Parent who shop online, how long can a parcel be held up in Customs from the US to Canada?

When my sister-in-law sends stuff from the US to Canada, it typically takes a month and a half to get to me. So I would say what your going through is fairly normal. If I were in your shoes I wouldn't start worrying until the end of March. I get a lot of stuff from the US and that seems to be the norm for me. If your worried you can always make a phone call to whoever is in charge of delivery at the moment. See if they can give you a rough idea.

On a side note, whenever I send stuff to her it always seems to get their faster. I'll never understand why that is.

I order from Ebay a lot and have often bought items from Canada (I'm in the southeastern US). That said, I think just under three weeks is the longest it's ever taken to receive a parcel from Canada. That said, it may still arrive, but four weeks just doesn't seem very hopeful. It may be lost. I've never been terribly impressed with USPS. Ive had them lose packages I've shipped only to return them inexplicably to my door a month later because of some error they made.

I would contact the seller and ask if they could inquire through the US postal service about the package since there are no scans indicating it has made its way to Canada. The postal service *does* have more detailed scans available to them than what customers are shown online (this is true of UPS too) and USPS should be able to tell where the last physical scan was on the package via their system. Most Ebay sellers will be glad to assist a customer even if it isn't their error that has caused the delay.

It could be several days to a week. I ship internationally at my job. We ship things to Canada quite often. Most Canadians prefer USPS to UPS. I find the USPS tracking #'s to be worthless.

That is a long time though. What was it? Was it a high value item? Maybe the shipper didn't fill out the right forms. You may have to pay customs duties in order to get it. I really don't know. I'm always on the shipping end rather than the receiving end. Call the company you ordered it from and see what they can tell you.

Not to scare you, but when there is a huge delay, usually the package is usually lost just like airplane luggage. They will never admit that though until the last possible moment because then they have serious problems with angry people. I had about 4000 dollars worth of drawings sitting in limbo somewhere for a month before they admitted it was lost by UPS. The good news is that it arrived 2 months late, with no explanation or anything.

Packages get lost in the mail all the time but they are usually found eventually. I am sure you will get it sooner or much later.

I really think you should start making calls- that seems like way too long just to get through the border.

you know what... i'm gonna ask my mom... she'll be here in like 20 minutes... she constantly gets stuff shipped in from the US... she'll know for sure... be back in a few with an edit

what i do know is it really depends on where you live... example... if i send my mom a parcel it gets sent to toronto, then to montreal, then to her local post office, then to her house... but my mom lives like 30 minutes away... so depending on where you are, your parcel will have to travel first to the international depot, then to the provincial one in TO, then to your local before it makes its way to your house

This is the point at which you start kicking a fuss -- I would be thinking 'lost' at that point.