glen2002

Jason, just a quick question here. I am in Australia and have considered purchasing from you in the past. I understand your need for these checks. (Though the photo front and back only knocks out the real amateurs). My question is will you supply to a customer without phone verification? I work in finance and Australia has just brought in very firm privacy laws. There is no way a bank would confirm anything without written consent from the client. Does this knock Aussies out as clients?

951Porschiste

Mike S:

Sorry if my comment came across that way. Indeed, after rereading it, it does sound bad. However, my comment was meant to be "tongue-in-cheek". But I guess it came out a little different.

One thing that does bother us up here in Canada is in dealing with some American companies which seem to think that this great country north of the border is as far as Mars and that somehow anything that is just a tad outside the US border must be suspect/criminal/intent on rip offs/etc. The sickening 9/11 attack just exhacerbated this unfortunate attitude. The fact is, Canada is already very much interconnected with the US. Yesterday's blackout in NY brought down the grid as far as Toronto and Ottawa. We are not terrorists, just regular folks living within a few hundred miles of your border.

pk951

Here's my experience dealing with Paragon spoke with Jason very helpful with product information, and ordering parts. when time came for payment gave him credit card number, address and that was it. bill came to 485us then i inquired about reducing the price of the contents to a sum of lets say100us. this was for reducing my brokerage fee's and taxes. i was told i see what i can do. when i received the package i was charged total of 197$ can. i have done business with other vendors and was accommodated on that part of the transition.

Olli Snellman

I suppose you have a lot of Polar Bears up there North ???

Just kidding, i have a lot of friends (hockey people) all over the great country of Canada!

Great country, great people!

pikey7

Jason has always been damn good to me.

I did have a similar issue though once with Lindsey Racing. They explained to me that as I was using a UK credit card, and had a Swedish shipping adress, that the credit card company could not assure anything. Fair enough!! One fax, and one week later, and the parts arrived!

Jason @ Paragon Products

Ok, this has gotten a bit blown out of proportion. Let me first say that we've never been stung on any transaction going to Canada. I like doing business with Canadians and try to educate folks on the various fees and such when shipping to Canada....we do this because WE have been educated by our Canadian customers. The things Chuck asked for are based on instructions I've given him on all international orders. We have to verify billing address and ship only to that billing address. The only way we can do that is by talking to the issuing bank, or verifying through the actual credit card statement and photos of the actual credit card. NOTHING is fool proof for us. Mail Order businesses are considered high risk when it comes to accepting credit cards since we don't actually have the card in hand. That "high risk" also means we pay a higher % per transaction than businesses that actually receive cards in hand. Even when we doing everything right, we can still be ripped off. In 10 years of business I've learned quite a bit about warning signals and how to protect everyone in the transaction. I don't care to lose money and I do everything I can do to protect against that. The photo copy of the credit card statement we requested was only to verify the address shown on the statement matches the address you wanted us to ship to...nothing else. We don't need to see any transaction information or balance or anything else that would be considered sensitive or private information for the customer. In the end, if we just had the phone # for the issuing bank we could have done the same thing. That doesn't always apply to all International orders as not all banks will have someone that speaks English. I'm sorry if you were offended by what we asked for or said...that's certainly not our purpose. I've made a practice of making purchases at Paragon a painless and hopefully pleasant experience because I want folks to come back and do business with us again. I don't know it all, and if someone is more experienced in protecting consumers and merchants in mail order transactions, I'll be glad to listed.

BC

Canada simply has a very very VERY harsh import standards set for American Goods. Any socialist-bent country would, and Canada is no exception. IN TURN, the US has levied these same "duties" on shipments into our country. This invariably has to do with companies selling goods and shipping them across the boarder, but sometimes a simple person to person shipping fiasco appears.

If you wish to continue getting great "deals" and very low margin prices from smaller, yet very robust suppliers like Paragon, then these eccentricities are going to happen. If you called up some huge, faceless place like "performance products" I doubt the verification is asked for. They have a huge margin, and make their money no matter what. They also charge 100% more for a water pump for my car.

