Hey Larry, sorry to hear about the bum experience with UPS. They've been notorious for extra fees in USA to Canada shipping for years (decades actually), but believe it or not it's actually gotten better
The key thing with UPS (and I think also Fedex and probably others) is that their "Standard" service does not include brokerage fees, so they will be added when they bring it across. Their higher priority services however include the brokerage fees in the shipping cost so it's definitely better to use those instead. I forget the specific service names but it'll be on their website somewhere with info whether it includes brokerage in the cost. For sure tho anything listed as "standard" (or I think "ground" for FedEx) usually doesn't include brokerage service.
That said, they'll still throw on a $10 fee (I think that's what it was) for paying the CBSA fees on your behalf when they bring it across. I still feel that's BS, however technically Canada Post has done the exact same thing for years for about the same price, so at least it's competitive. (The fee might actually be set by CBSA, I really don't know.)
The only other thing I can think of is check the fees invoice carefully to see if any "custom duties" have been assessed aside from the expected HST. If the shipper (LPS in this case) chooses a poor category for the item then you might get charged duties that shouldn't otherwise be there. I don't recall duties being assessed on any printer parts I ordered from LPS (belts, basket hinges, maintenance tools, etc). If you got charged duties, you can dispute it with CBSA by basically submitting what the customs code should have been, so you can get those duties refunded. I forget whether you do it thru UPS or directly with CBSA, but I think it's the latter -- the invoice will have the instructions in any case.
Overall tho I agree that LPS doesn't have the greatest shipping options for Canada. Before the pandemic and the rise of "global shipping centres" that made a lot of the cross-border hassles go away, I always preferred USPS Priority as the cheapest option, and generally really quick too (way faster than Canada Post on this side). But LPS doesn't use USPS so I just went with the priority courier services (brokerage included), and accepted the fact that my total shipping fees are sometimes greater than the cost of the item. I didn't bother asking LPS if they'd be willing to use another shipper like USPS Priority, it just didn't feel worth it. I think USPS Priority rates went up a bunch in recent years (just like Canada Post), so they're no longer substantially cheaper than the courier companies.
