The dirty tricks of the shipping industry and the Freight Forwarders.


Hello all,

this thread should warn you about shipping companies and Freight Forwarders and their dirty tricks. Knowing the tricks can prevent you from being overcharged, knowing the companies that do it, can help you choosing the right one for your shipping needs.

Please contribute with your negative shipping experiences, explain in short sentences the way the companies treated you and the tricks and lies they played on you. Please name the companies in full and the route you shipped your bike or car.

I will start with explaining two tricks, that were played on me, shipping my bike from Germany to Chile. I used Name deleted to ship the crated bike (2,6m3) from Stuttgart to Valparaiso. Name deleted is only a Freight Forwarder and they used SACO Shipping, Hamburg to ship the consolidated container to Chile.

Since I have shipped my bikes many times, I thought I knew what to do, but I was not aware of the tricks played on me. And I have never felt that cheated in my life. This is the reason I want to warn you about Name deleted

Trick No. 1: Bill of Lading (BoL).

Wikipedia tells us: A bill of lading (sometimes abbreviated as B/L or BoL) is a document issued by a carrier which details a shipment of mechandise and gives title of that shipment to a specified party.

Basically a BoL is the title to your goods and it has to be issued by the carrier, when the goods are delivered to him or loaded onto the ship (or airplane). Without the original BoL you dont get your goods (shipment) on the other side.

I used Name deleted as a Freight Forwarder (carrier) to ship my crate (containing a motorcycle) from Stuttgart (Germany) to Valparaiso (Chile). Name deleted used SACO Shipping, Hamburg, to ship a consolidated container to Valparaiso.

Name deleted did not issue the original BoL to me, even I asked them in time to do this, they only send me copies.

I was only told that I could pick up the original BoL from SACO Shipping S.A. in Santiago de Chile. So I arrived in Chile without the original BoL.

SACO Shipping S.A. (Santiago de Chile) would only give me my BoL after I paid their very inflated bill for port charges. I call this black mailing. So, I had no choice than to pay what ever they wanted.

As very inflated port charges I define this:

Total costs until Valparaiso port: 750 USD (incl. transport Stuttgart-Bremen, sea freight 2,6m3 to Valparaiso, verifiying the wood and stamping it)

Port charges and storage costs (this I will explain in trick 2): 840 USD

For a 40 ft container with a volume of 67m3 this would mean port charges and storage costs of 21.700 USD, calculated for full container with the charges I paid.

In all emails Name deleted just stated that they are not responsible for port charges, but they never explained why they would not give me the original BoL when I requested it. So, this black-mailing was only possible because Name deleted would not give me the original BoL.




Trick No. 2: Port Charges and delays.


SACO Shipping S.A. gave me the original BoL only 5 days AFTER the ship had arrived in Valparaiso. The regulations state that the shipper should get the original BoL when the cargo is loaded onto the ship and not when it arrives in the port (or after this).

This delay was caused by SACO Shipping S.A. on purpose, and as my custom agent told me, this happens very often with them. So, I can only assume this is to increase the storage costs.

SACO Shippings Mr. Marco Leiva in Santiago de Chile wrote: .... it is true that we had a little delay on sending original BL ....

At this point, I realised that there was no way to communicate with SACO Shipping S.A. and Name deleted in a normal way. I had become a victim of their black-mailing and there was nothing I could do about it.


Final: The total costs of getting my bike out of the port of Valparaiso were 1100 USD (incl. custom agent and other costs), making it a total of 1850 USD to ship the bike from Stuttgart to South America.


All the best.
mika from Bolivia

Thanks for the warning Mika!
We see lot of novice travelers wanting to ship their bike from EU, UK or Oz. They think they know the cost and procedure .. but they don't.

I like to point out the potential for many "Extra" hidden charges that can be "invented" and must be PAID before they will release your bike to you. These guys have dozens of such tricks to cheat you out of more money. And never count on the company who you dealt with in EU to help up out. They won't.

To put it simply, many shipping companies are nothing but low level gangsters and inexperienced travelers who've never used Sea Freight or Freight Forwarders are easy marks for them.

This is why I often advise AGANST shipping your bike half way round the world. You must also add to the total the amount of hassle and STRESS you're put through in an unfamiliar City, perhaps not knowing the language and dealing with common criminals and liars.

However, companies that ship LARGE amounts of cargo do NOT get screwed this way. They know the system well and represent HUGE income for the shippers so the gangster shippers won't mess around with them.

But a solo motor bike is easy to take advantage of.

My own experience is limited, but as private one-time customer you are at a definite disadvantage. The list of extra charges is very creative, and its going to end in tears. The problem is that you are more trouble per cubic than you are worth for many handling agents, freight forewarders and shipping companies.
I have read that air freight is cheaper and more efficient in the real world. Anyone have any comments on this?

Peter

It's not exactly rocket science.

I read a report about the global economy a while ago and it related to the cost of transporting a batch of mobile phones for export - out of China to just about anywhere in the world.

How much would you charge?
9 UK pence per unit was the figure.
Can I send a moble phone from China to the UK for 9p? Of course not, if only because I don't fill an ISO container, 20ft or 40ft.

Ever since the invention of the ISO container, sea-based shipping has been transformed and become an industrialised, relatively high-tech process.
Incidentally, because of under "real" investment in the USA there is not currently a single port there which can receive the latest, largest container ships; that's from another business report that I read a while ago.

If you put a few bikes into a container how much volume of that container is in use, based on the standard height of a container (I think the latter is 8 ft)?
A shipper could always bulk it out with a few boxes of mobile phones.

