to work, for whatever reason

    Well respected man about town doing the best things most conservatively

    Protip: you REALLY want to piss off a Canadian in Canada ? Like seriously ?


    Go to Canada, go somewhere... anywhere, and go to buy something, and PAY for it in US Dollars. Like if something is $10 Canadian, give them a $10 USD. They'll come out way ahead in the exchange - it's like giving a big fat tip.


    Well, they go totally apeshit when you do that and very insultingly refuse. It's really funny to do.

    I once crossed into Canada by car and happened to be holding a big open bag of Lays chips. When the guy asked that question, I put the bag out the window, right to his face and shook it (like the international gesture of have a chip).


    He was not impressed. Lots of Sir THIS and SIR THAT etc.

    The easiest Customs is in Quebec - they don't give a shit and wave you in every time.


    The worst is Ontario - especially if the Customs guy is not white. Asians are the worst. Asian men in particular. They relish in giving the White Guy a hard time.

    The worst Airport is Pearson Intl. in Toronto. All the people who work there are Jundies. From the customs guys to the people pushing the trash cart and cleaning the toilets. It's run about as well as an airport in Calcutta. Pure Chaos.


    One time I got off a plane from the USA, and went through a rat maze of arrows and twisty passages, all alike (Zork reference). Was trying to get to Customs, you know it's supposed to be a controlled rat maze etc. Well, I took a turn like the arrow said, and ended up in an abandoned section of the terminal (like shit dark, stores closed). Eventually I found my way out, and ended up in the public terminal, fully bypassing customs without meaning to. That's Pearson.

    Quote from Gina

    We stopped shipping to Canada too. So they still try to buy stuff of our website and then the shopping car it won't work and they try calling us.

    So one guy recently selected "local pickup" in order and paid for his stuff anyway. That was like a month and a half ago and I still have it sitting on my desk. Behind my desk rather. I guess he thought that I would ship it anyway.


    It's not just Canada. We stopped shipping internationally. Had one guy in the UK refused to pay the duties that his own country ad. He complained to me about it. Like it's our responsibility because his country charges import duties.

    So fuck them.

    To this day when the phone rings and the caller ID says "London Ontario" or whatever, my heart sinks. Do I HAVE to answer? Yes... They never tell you they're calling from Canada, cuz they know what's up. They try to trick you into agreeing to the sale. If they get a greenhorn the ruse works. Right up until they give you their card info. The CC system we use will not accept a canadian postal code. "Zip Code?" and they start rattling off a bunch of numbers and letters.... "Are you calling from out of the country?" "Well, I'm just across the bridge in Ontario, eh?" "Sorry sir, we cannot make international sales." "Well there must be something can be done, eh?" "No sir, I'm sorry." "Is there someone else there I can talk to, eh?"... and on and on... Now when I see a Canadian call coming in.... "Hello, you must sell this certain part, eh?" "No sir, I'm sorry we are sold out." "Well... you must be able to order it, eh?" "Sorry, backordered until the middle of next year." "Well... You can go look though, eh? Just to be sure? My friend here at this shop says you have one on inventory, eh?" "I'm sorry sir, that's an inventory error." "Well... You ought to get that fixed, eh?"


    Canadians are ALWAYS a huge pain in the ass.

    Last time I came back, was in Ottawa and AIr Canada cancelled my flight (had to way a couple hours for another one). So as an apology, they gave me a terminal food voucher with like $14 on it for a meal. The cheapest meal in the place was like $30 or something - lol - not even a real meal voucher, just a discount LOL.

    This one guy in Canada I tried to help out anyway. I was going to ship it anyway.


    He emailed me and said that the shopping cart would not work and I told him that we don't ship to Canada and that's why.


    But I told him if he called me I would take his order over the phone. And he emails me and tells me to call him to get payment. Like I'm going to fucking call him.


    So.....


    Nope.


    Had another guy in Australia. Actually it was Tasmania. He's a good customer of ours so I will still send him stuff. And he's actually a good guy.


    But he ordered like $400 worth of blades. I sent it. He email me to say that their postal lady lost his package. She actually had the package on her and was in his area and then lost it.


    So he wanted me to contact their postal service to to explain something about the international invoice that I put down incorrectly. I put down the price incorrectly on the international form but not on the invoice that I attached. So basically I missed something and it was like $100 or more less on one of the forms.


    So I don't have time for that bullshit. To get on the phone and contact the postal service. I told him that the price is on the invoice.


    Anyway, the Australian postal service decided not to reimburse the guy even though the lady admitted that she had it in her hands and lost it..

    One more story sorry, then I'll get out of this thread and stop derailing it!


    We pulled international shipping on eBay. All of our ads say US only. The options in eBay for international selling are turned off.


    So we get a guy calling me from Canada wondering where his package is at. I look it up and it says it was delivered. To an address called something something, international way blah blah blah, Illinois.


    So the guy says he doesn't recognize that address. And then I had to research it to find out that that's an international shipping hub for eBay.


    So eBay allowed the guys order from Canada anyway. It's a "feature" those motherfuckers added and turned on so that they can still ship to international addresses and make it appear as though you are shipping just to the US. They automatically turn that feature on and then to turn it off you have to dive deep into the settings and opt out of it.


    So those motherfuckers opted everybody into it without letting them know it even existed. As far as I know. I never got a notification.


    That shit pisses me off to no end. The idea is that they will handle the customs forms and all that bullshit, but the package shows delivered but only to the hub. And I have no control over any of that shit. And I didn't ask to be involved with it.

    Can't resist. One more.


    Canadian postal codes are fucked. They have a combination of letters and numbers in them which makes it hard to figure out what is a fucking letter and what is a number sometimes.


    Any addresses on international packages themselves suck ass. They have weird ass fucking names for shit and you don't know what is a town or a city or a state or a province. It's a big pain in the ass.


    I wouldn't mind shipping to Canada if I didn't have to fill out the fucking customs information. That's the main reason we don't do it. It's just a big pain in the fucking ass. Who needs it? NAFTA my ass.