Logistics company blacklist exposed! More than 800 freight forwarders on the list

In the past week, the cross-border circle has frequently exposed the financial crisis of freight forwarders. After a Shenzhen freight forwarder collected a large amount of goods, its capital chain broke, resulting in the goods being detained by the upstream logistics company. The sellers in question were required to repay the debts of the freight forwarder and redeem the goods out of their own pockets. Some sellers have reported to the police because they are not happy about being "suckers".

The editor noticed that one of the companies involved in the incident had previously been included in the industry's "logistics company blacklist." Currently, this circulating list lists more than 800 companies, including freight forwarding companies in Shenzhen, Yiwu and other places. A few of these companies have already gone bankrupt, so sellers should pay attention when choosing partners.

The blacklist of logistics companies has been exposed, and some companies have already gone bankrupt

In less than a month since the beginning of the year, the international logistics industry has seen several disputes and financial scandals, with sellers terrified by the frequent absconding and redemption of goods. While the industry is sighing, it also hopes that there will be a logistics blacklist for reference to avoid financial scandals to the greatest extent possible.

In the seller group, a "logistics company blacklist" is circulating. There are more than 800 companies on the list, from Shenzhen, Shanghai, Yiwu and other places. Among them are companies with a certain degree of fame in the industry. A few companies have already exploded, such as Shenzhen Jinbaotong and Fengbang Logistics.

(Partial blacklist screenshots)

The reasons for sellers' complaints are mostly that the freight forwarding companies privately changed channels, delayed delivery, charged random fees, had poor service attitudes, etc. For example, one seller posted a complaint about a company: "The sea freight was detained for 8 months, and not only did they not compensate, they also wanted to pay more, or they would destroy the goods. This happened to more than one order. I strongly do not recommend it. The official website is no longer valid. I suspect they have changed their shell or ran away."

Some sellers were also forced to cross cities to defend their rights. "A freight forwarding company in Shenzhen is a husband-and-wife business with a bad attitude. Our batch of goods took one and a half months to ship. When we asked for the specific reasons, they refused to tell us. When we asked more questions, they started to curse us. In the second month, they said the goods were checked by customs and we had to pay compensation according to the declared amount. We suffered a lot of losses but had to accept it. After the agreed compensation period, they still didn't pay. When we asked them for money, they said they would ship goods to offset it. When we disagreed, they simply ignored our calls and messages. Finally, we couldn't stand it anymore and asked a few people to go directly from Dongguan to Shenzhen to find him. The store was closed and there was not even a sign. We waited for an hour before catching him and finally got our money back."

Except for a few companies added by sellers in the circle, most of the companies on the blacklist come from data released by the Shenzhen Freight Forwarders Association.

Previously, in order to avoid dishonest enterprises in the freight forwarding industry, the Shenzhen Freight Forwarders Association applied to the relevant government departments and obtained the relevant blacklist of international freight forwarding companies in Shenzhen, specifically involving: the National Development and Reform Commission's financial blacklist, the Customs dishonest certification company list, the State Administration of Taxation's list of parties involved in major tax law violations, the Supreme Court's list of dishonest persons subject to execution, and the Industrial and Commercial Bureau's serious dishonest and illegal companies, totaling 1,246 companies.

Since 2020, the Shenzhen Freight Forwarders Association has successively announced several lists. In April 2022, it announced two batches of Shenzhen freight forwarding industry blacklists, totaling 237 companies. Sellers can check whether there are any cooperating freight forwarding companies and take precautions in advance.

At the same time, sellers who have fallen into traps advise their peers to sign a contract to protect their own interests before shipping. Anyone who does not sign a contract will have almost no chance of winning if he or she claims compensation from the freight forwarder after freight problems arise.

The editor learned that the incident this week in which the freight forwarding company asked the seller to pay extra money to redeem the goods involved a company on this blacklist.

Shenzhen freight forwarder goes bankrupt, more than 100 sellers suffer

According to a cross-border seller named Gongsun Bing, his company started to transport oversized goods to some European countries through Yao* International since March last year.