__________________
Dave

Grant from here had a helpful and interesting interview a few weeks ago on Adventure Rider Radio, especially the air vs sea debate. It's worth a listen.

Jeffrey Polnaja - The Impossible Journey; Motorcycle Shipping by Land or Sea — Adventure Motorcycle Podcast and Radio Show for Motorbike Touring and Travel

Hi Mollydog, very well said. I will also start recommending travelers to buy the bike down here in South America.

Thank you Pinproject, I did not know this ... hope this thread becomes a bit of a knowledgebase about the tricks used.

mika

Recommending is the easy part. To be at all useful, you would also need an accurate up-to-date A to Z of how and where to buy the bike PLUS how and where to SELL the bike.

__________________
Tony
Click here for Travel Photos & Travel Map

Last time I use sea shipping consolidated created bike from Tokyo to Rotterdam cost mi additional 500 Euros at port of original 1200 US just freight for box 2.6 cubic M. ...gangsters got my money that time but no more...as last November I use air freight to ship my bike from Dusseldorf to Cancun,Mexico...took 2 days to arrive cost was 1590 E and at airport in Cancun I spend 1 hour and cost at the end was 80 US for paper work ..head on the bike all my gear,saddlebags,boots..tent,slipping bag...ekct.
Key in to the ignition and rode down toward the South...cost was little bit higher..but this is one life and no one is going to make me full again.
Safe ride

I agree, less corruption and more professionalism with Air Freight.

More expense but much more predictable service. I've not shipped bikes IN/OUT of S. America but have shipped cargo via Air Freight several times.

Never a problem, even with USD $500K video package into Ecuador, Ghana, Ethiopia, Sudan and several EU countries. All our tech gear went into a small container (bonded). Lufthansa is one of the best in my experience. Also used Delta, Ethiopia and Cathay Pacific airlines with fair results. In S. America you may have fewer choices.

Because of a massive threat I decided to delete the name of the company in Germany.

Would a mod pls change the name of the thread, if this is not possible please delete it completly.

mika

Are you able to comment regards WHO threatened you? What sort of threat?

If you have documentation of what transpired, I doubt they can touch you.
If you are not naming names of employees, only referring to the company, not sure any harm ... especially if you can show your comments are TRUE.

Seems Europe has become more "law suit happy" like USA has been for ages.

PS: depending how they've worded the "Threat" YOU may be able to sue them. (counter suit)

Good luck, hope this thread stays here, it's a good tutorial for those doing World Wide shipping.

Thread title changed, but note that I wouldn't have seen Mika's note without a letter from the same company Mika names requesting removal of the thread! As no one is named I don't see an issue. The lessons learned are valuable!

Note: Important to actually send a message to a mod, "report thread" works well, and we WILL see it - just a post in a thread we may NOT see - there aren't enough hours in the day to see everything.

Good luck Mika!

__________________
Grant Johnson
Seek, and ye shall find.
------------------------
Inspiring, Informing and Connecting travellers since 1997!
www.HorizonsUnlimited.com

Hi Mika
I concur with the above sentiments. If you've described on this forum exactly what happened, what threats could NAME DELETED Cargo make?

I'm a member of a school/ school administration rating forum where teachers can describe what it's really like to work in certain organisations/ for certain people. When some jumped up head teacher doesn't like what's written about them, the forum owner publishes the fire and fury letters from the schools and their reply to the head teacher suggesting a better strategy is to calmly respond to the points raised, rather than try bullyboy tactics and threaten legal action that just makes them look ridiculous and confirms the view they're not a good employer.

What are the people from NAME DELETED Cargo going to do Mika: fly to Bolivia and wave their fists at you? Business must be quiet if they have the time to waste shouting threats they can't keep at people on the other side of the world.

__________________

Brighty's website: TheBrightStuffDotCom

CURRENT RR WITH REGULAR UPDATES: The Wife Takes on Chlamydia: A South American Retrospective

Reading through Mika's original post I have to say I'm not that surprised that the name deleted freight forwarder took umbrage. It's not so much what he said as the way he said it and in particular a number of the phrases that were used to describe the commercial transaction that went on between them.

The problem with using descriptions like "dirty tricks", "tricks and lies", "cheated", "black mailing" is that they have specific meanings and (some of them at least) imply criminal activity at a corporate level - that Mika was subject to a deliberate decision by somebody acting with the authority of the company that was contrary to the law. Even allowing for the "Wild West" nature of the internet no company is going to be happy having an accusation like that levelled at it and perhaps its not surprising they reacted in the way they did.

That's not to diminish Mika's experience but there is a difference between being taken advantage of and being treated with criminal intent - even if it is sometimes a very fine line. I'm not a lawyer so I've no experience other than the school of life to fall back on but in general writing these things as cock-up (with gaps between the lines for readers to draw their own conclusions) rather than conspiracy will get the message across equally well.

Quote
Last edited by Grant Johnson; 2 Days Ago at 01:16. Reason: Edited to remove company name for Mika's aid
Unquote

Shame that censorship has to take place on the hubb. People have the right to know which shipping companies use sharp business tactics.

What's the point of an information exchange like the hubb if the bad guys are allowed to remain anonymous? Do you think that cowboy outfit was going to start sending me threatening emails too, like they did Grant and Mika?

PS. In my comments at http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...ope-trip-57891 I wrote my views/experiences of freighting from Mongolia/Siberia to Europe. Interestingly, the German company I mentioned unfavourably did not threaten me with legal action.

__________________

Brighty's website: TheBrightStuffDotCom

CURRENT RR WITH REGULAR UPDATES: The Wife Takes on Chlamydia: A South American Retrospective