U.S. Shopping~ watch out for the CBS guards

[Nikita]

Seems the border people don't like us shopping stateside.

http://news.channels.aol.ca/news/article.adp?id=20071106081709990002
Last Updated: Tuesday, November 6, 10:25 AM EST

Cross-Border Shopping Trip Becomes Nightmare
Group of Canadians say they were hassled by border guards
CBC News

A group of Canadians say they were chastised and forced to wait for hours in a bus at a border crossing between Buffalo, N.Y., and Fort Erie, Ont., because they had spent the weekend shopping in the U.S.

Angela Deason, Ashley Jeffery-Price and Jessica Gorr waited for five hours at the Canadian border after a weekend shopping trip. (CBC News)

The trouble for the shoppers, part of a group of 20, started when the bus arrived at the Peace Bridge border crossing on Sunday afternoon, said Angela Deason, a teacher from Barrie, Ont., who was on the vehicle.

"We had an amazing time until we tried getting back into our country. We were stuck at the border in excess of five hours and treated very badly," said Deason.

Delayed, Rebuked at Border
The group, which had planned the trip months ago and included a pregnant woman, said they patiently waited in the bus as other vehicles passed by. Some of the shoppers snapped photos of empty lanes at the crossing.

After waiting five hours, Deason said she left the bus to ask a Canadian border guard about the delay. Deason said she was shocked by the response from the guard.


"He expressed very loudly, 'It'll take hours and hours and hours. Thank you for contributing to the U.S. economy, but I hope you got a good deal.'"

Some of the shoppers said they felt threatened.

"We weren't doing anything wrong. We have a fair trade agreement," said Deason.

"I felt targeted, in a way," said Canadian shopper Jessica Gorr.

Officials with the Canada Border Services Agency said the bus was held for hours because of heavy traffic, including 65 buses filled with roughly 3,000 Canadian shoppers.

As well, border officials allowed 75 buses carrying Canadian NFL football fans home from a Buffalo Bills game to cross the border first because they had no purchases to declare.

The agency told CBC News it is investigating the delay, which it admits was longer than usual, and the guard's comment, which it said was completely inappropriate.

Canadian shoppers have flocked across border crossings into the U.S. since late September, when the Canadian dollar reached parity with the U.S. greenback for the first time in almost 31 years. The dollar has continued to rise, closing at above $1.07 on Monday.

In a news segment recently aired on Buffalo's WGRZ-TV, the station said Canadian shoppers have raised the region's sales tax revenue by five per cent.

11-06-07 08:37 EST

[15-20_God]

How's this news and why do i keep hearing about it. Record high canadian dollar, record number of shoppers making day trips, 75 buses from the football game and 65 shopping buses, of course there will be a wait. Granted the 5 hour wait is excessive and the border guard may have been a bit rude, but it is a border and everyone has to get processed. I'd rather they do that than give everyone a free pass.

It just sounds like the border guards were overwhelmed with volume and understandably some may have been in a sour mood.

[cwb27]

LOL, I'm going to email CBC next time I go into Tim Horton's and the person behind the counter has a bad day and makes an inappropriate comment to me.

This is hardly news.

[Kasakato]

Pointless IMO.

[Nikita]

How's this news and why do i keep hearing about it. Record high canadian dollar, record number of shoppers making day trips, 75 buses from the football game and 65 shopping buses, of course there will be a wait. Granted the 5 hour wait is excessive and the border guard may have been a bit rude, but it is a border and everyone has to get processed. I'd rather they do that than give everyone a free pass.

It just sounds like the border guards were overwhelmed with volume and understandably some may have been in a sour mood.

I didn't post this because I thought it was earth-shattering news. But, that said, since the numerous threads on the topic of US shopping show that most RFD'ers are not experienced at shopping in the U.S., this is a simply a head's up what to expect coming back. It's not news to me, I shop there all the time, it's likely not news to many people.