Public information shows that Shenzhen Yao * International was established in August 2021 with a registered capital of RMB 5 million. It is mainly engaged in European and American logistics cargo transportation, international express delivery and other businesses.

In the early stage of the cooperation between the two parties, the seller's orders were basically delivered in about 60 days. However, since June, all the seller's goods have been delayed. At present, all orders have been fully refunded, with a total loss of about RMB 60,000.

But what the seller didn’t expect was that the goods that were still in transit were actually detained directly, and the reason was shocking. The seller said, “After Yao* Company transported a large amount of goods to Europe, it owed the upstream logistics carriers Shenzhen Yun* and Zhuo* a total of about 4 million yuan in logistics fees. Currently, these two companies have temporarily detained all of Yao*’s goods.”

The sellers' goods are waiting to be put on the shelves for sale, and the freight forwarders are unable to explain to the customers, and they are all very anxious. A few days ago, Yao * set up a "goods redemption group" and told the sellers: after negotiation, everyone has to "take the goods" at a price of 20 yuan/kg, excluding delivery fees.

The sellers and downstream freight forwarders have already paid for the freight, but now they have to pay for Yao*'s operational problems and pay a sum of money to redeem the goods, which makes them furious. At the same time, some sellers pointed out that the company holding the goods was not sincere in asking for 20 yuan/kg, and that the first leg of the journey would not cost so much money. In response, Wu, the person in charge of Yao*, replied: "I owe Yun* 2.3 million yuan, which is included in the following goods."

Group members denounced the person in charge of Yao*. A freight forwarder bluntly said: "We have paid the freight. At most, we have to pay the freight for our own container according to the market price. You also want us to take on your previous debts. How can you say such a thing?"

The freight forwarder pointed out that Yao * was established in August 2021 and started to go bankrupt in July 2022. Since then, every container shipped in the past six months has been redeemed with money. Until January 12 this year, Yao* was still shipping containers. Since it is unable to pay the customs clearance fee and back-end delivery fee, why continue to accept the goods? Has the stable business model of first accepting goods at a low price and then paying extra money to redeem the goods been formed?

In response to the numerous accountability calls, Yao *'s person in charge, Wu, defended himself by saying that he had been paying the back-end delivery fees and now had no money to pay. "Give me a few months, and the fees you pay now will be refunded."

It is understood that there are more than 130 sellers and second-hand freight forwarding companies in the redemption group , with the shipment volume ranging from hundreds of kilograms to dozens of cubic meters, and the total loss is expected to be at least several million. At present, some people have admitted their mistakes and paid money to redeem the goods, and other sellers including the whistleblower have reported the case and are going through the collective prosecution process.

A logistics professional lamented that before the Spring Festival, they were still discussing that companies with no funds to transfer after the Spring Festival would go bankrupt, and then the dedicated line really went bankrupt. The industry concluded that this was a common low-price routine.

The sellers and freight forwarders complained about the unscrupulous freight forwarders, and some observers thought that they were too careless in choosing the freight forwarders. "You dared to cooperate with us just after the goods were listed. You are too careless! Without a certain amount of time accumulation, how can you resist risks? No matter how good your words are, they are just stories."

How can sellers avoid pitfalls and choose the right freight forwarder?

Een.com has summarized a guide: 1. Check the qualifications of the freight forwarder, check its establishment time and company size, and carefully select smaller companies; 2. Pay attention to the paid-in capital of the freight forwarder to confirm that it is not a shell company; 3. Try to go to the freight forwarder for on-site inspection to understand its operation and actual scale; 4. Identify whether the freight forwarder is a banker. The banker can provide one-stop services from collection to customs clearance, and the whole process is controllable, but 95% of the companies on the market are not real bankers.

Once a crash occurs, it is not only the sellers who suffer, but also the upstream dealers who are not immune. Industry insiders pointed out that the freight forwarding market should be rectified to avoid being cheated by some freight forwarders who jump out in the short term to buy goods at low prices.