Nearly 1,000 boxes of goods were detained! More than 30 sellers fell into the trap of freight forwarding

With frequent logistics incidents, cross-border sellers bluntly say they don’t know how to choose a logistics provider.

Due to UPS and the US Mail's strict investigation of fraudulent accounts, many freight forwarders involved in gray operations have been unable to continue this year. A large number of sellers affected by the freight forwarders have had their goods detained, suffering heavy losses. Recently, a seller revealed that she had made a mistake when choosing a logistics company, resulting in 169 boxes of goods being detained, with a book loss of more than 500,000 yuan. More than 30 of her colleagues were also involved, and their total goods were detained for nearly 1,000 boxes.

169 boxes of goods were detained, Amazon sellers lost 1 million

Amazon seller Li Mengtian has recently fallen into anxiety because she chose an unreliable logistics company. More than 100 boxes of her goods were detained, and the total loss may be as high as 1 million.

Starting from early June this year , Li Mengtian sent seven batches of goods through Guangzhou *Yi Logistics Information Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as *Yi) , each time ranging from a dozen to dozens of boxes. A total of 133 boxes were shipped in 7 batches, with a total value of about 330,000 yuan.

On July 13, Li Mengtian found that the goods she had previously sent had not been updated after UPS picked them up, so she asked the *Ying liaison person, who said that there might be a problem with the UPS account and the goods were detained by UPS.

Because of the uproar over UPS's strict investigation of accounts for money laundering, Li Mengtian began to worry. She found acquaintances in other logistics companies and asked them to help check the accounts used to ship her goods and confirm that there were problematic accounts.

According to Li Mengtian, more than 133 boxes of her goods were affected . Due to business needs and considerations of risk sharing, her company's goods are shipped through five logistics companies every year. *Yi is one of them, and another one is *Fan. *Fan and *Yi have a cooperative relationship. The 36 boxes (with a value of about 83,000 yuan) that Li Mengtian sent through *Fan also went through *Yi's channel, affecting a total of 169 boxes of goods.

After 169 boxes of goods were detained, Li Mengtian consulted other logistics professionals and was told that the goods would most likely not be recovered. She asked *Wing about the handling of the goods and asked for a solution. The staff of *Wing in charge of cross-border logistics said that the goods would probably not be able to be shipped out and they would make compensation, but more than half a month has passed and the other company has been shirking the compensation plan and the matter is being processed.

In desperation, Li Mengtian sought solutions from many sources. She asked UPS insiders about the destination of the goods and the situation of *Wing, and learned that *Wing had been handling the goods. She also learned from other logistics professionals that in such cases, logistics companies usually drag their feet and will not compensate until the end.

If she cannot get the goods back or get compensation, Li Mengtian will suffer a great loss. She said that these goods were prepared for the Amazon Prime Day promotion. 169 boxes of goods could not be delivered, so she could only replenish them through express delivery, which cost about 130,000 yuan. The book loss alone exceeded 500,000 yuan.

Li Mengtian further introduced that during the Membership Day, her store was out of stock. The products that should have been hot-selling missed the big sale because the goods were detained. If the losses from the Membership Day promotion are included, her total losses this time are estimated to be nearly 1 million.

More than 30 sellers were affected and nearly 1,000 boxes of goods were seized

Li Mengtian is not the only seller who has fallen into the trap. When she went to *Yi Company to seek an explanation, she found that there were other sellers who had the same experience as her. She knew of more than 30 such sellers.

"The contact person in their company showed me some information about the damage to the goods. I saw a mosaiced list and counted the number of direct customers and B-end customers, totaling more than 30. I saw that nearly 1,000 boxes of goods were detained. This may just be a conservative number, not all of them . " Li Mengtian introduced.

Perhaps every seller who has fallen into the trap is like Li Mengtian, always looking forward to the sudden tracking information of the goods or to getting compensation.

Just when the compensation for the detained goods had not yet been received, at the end of July, Li Mengtian found that there were sudden logistics updates for 24 boxes of her goods, so she went to *Yi to find out the situation. At this time, the other party said that the UPS strike was cancelled and the workers had returned to their jobs, but there was still no logistics update for the remaining goods. *Yi did not give an explanation, and Li Mengtian was not sure about the subsequent whereabouts of these goods.

Before the goods were detained, Li Mengtian believed that *Ying was a trustworthy logistics company. She started working with the company at the beginning of last year. Before the cooperation, she knew the basic situation of the logistics company. The company started out in the Middle East market. After the outbreak of the epidemic, the European and American logistics markets were booming, and the company began to get involved in air and sea transportation channels to Europe and the United States.

She has been cooperating with *Yi for about a year, and there have been basically no problems. Before this shipment, UPS had already conducted a strict investigation into the account of water leakage. Because of trust, Li Mengtian felt that *Yi would not do anything wrong, and the charges for the goods she shipped from *Yi were all normal market prices, not lower than the market price.

What Li Mengtian found hard to accept was that it had been clearly agreed upon that compensation would be paid if there were any problems, but when *Wing's business conditions were fine, there was no sincerity in paying compensation.

The logistics market is sick and sellers are afraid to ship goods

The detention of nearly 1,000 boxes from more than 30 sellers is still aimed at UPS's strict investigation of accounts that have leaked goods.

This year, the cross-border logistics market is not good, the sellers' shipments have dropped sharply, and the freight forwarding circle is seriously involuntarily. When the market is sluggish, more bad freight forwarders start gray operations, and the phenomenon of low-price cargo collection is prevalent. Some freight forwarders even offer 0 yuan for cargo collection. In this case, freight forwarders cannot earn the difference in freight costs, so they can only make profits by manipulating customs clearance, taxes, surcharges, etc., so there are illegal operations such as low-price declarations. If these illegal operations are not carried out, freight forwarders who collect goods at low prices will not be able to survive.

When operations such as collecting goods at low prices, collecting general goods to make way for dangerous goods, and privately changing delivery channels have become a problem, freight forwarders have come up with bolder operations . "Water leakage accounts" are the inevitable product of the pathological development of the entire logistics market.

As UPS strictly investigates the accounts for fraudulent transactions, a large number of illegal goods have been investigated and dealt with, and a large number of accounts have been blocked, causing many freight forwarders to go bankrupt. Behind every freight forwarder that has problems , there are a group of cross-border sellers who pay for it. For example, *Special Air and Sea Express used UPS fraudulent accounts and posted false shipping labels in order to boost performance and profits, resulting in the goods of many foreign trade companies being detained by UPS and unable to be taken out, resulting in losses of up to millions.

Li Mengtian is also one of the sellers affected. In her opinion, the cross-border logistics industry has too many pitfalls and the water is too deep. As a seller, you have no idea which is the abyss and which is the flat land . Even if you understand the business background, status and strength of the freight forwarder before shipping, the internal operation mode of the company will eventually affect the seller's goods. These situations are completely unpredictable.

The seller handed over all the goods to the freight forwarder, but in the end he was unable to intervene in problems such as delays and losses of the goods, and finally found that there was not even a way to compensate.

In August, logistics costs are also rising. Li Mengtian believes that normal price increases are acceptable, but the key is that it is difficult to find a compliant and reliable freight forwarder even if prices rise. Sellers hope that the industry can be standardized and that there are freight forwarders who are down-to-earth and deeply involved in the logistics industry, so that everyone can clearly know who can do logistics professionally, so that sellers can take fewer detours when shipping and avoid unnecessary losses. The current logistics market makes sellers afraid to ship.

(Li Mengtian is a pseudonym in this article)

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