The last thing I accidentally bought from a non-Amazon shipper arrived in a semi-destroyed box, inside a too-small bubble-wrap envelope, apparently shipped from someone's condominium (I guess they bought in bulk and repackaged?)

I know somebody who sells stuff at Amazon as a third-party seller. It’s a common strategy to do exactly that: find items that are selling for more than the local store, buy it from the local store and sell it on Amazon. There’s more to it for selecting which products to sell but this is basically how it works. There are people selling courses teaching these things.

A few months back, my partner ordered some books from Taiwan. The books — including nominal “shipping” — were $20; the logistics provider’s bill for the “convenience” of handling our import duties for us, when the seller neglected to do so, was $40.

The worst thing is that there’s no way under an individual shipping recipient account to declare that you want to pay these fees in advance instead (such that there’s no “loan”) or to reject shipment at point of origin if the shipper tries to pull this on you. This is because the “recipient pays” logistical arrangement is intended for businesses, that do both shipping and receiving, and operate without much cash flow, to allow them to postpone the costs of receiving orders until they’ve sold (and profited on) the same goods to others. It’s supposed to be something that they buyer requests the seller to use, for their sake; not something the seller uses unilaterally. So you actually have to register as a shipper business-account to get access to the UX where you can declare that your company wants to pay import duties in advance.

Which would be especially annoying, because 99% of the time, when ordering things online, I don't get to decide — or even know in advance — what logistics provider the shipper will use to send me something.

So mail the bill back with a (obviously-)form letter to the effect of "I did not agree to pay this, whoever told you I would has defrauded you, feel free to send me a letter at this address if you want me to testify against them in court."?

> the "recipient pays" logistical arrangement is intended for businesses,

> It's supposed to be something that they buyer requests the seller to use, for their sake; not something the seller uses unilaterally. So you actually have to register as a shipper business-account to get access to the UX where you can declare that your company wants to pay import duties in advance.

Sounds like evidence/precedent that they're using this mechanism intentionally fraudulently, rather than out of a mistaken belief that you'd actually want that.

Legally speaking, you owe the logistics provider money separately from any contract between the logistics provider and the seller. And so the logistics provider will attempt to collect on it, up to the point of impacting your credit score.

Its similar to if you had a valet park your car, and they parked it in a pay parking lot they don’t have authorization for, and your car got ticketed/towed. The fact that the valet is in trouble, and the fact that you owe money, are independent facts.

No you don't. A transaction occurred That was separate from your quoted price, purchase price, shipping cost, and after a period of time passed since the delivery of the product. The purchaser is not responsible for the costs incurred by other parties.

> It's similar to if you had a valet park your car, and they parked it in a pay parking lot they don’t have authorization for, and your car got ticketed/towed.

Nope. That scenario is entirely different.

The valet committed a tort — but you need to actually to sue them to get the money you're owed for that tort. Torts aren't criminal in the sense of the state resolving them in your favor without you doing any of the work. If you do nothing, you end up on the hook for the ticket/tow, and the valet gets away scot-free.

Even if you pursue the tort, you'll likely have to pay the towing company before you recover the damages — because those are two separate things. The judge isn't telling the towing company who to charge. The towing company gets to charge you either way; they have a contract with the lot owner saying they can bill whoever owns a car that gets towed.

When you sue for the tort, and the judge finds in your favor, the judge is just extracting the money from the other guy, to give to you, in compensation for the money you already had to pay the towing company. Because you did have to pay.

In this case, the scam was convoluted enough that I won't get into it, but no, I didn't pay hundreds of dollars in shipping fees.

On the other hand, I'm sitting at home without having ever received the product I ordered.

I don't see any consumer benefit from Amazon forcing sellers to change their Walmart.com prices.