Check the archives- there is lots of banter about this. But I'll add more:
UPS Is the 800lb price setter and everyone follows in their footsteps. UPS' new 'profit center' is the surcharge or 'service fee': - forklift fee - warehouse fee - freight handling fee (I thought we were paying them for that in the first place) - drayage fee (see previous) - messenger fee (to deliver documents to the 'customs broker- who is usually the next desk over) - customs brokerage fee - residential address surcharge - spell correction surcharge (if you spell the name or street address wrong according to UPS, they bill you $10.00 per incident- Now we have to administer a spelling test for our future warehouse workers????!!!) - COD tag charge - COD collection fee (that's not the same?) - OS1 / OS2 service charge - Fuel surcharge (imagine if they switched the fleet to biodesiel- UPS Brown would smell like french fries...)
There are a few others I forgot, but are routinely (p)added to our monthly bill here. FedEx, DHL all have similar price menus these days. If you are private person (as opposed to a private business) waiting for an international expedited bike frame COD, and your address is spelled wrong, you are going to pay a lot for that $99 bargain Holdsworth from Britian.
You gotta anticipate paying for freight, and it is not going to be cheap in all cases.If it is, consider yourself lucky, but don't count on it. No reason to complain about it- it's the cost of doing business.
Tom Martin
Oakland CA