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Some time ago, a piece of news about "Yiwu freight forwarder went bankrupt and sellers had to pay money to redeem goods" went viral in the cross-border circle. The collective accusations of many sellers pushed the freight forwarding company involved to the climax of public opinion. On the Internet, there are many discussions and revelations about this matter . Words such as "freight forwarder went bankrupt", "ran away with the money", "huge debt", "goods valued at over 100 million yuan" are heartbreaking. The large number of sellers affected and the huge amount of money involved have shocked cross-border sellers. The victimized sellers then united to seek justice, which also attracted the attention of relevant Yiwu departments. After the government intervened, a mediation plan for the "4.15** incident" was finally released recently, but the victimized sellers were not satisfied. What is the hidden truth behind this? One of the victimized sellers found it and wrote a thousand-word article to express his feelings. Today, we will focus on this "logistics dispute incident" that shocked the cross-border circle. According to the seller who submitted the article, the incident happened as follows: The seller delivered a batch of goods to the company on March 8, 2021, and entrusted it to clear customs and transport them to the Amazon warehouse in the United States, with an estimated arrival time of March 22. However, in April, the goods had not been picked up by the last-mile carrier. On April 12, the seller received a call from the company's salesperson, informing them that their capital chain was broken, they owed huge debts, and they were unable to pay the various agents they cooperated with, resulting in 56 containers stranded in US ports, during sea transportation, and in third-party overseas warehouses. A total of 56 containers, involving hundreds of cargo owners, with a cargo value of over 100 million yuan! Afterwards, the seller reviewed the entire incident and learned that the logistics company had already encountered financial problems in February, but was still receiving goods in early April. Two days before the incident, the company's financial staff was still asking customers to pay. After receiving the news, cargo owners from all over the country rushed to Yiwu and gathered at the logistics company starting from April 15. The victims included not only cross-border sellers, but also logistics companies and traditional traders. During the negotiation process, the logistics company did not actively cooperate. The result of the first communication was that all cargo owners were required to pay 1.8 times the original freight in proportion to repay the fees they owed and all the subsequent costs of processing 56 containers, without the consent of the victimized sellers. On April 19, the seller approached the Beiyuan Sub-district Office of Yiwu City to coordinate the matter. After more than a week of negotiations, the agency did not come up with a feasible plan. On April 24, the Yiwu Foreign-Related Disputes People's Mediation Committee intervened and, after consultation with multiple parties, proposed a mediation plan that required all cargo owners to pay for 56 containers at a price of 22 yuan per kg and help the logistics company advance all expenses. However, this unequal mediation result is unacceptable to the sellers. As the sellers have already paid the original freight, they are no longer able to pay the additional debt to the logistics company. On April 26, with the intervention of relevant departments, the final mediation plan for the incident was released, including the following:
After calculation, the costs including the first leg, overseas warehouse, demurrage, overseas inspection, delivery, customs declaration, etc. were originally supposed to be paid by ** Logistics, but due to the current broken capital chain of ** Logistics, it is unable to pay.
After mediation, the above expenses were paid by the original cargo owner, and ** Logistics issued a promissory note with official seal to each cargo owner based on the actual payment amount. Any other subsequent expenses incurred overseas will be borne by the first-leg freight forwarding company.
Within 3 natural days after the announcement of the plan, the owner of the goods should transfer the corresponding amount to the public account. Failure to transfer the amount within the deadline will be deemed as automatic waiver of the ownership of the goods. The owner will be responsible for any subsequent overseas expenses or destruction of the goods abroad.