Don't shoot the messenger...;)

[CSK'sMom]

LMAO! I love how CBC skimmed over the real facts and just focused on the po'ed shoppers. Our tv news actually ran this story with the security camera footage from the bridge and it was utter chaos with the Bills traffic and all the buses. The wait for clearing the buses wasn't that abnormal, in fact. Our boys ski at Holiday Valley through school and they had several instances last year where they waited over 2 hrs for their bus to be cleared. The other fact that the CBC left out was the drugs and firearms that were confiscated off a couple of those buses on Sunday night.

[navyseals]

Canadian border guards are messed up like that.... they go crazy if you buy like a package of pencils.

[Impossibles]

Shopping busses?

The border guards around Van seem to be pretty laid back when you're coming back into Canada. Its going into the US that they treat you like a criminal.

[Shaner]

Shopping busses?

The border guards around Van seem to be pretty laid back when you're coming back into Canada. Its going into the US that they treat you like a criminal.

I have ALWAYS noticed the complete opposite, as has every single person I know.
I have been treated with nothing but respect when going into the US. They have never even so much as looked twice at me and not once has an US border guard been rude to me.

The Canadian border guards on the other hand are power tripping pricks. They are constantly rude to me and treat me like some kind of criminal for buying things in the US that I could get in Canada. I have pretty much zero respect for Canadian border guards these days. They aren't interested in keeping our borders secure, the only thing they are interested in is squeezing as much tax money as possible out of Canadians and being as rude as possible while doing it.

[warpdrive]

Border guards come in many varieties. Mostly they are just doing their job, but occasionally you get some disgruntled ones. The US ones are usually good but there have been exceptions. The Canadian ones are usually excellent but a couple of time they pulled us over for random inspections. Overall, we don't have much problems even with a carload of stuff

[3weddings]

I'd be pretty ornery too if I had to listen to bus/car load full of person after person 'claiming' that they didn't spend anything at all!!

Thanks for reminding/pointing out to unseasoned US Shoppers what they could be in for Nikita.

[caliente]

LMAO! I love how CBC skimmed over the real facts and just focused on the po'ed shoppers. Our tv news actually ran this story with the security camera footage from the bridge and it was utter chaos with the Bills traffic and all the buses. The wait for clearing the buses wasn't that abnormal, in fact. Our boys ski at Holiday Valley through school and they had several instances last year where they waited over 2 hrs for their bus to be cleared. The other fact that the CBC left out was the drugs and firearms that were confiscated off a couple of those buses on Sunday night.

Very true. Buses go into a different lane because they are understandably processed differently from a single car. It doesn't matter if "the other lanes were empty". Sure, the shoppers were inconvenienced, but this is not a rare or even unexpected.

And what does it matter if one of the bus passengers was pregnant, provided there were no complications? There is no reason for this bus to jump the queue just because one passenger happened to be pregnant. Besides, if your pregnancy is so precarious, you really shouldn't be taking a bus ride out of the country.

The comment, if accurate, was rude. However, border delays should be expected, especially given the situation now. Even back when the dollar was near 60 cents, there were still some delays at the border, especially on the weekends.

[alkaseltzer01]

People complain about the border taking too long when they go shopping. Then they complain about gun violence and how the border isn't stopping the imports of guns.

I guess it's a good time to go shopping for guns in the US since everybody wants the border to relax.

[Nikita]

Canadian border guards are messed up like that.... they go crazy if you buy like a package of pencils.

I have ALWAYS noticed the complete opposite, as has every single person I know.
I have been treated with nothing but respect when going into the US. They have never even so much as looked twice at me and not once has an US border guard been rude to me.

The Canadian border guards on the other hand are power tripping pricks. They are constantly rude to me and treat me like some kind of criminal for buying things in the US that I could get in Canada. I have pretty much zero respect for Canadian border guards these days. They aren't interested in keeping our borders secure, the only thing they are interested in is squeezing as much tax money as possible out of Canadians and being as rude as possible while doing it.

