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