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- A grandmother in Boston said she was hit with an $802 tariff fee after ordering a $22 Barbie from Canada
- Bonnie O’Connell said the fee was due to a clerical error at a FedEx location in Canada; the doll was wrongly valued at more than $2,000
- O’Connell had purchased the doll for her 4-year-old granddaughter
A grandmother in Boston said she was recently hit with an $802 tariff charge after ordering a $22 Barbie from Canada.
Bonnie O’Connell was shopping for a Christmas present for her 4-year-old granddaughter when she found what she thought was the perfect gift: a Barbie wearing a Professional Women’s Hockey League jersey, per local news outlet WCVB.
The Barbie was only available in Canada, so she asked her cousin in Nova Scotia to pick up the doll and ship it to her via FedEx.
O’Connell said the Barbie, which cost about $22, arrived as planned. However, she revealed that she received a tariff bill for the item totaling $802 several weeks later.
Mattel
“I just got a pain in the pit of my stomach,” O’Connell recalled of her reaction to the bill while speaking to the outlet. “I didn’t even know what to do or what to say.”
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The Massachusetts resident said she soon discovered the issue stemmed from a clerical error at the FedEx location in Canada, from where the Barbie was shipped. She claimed that the FedEx employee who helped her cousin fill out the shipping paperwork mistakenly listed the item as costing nearly $2,200 as opposed to $22.
She added that her cousin “didn’t notice” the error when he was given a slip of paper to sign before leaving the store.
The alleged mistake, combined with President Donald Trump’s newly instituted 35% tariff on goods entering the country, left O’Connell facing a tariff bill of hundreds of dollars.
“What are you doing giving me a package where I owe that kind of money to you?” O’Connell said of the incident.
The charge was eventually reversed, but not before causing significant stress.
“I love my granddaughter dearly, but none of my grandchildren get that kind of money spent. The budget for Christmas isn’t even close,” O’Connell told WCVB.
FedEx did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.
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Under the Trump administration’s new tariffs, all items entering the U.S. from other countries must be assessed for tariffs. Additionally, whereas most items valued at less than $800 were permitted to enter the U.S. duty-free, now all items are subject to fees and paperwork, regardless of cost, per NPR.
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