Another Shenzhen freight forwarder "collapses"! The seller has sued

The freight forwarding industry has been in turmoil recently. In addition to those who went bankrupt and ran away with the money, there are also some who do not operate their business seriously.

Yesterday, a seller exposed an "irresponsible" company to Yien.com - Bai*.com. According to online information, Bai*.com is an e-commerce platform that provides international logistics services. Its main businesses include international express, international parcels, international air transport, ocean freight, and FBA first-leg.

The incident dates back to August 2023, when the seller had a batch of goods worth 500,000 yuan to be shipped to the Netherlands . After communicating with the staff of Bai*.com, it was confirmed that the goods were shipped through the company.

According to information provided by the seller, the two parties signed a one-year contract in May 2022. Although the contract was not renewed, the two parties have always maintained a cooperative relationship and the freight is settled on a monthly basis.

When the goods were dispatched, the two parties agreed that the railway double-clearance and tax would be included, and the freight forwarder would buy the freight insurance. In addition, the two parties agreed before shipment that after buying the insurance, if the goods were lost, "except for the deductible of $300, the excess amount would be fully compensated."

  Just one month after the goods were shipped ( early September 2023), Bai*.com informed the seller that the goods encountered customs GAS inspection and it would take a week to resolve; in mid-September, Bai*.com stated that customs required 100% unpacking inspection, and the goods have been waiting for inspection since then.

Finally, in January this year, Bai*.com informed the seller that the customs had completed the inspection of the goods and that they needed to wait for the inspection results. In March, the seller received a "notice" in German asking for a deposit of 178,000 euros. Bai*.com said that the company had hired a lawyer to file an appeal and the final result would be announced on April 10.

But until April 10, the sellers did not get any "results" from Bai*.com, so they had no choice but to call the police on the same day and later filed a lawsuit against Bai*.com. It was only after the lawsuit that the sellers learned that Bai *.com had secretly entrusted the goods to a third-party logistics company and pushed a series of responsibilities onto the third-party logistics company.

What is puzzling about the whole process is that no matter what the seller said or the background information provided by the seller, the destination of the goods is the Netherlands, but the staff of Bai*.com said in the communication with the seller that "the railway is to Poland" and kept saying "Polish customs inspection" . Moreover, since the incident, the seller has been asking Bai *.com to provide complete documents proving that the customs requires the inspection of the goods, but the other party has always claimed that the customs made a verbal request for inspection . What is also puzzling is that the inspection results provided by Bai*.com are in German . According to the information found on the Internet, although German is also used in Poland, the official language is Polish . The most important thing is that the deposit of 178,000 euros needs to be paid to a German bank. After the seller raised questions, the other party changed his words and said that the goods were at the "border customs between Germany and Poland."

During this period, in order to recover the loss as soon as possible, the seller reported the case to the insurance company according to the insurance policy, but the insurance company's surveyor reported that Bai *.com did not cooperate, "only saying that the goods were not lost and were under customs inspection." In addition, the agreed compensation before delivery, "except for the 300 US dollars deductible, the rest is fully compensated", was changed to only 200,000 yuan when Bai *.com felt that the value of the goods was too high .

Because it involves multimodal transport and involves overseas, the case is currently being transferred to another court. Faced with the dilemma of "the freight forwarding company will not handle it and the legal process takes time", the seller lamented that "it is so difficult to protect rights".

In this period of major reshuffle in the industry, everyone must be more cautious and serious than usual when choosing a freight forwarder to avoid unnecessary trouble and loss.

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