I even still call Jason every once in a while and I don't even own a 944 anymore. He has a few parts for a 928, and I make it a point to occasionally call him, just because he's such a good guy.

crazyracer

"Canada simply has a very very VERY harsh import standards set for American Goods. Any socialist-bent country would, and Canada is no exception."

Examples please. Maybe I am not well informed but Canada and the US are the biggest trading partners on both sides. Recent history has shown that the USA is more protective than Canada (lumber import as an example).


The above statement doesn't sound very good to me. "Socialist-bent country" ??? Don't we all want to be social?

txhedg

Not Socialist-bent?????........have you checked your Canadian tax return (60% tax) lately or gotten some state sponsored health care?

Do we all want to be social? Sure. Socialist?? Hell no.

pk951

Brandonchampion,


I think we've gotten off the path here a bit. You are making a political statement about our country's different political system. That is an entirely different matter all together. How Canada and United States apply duties to goods purchased on either side is not in our power to change. We follow the process and pay duties whatever they may be. In so far as getting great deals, one must shop around like anywhere else.

IceShark

Duties in North America are supposed to be gone, NAFTA. I think the lumber issue is a bit different but since I don't import Canadian lumber I don't know the details of this dispute.

But the Canuck end is pretty darn good at charging looney brokerage fees, UPS being the most outrageous, as well as nailing you for sales/use tax. Canadian customers educated me to these facts pretty darn quick. Since I only sell my lighting and wiring stuff as a hobby I have a bit more flexability on who I use to ship and stated value. A true commercial operation can't mess around like that if they want to stay in business for long.

As far as credit card verification, there are various alternatives. But remember, lots-o-crooks out there and the merchant usually gets the charge crammed down his throat if it turns out to be a bogus charge. So try and work with him if you are not in the same country.

I once had an identity theft. The crooks hit various merchants for about 15 grand. Nothing ever happened to catch the crooks because Visa charged back all the various merchants for improper identity procedures and no one merchant got hit bad enough to make it worth spending more money to chase the crooks down.

JustinL

I was trying to stay away from this one... but you can't just crap out statitstics like this and expect people to buy it. After all 73% of statistics are made up.

My income tax is nowhere near 60%... I wish it was closer, because that would mean I was making a bajilion dollars.

I also work for the "state sponsored health care" system (yes I am biased), and I see children who are able to recieve top notch medical interventions... not because they can afford it, but because they need it and are citizens.

Sorry for dragging this even further off topic.

Justin

crazyracer

Last week I ordered a pair of front shocks for my Saab. Price each at tirerack was 32 USD x 2= 64 plus USD 16 for shipping. When I received them by UPS I had to pay another 49 Canadian (about 35 US in taxes, duties (made in Japan) and UPS fee). The biggest part was 28 dollars Canadian in UPS brokerage fees. FedEx or Canada Post always charge a fix amount of 5 dollars for that! It was still cheaper than buying them locally.

BC

...Please read my name correctly.


pk951 said -
No, its not a different matter. The reason there are duties on imported goods is because of the political structure of the Canadian system. And to say that it is not in your power to change simply shows that you have totally lost touch with the idea of democracy and rule by representation and not decree. Getting great deals? Fine. Go buy it in Canada.

From Justin

...receiving anything based on need and not productivity and exchange of monetary amounts is what will bring down any system, socialist or otherwise. Read Ayn Rand, if you are even allowed to up there. Saving children is fine. But why should a Canadian making 200k with no children have to take the burden for that monetarily? And the person who make no money, and lives on your dole has to pay nothing of that burden?

Wow. And I thought the people in California were brain washed into thinking its okay to have a welfare state. Society and Civilization is not there to support those who cannot support themselves. Once everyone understands that we will all be better off.

IceShark

crazyracer, FedEx actually has a graduated scale for brokerage fees based on the value of the product. It is nowhere near as expensive as UPS but it does go up well over 5 bucks.

Getting charged duty because of country of origin tells me I better change how I describe the goods. I thought once it cleared on to US soil one could ship to Canada or Mexico without duty.