Personally I've had very few bad experiences with the border services on either side and I've shopped in the US all my life. It's always been my feeling that the US border guards are very friendly, perhaps because they like the idea that we're going there to leave our dollars behind, whereas the Cdn. border guards are having to deal with us coming back with goods acquired outside our country. So their mandates may differ slightly in this regard.

But meh, long as your honest and keep their jobs easier by having all your documentation and receipts ready and your friendly to them, besides the long line-ups inherent in the current dollar situation (which they can't do much about anyway) they usually respond in kind.

Patience, a smile and a little cooperation will get you a long way.

[15-20_God]

I've never had any problems with either side of the border. Coming back into Canada I've always had my receipts and passports ready and declared everything I've bought. I have nothing to hide and have always been polite, and have had great experiences coming back across.

[Chrispy]

In somewhat related but unrelated news, I crossed that very bridge in an SUV full of friends after a weekend of shopping. We were very forward and declared our goods, and the border officer was amazing. She was VERY friendly, forward, and she was even joking around with us. Made comments such as 'Oh, I almost forgot to give you's back your passports. Soon, i'll be able to start my own collection'.

It's all about the person you get....

[hyperion]

It's only a matter of time until Lou Dobbs starts calling Canadians 'illegal aliens' on his silly little CNN show.

[CheapScotsman]

This article highlights two issues; one of is the guard attitude and the other is the delay

Attitude: I've cross the border probably in the upper hundreds of times (worked for a consulting firm doing cross border stuff) and I've seen almost all of it. Friendly guards and surly ones; one who have yelled at people (not me) and others who are very nice. Forme, its just water off my back but I probably wouldn't be happy if a guard yelled at me for no reason.

Delay: The delays are more than a hassle; they define the level of service incompetence. Lets ask this question;

how long is an acceptable delay? If you were held at the border 2hrs is that that too long?; how about 6 hrs; what about 3 weeks? Most of us wouldn't be happy sitting in our cars (or bus or plane) for 3 weeks waiting to clear customs.

and don't limit that to customs or border crossings. If I had to go to emergency for something non-critical (how about a broken leg) ... nobody is going to be thrilled waiting 12 hrs or N days.

These are service level industries that should be targetting better response times that in the multi-hour range.

[circa76]

I have ALWAYS noticed the complete opposite, as has every single person I know.
I have been treated with nothing but respect when going into the US. They have never even so much as looked twice at me and not once has an US border guard been rude to me.

The Canadian border guards on the other hand are power tripping pricks. They are constantly rude to me and treat me like some kind of criminal for buying things in the US that I could get in Canada. I have pretty much zero respect for Canadian border guards these days. They aren't interested in keeping our borders secure, the only thing they are interested in is squeezing as much tax money as possible out of Canadians and being as rude as possible while doing it.

I'm the complete opposite of you. I always get pissed off with the US border guards for being rude and ignorant, while my return to Canada has always been pleasant.

To me, the US border guards are the ones on a power trip. The only hassle free time I have going across is when I explicitly say that I'm going shopping. Any other reason (such as attending a work conference in Minnesota) were greeted with such skepticism if not downright hostility. So basically everytime I go over now I just tell him I'm going shopping, less hassles for me that way.

[cloneman]

To me, the US border guards are the ones on a power trip. The only hassle free time I have going across is when I explicitly say that I'm going shopping. Any other reason (such as attending a work conference in Minnesota) were greeted with such skepticism if not downright hostility. So basically everytime I go over now I just tell him I'm going shopping, less hassles for me that way.

I prefer an inspection to prevent dangerous people from entering the country from an inspection to prevent dangerously hot deals from influencing our "local industries".

[YnD]

The most recent time we came back into Canada from NJ the guy looked at our passports... asked all of us why we are going back. Asked myself when I'm returning (since I work in US) and thats it. All the clothes (trunkfull) we brought back in was tax-free :)
If he "asked" us about any goods...then we prolly wouldn't risk it...but he didn't.