In short, the victim sellers need to advance all the expenses incurred by the logistics company before the goods can be returned to the original owner. Most sellers are not convinced by this mediation result. The victim sellers revealed to: The more mediation is done now, the higher the cost will be, but the longer it takes, the greater the seller's loss will be. At the same time, the seller also said that some sellers are operating on loans, and some sellers are facing the dilemma of Amazon's product shortage, which means that previous efforts have been in vain. In the more than ten days of negotiation, high fees have been incurred. Sellers cannot afford long-term litigation, and some sellers may even have to spend everything they have to pay for the various additional fees. The victimized seller told me that he submitted the article for three reasons: one is to make the truth public; two is to hope that the matter can be resolved as soon as possible at the lowest cost; three is to make his peers wary of bad freight forwarders and be cautious when choosing partners to prevent similar incidents from happening again. The experience of the victimized sellers mentioned above is regrettable and sympathetic, but in the cross-border circle, similar incidents are still happening, and freight forwarders running away and defrauding money are common, which is chilling. Has the industry atmosphere become so chaotic that there are really no reliable freight forwarders in the cross-border circle? Is it common to be cheated by freight forwarders? As the truth gradually surfaced, this "freight forwarder running away" incident that shocked the industry and beyond also attracted the attention of many sellers. Many sellers recounted their experiences of being cheated by freight forwarders. ▲ The picture comes from Zhiwubuyan Seller A: "I shipped a batch of goods before the New Year by European train. Half of them arrived in 70 days, and the remaining half has been more than 90 days. Every time I asked the freight forwarder to check, they were perfunctory. Now even if they treat it as lost goods, they will only compensate 100 US dollars for each box, but the actual value of a box is about 5k." ▲ The picture comes from Zhiwubuyan Seller B: "Last year, I used a freight forwarder to ship the goods to Europe by sea. The price was moderate. First, the ship was delayed, then the customs inspection, and when it was transferred to Europe, the train derailed. The goods were put on the shelves half a year later. During this period, the freight forwarder's communication was also very annoying. From the initial positive response, to the end of the indifference, I finally asked the management to come forward to solve the problem. In the end, this batch of goods was tossed from the middle of the year to the end of the year, which made me exhausted." ▲ The picture comes from Zhiwubuyan Seller C: "Low prices don't necessarily mean they are unreliable, and high prices don't necessarily mean they are good. Any logistics company will run into problems if you use it for too long." ▲ The picture comes from Zhiwubuyan Although sellers' experiences of being deceived by freight forwarders are different, what is the same is that when encountering unscrupulous freight forwarders, sellers will not only face the double loss of money and goods, but will also consume the sellers' manpower, material resources and energy, which is really a loss of both the wife and the army. So how can sellers prevent such problems from happening at the source? Experienced practitioners revealed that if you want to find a reliable freight forwarder to cooperate with, you can use the following three points as a basis:
When checking the size of a freight forwarding company through software such as Qichacha and Tianyancha, the most intuitive information is the number of employees and registered capital.
You can log on to the official website of the (Shenzhen) Freight Forwarders Association to check, or you can ask the freight forwarder for qualification documents such as NVOCC, GCEA, WCA, freight forwarder registration form, etc. to ensure qualification compliance.
You can arrange an interview to observe the salesperson's problem-solving ability and service awareness, whether the salesperson you are dealing with is professional, whether he is responsible for follow-up contacts, and whether problems can be properly resolved for you. At the same time, sellers should also pay attention to the following points:
- Conduct background check on qualifications;
- Don’t put all your eggs in one basket, multiple logistics and freight forwarding companies are scattered;
- Don't be greedy for small profits and suffer big losses. It is acceptable to follow the market price or slightly higher.
Finally, the victim seller confided to: This incident is a vicious incident in the cross-border circle, especially in the freight forwarding circle. If the matter is not properly resolved and the logistics company is not severely punished, it will inevitably be imitated by other freight forwarders in the future. How many cargo owners will suffer losses? This will be a great obstacle to our foreign trade activities! Yiwu is one of the cities with the most frequent foreign trade activities in China. The freight forwarding industry is thriving. It should set a good example for the freight forwarding circle across the country, instead of making our foreign trade companies change color when talking about "Yiwu freight forwarding". In the cross-border e-commerce circle, sellers and service providers are in a relationship of mutual benefit and mutual loss. Sellers choose freight forwarding companies out of trust, and freight forwarding companies should also be responsible for the sellers' goods, rather than letting a bad apple spoil the whole pot of porridge and corrupt the atmosphere of the entire industry. Finally, I hope that in the future there will be more reliable freight forwarders in the cross-border circle, sellers will be less cheated, the industry atmosphere will be more positive, the business environment will be more relaxed, and win-win cooperation will be the way to long-term development.
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