ComplaintsforSwiss Port
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Complaint Details
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Initial Complaint
04/06/2022
- Complaint Type:
- Service or Repair Issues
- Status:
- Unanswered
My firm is an ************************************* We are more traditionally known as a 'Customs **************** Forwarder'. We assist our clients in all manner for regulatory and logistics matters involved in international shipping. In this case, we represented a small importer of grass seed who had paid a significant fee for international air freight to rush some seed in time for planting season. The party who is is the subject of our dispute, Swissport, is a well known third-party 'air cargo handler' who is contracted by many individual airlines to receive and process imported commercial merchandise shipped in the bellies of their planes. Swissport is one of the larger such companies operating in the ************* with facilities with 42 advertised operation locations. In this case, imported merchandise arrived at their facility for which timely and appropriate declarations were made to the **** government in order to facilitate Customs/government release. We, as a "filer" of such data in order to affect cargo release for our importer clients, supplied proof of Customs clearance but Swissport could not corroborate the "cleared status" until 10 days after arrival, despite U.S. Customs having confirmed that it was truly released upon arrival. Swissport has an obligation in their service space to work with the government in these cases in order to confirm clearance status as they are in power and control of the merchandise. In this case, through the 10 day period, they made little to no real demonstrable effort to confirm our assertion that Customs had released the cargo. When ultimately they did confirm it, it was at close-of-business on Friday, 4/1. As a result, they charged our client $1,273.50 in 'storage charges' in order to recover their freight on Monday, 4/4. It's generally understood that many service providers in this space do not operate on weekends and that by levying this charge per their tariff, they would hold the cargo "hostage". It is extortion.
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Customer Complaints Summary
1 total complaints in the last 3 years.
0 complaints closed in the last 12 months.