I know you got burned, RP. And there are also a couple of other stories here about surprise Customs fees or "brokerage fees" charged by the shipper. Those should have been overturned as mistakes upon appeal to US Customs, but we never got any follow-up. But that is the exception, not the norm. I was trying to put the more typical case out there for readers. I have five Emeralds with a final more pending, and was never hit by any "gotchas". Dang! Maybe I just jinxed my upcoming transaction!
And I have the impression that the UPS upcharge is actually more than $238.....