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

[mika]

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 Cargo 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 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. Good business, hey?

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 cargo would not give me the original BoL.




Trick No. 2: Port Charges and delays.


Name deleted 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 Name deleted 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.

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 Name deleted 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.

Or even better, buy your bike down here and sell it again ...

All the best.
mika from Bolivia

[Endeavour II]

Hi Mika

you might find this interesting.
House Bill of Lading and Master Bill of Lading

NAME DELETED is a forwarder and uses CGLI bill of ladings (the bill of lading of the international freight forwarding organisation they belong to) - according to their website...
CGLI


Saco Shipping is an NVOCC (Non vessel owning common carrier) and has their own bill of ladings or has obtained the right to issue b/l in the name of the shipowner carrying the goods to Chili.

As far as I can remember from my days in shipping, Saco needs to issue a b/l to cover (back to back) the CGLI b/l issued by NAME DELETED. In the B/l NAME DELETEDwill be the shipper. Saco is agent for various shipping lines. I can only assume that delays have occurred between the 2 or 3 parties involved and the courier bag with the original b/l's ended up late in Chili. Hence the storage of your bike. port dues in itself are a common charge worldwide but the Chilean agent turned the storage into an interesting income...

The fact that you have not received an original from NAME DELETED sounds a bit odd... they are a known company with a track record in vehicle shipping...

It's worth a try to write your story in a mail to CGLI's headquarters in Antwerp (Belgium) and see what they say:

CGLI Headquarters
Noorderlaan 121
2030 Antwerpen Belgium

Tel +32 (3) 303 05 90

E-mail info@cgli.net

[mika]

Thank you Endeavour for the information. I will send my story to CGLI, lets see what they come up with.

In the B/l NAME DELETED will be the shipper.

No, NAME DELETED is not mentioned in the BoL.

I can only assume that delays have occurred between the 2 or 3 parties involved and the courier bag with the original b/l's ended up late in Chili.

No, the delay that costed storage, was caused by the incompetents of SACO S.A. office in Santiago. And I assume it was done on purpose, as others travelers had the same problems with SACO S.A. office in Santiago.

We live in the 21th century, and writing a BoL can be done in ten minutes. And the delay of six weeks (the whole time the ship was on sea plus five days in the port of arrival) is criminal, nothing else.

...but the Chilean agent turned the storage into an interesting income...

Yes, stealing I call this form of income.

Greetings from Bolivia
mika

[mika]

To keep this thread a bit like a knowledge base for the tricks used on travelers, here is what *The pinproject* wrote in another thread here on the Hubb:

We were in the same boat when we shipped our Suzuki Vitara from Ghana to South Africa.

Lesson No1: BE 100% SURE that YOU ARE the CONSIGNEE that means that your name appears in this specific cell of the BoL. If you are the consignee, then its YOU that you take over your vehicle's clearance at the port of discharge meaning you can choose the customs broker you want and not the one that the Freight forwarded will "allocate" to you.

We have been blackmailed by the appointed broker in South Africa but when we learnt our rights as consignees we did our research and just gave the job to another office for half the price.

We still have the emails of the first broker who was trying to block our vehicle release through the shipping company. When they told him that he has no authority and power on our cargo, half of Cape Town was laughing at him!!

Thats the only way to "control" better your shipment. For sure they will charge extra fees and money that you dont expect. Its part of the game they play on one-time-non-regular customers like us. Nothing you can do!

[mika]

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

[mika]

Hi all,

just to shed a bit of light on me deleting the name of the shipping company.

As I was very sick at the time, with Chingukuya (a form of dengue) and a lawer friend in Germany advised me to delete the name, as I would be never able to win a court case about it in Germany without spending an rediculous amount of money and time.

People that know me, know that I am not the one that gives up easy, but sometimes all of us have to understand when to turn around.

But at least I hope this thread will warn people about some of the tricks used by criminal Freight Forwarders and Shipping companies.

For South America (where I live) it is anyway better to buy a bike here, and there are plenty of threads on the Hubb of people that have done this.

Pls keep this thread open and warn others about the tricks you have been conned with.

mika