The UPS Store #5174 Owner: Roger Tuttle They admitted the Clerk made a mistake but won't provide a full $21.95 Canadian Duty charges that resulted from their error (input of $20 value instead of $0) North Hampton, New Hampshire

For doing this to Canadians. They levy inflated "brokerage" charges (in fact they act as their own customs broker; the claim of a separate brokerage company is simply a sleight of hand for anyone who doesn't dig into this some more) on Canadians who don't know better about receiving shipments from the USA.

I looked into this when someone, against my explicit request, sent me a package by UPS instead of USPS. I learned that in fact you can clear packages yourself through an office of Canada Customs. It is at that point that, likely, you would be able to explain that the contents of the package include a bank debit card and therefore should be zero-rated. If the official agrees they may waive the duty and tax, but I'm not a Customs official and this should not be taken as definitive info.

http://trueler.com/2010/11/24/self-clear-shipment-cbsa-avoid-ups-brokerage-fee/

The above website is one of several that popped up on a Google search for "Clear packages yourself" +UPS

Call CBSA to get the information for your local area - be sure to explain you are receiving a United Parcel Service shipment as a non-corporate customer and have refused their brokerage fees. When I called in the lady explained clearly what I needed to do, and it was about 2 hours of my time on a wintry January morning, but I got my package for only the $20 in tax it should have been, instead of  nearly $75 in "brokerage".

No international shipment can have a declared value of zero dollars. A declared value of $1 or $20 is irrelevant and will have no impact on the duties imposed by the destination country. Typically, any value up to $60 as a gift has no duty or tax. A bank card, however, is subject to duties regardless of relationship between sender and recepient and any monetary value on the card. The $21.95 duty is the same duty that would have been imposed by the Canadian broker, regardless of $0 or $20 AND regardless of what shipping company was used. There would be no difference if FedEx or USPS was used. The $21.95 duty would be subjected all the same.

It's sad to hear that your daughter cannot buy food for a week! Perhaps what is even more sad is that her father spends time ignorantly complaining in a website before paying a crummy 22 bucks to be sure his daughter is not suffering, THEN get the facts while trying to recover the mandatory Canadian brokerage duty.