When UPS charged me a $684 tariff on $355 of vintage computer parts
15 comments
·November 15, 2025JSR_FDED
oarla
True, but does not help in this case with vintage parts.
robrain
Please engage sarcasm-awareness mode.
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glitchc
I believe the OP was attempting humour.
varispeed
I know one US business that used to make niche electronic product. Most components they used were from China. Got hit by the tariffs that wiped all the operating profit. Guy also had to sell his home and is now couchsurfing. Business is unlikely going to recover.
Of course he considered making chips and other components in the US, but he was few billions short to start the fab.
epistasis
Good thing that the US cancelled collection of unemployment stats just as all these sorts of negative business effects were happening. If a job is lost in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?
dcrazy
I guess we can’t know precisely how this happened without seeing UPS’s original Form 7501.
The amended one sounds strange. Why did they claim that the duty for the actual HTS code is $0, and attribute the entirety of the tariff to the special EU-origin code?
mrtksn
Ah this is just another step towards Turkification[0] of USA. This situation is just how it is in Erdogan's Turkey but you still have way to go if you are able to get your package out of the customs in less than a few weeks and no hustle.
[0] https://www.theglobalist.com/the-turkification-of-america-tr...
gishh
Tariffs aren’t a secret. I don’t like them either.
This whole blog post could have been the last paragraph. The rest is useless.
jeromegv
While tariffs aren't a secret, they are a new reality for majority of americans. They never had to bother with any of that before they ended De Minimis, now every single package must go through a complicated import process and if you are somewhat inexperienced with it (as most people do), you might end up with UPS screwing up the paperwork and charging you wrongly hundreds of dollars.
That's ultimately what the US citizens voted for and I think that's important they know what they are dealing with.
epistasis
Just because you don't like the conclusions that come from the stories of average people, doesn't mean that others do not want to hear those same stories.
anigbrowl
If it had been just the last paragraph you'd be (rightly) complaining that there wasn't enough context to evaluate the claim in the headline.
ProAm
Similar to this comment. Just stop after the first 9 words.
dcrazy
It’s useful background if you don’t understand how paying tariffs works for small individual shipments. This is something most Americans who buy stuff from abroad haven’t had to deal with until the ending of de minimis.
Tariffs are great. They protect the struggling domestic IT industry and gives it time to ramp up its production of vintage computer parts.