customs brokers

T

thebluffs1

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Jul 18, 2008
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Can anyone tell me how and why customs brokers in this day and age continue to exist with their same panapoly of excuses and staffing problems and general inability to process data efficiently. If we transported goods like most customs brokers cleared shipments, we'd be out of business
 
Did you get the ''We have staff on vacation, so we are running a little behind'' kind of answer... I got one of those answers from one of them today... Or the best I got so far is ''the portal is down so we can't transmitte to the Border'' even thought it is not really down...
 
I worked 5 years at a customs broker at Windsor bridge.

Answer to your question .... because they are not accountable to anyone but themselves.
 
I once called UPS because I was having trouble with a shipment. I got the runaround and a bunch of excuses and the person I spoke generally couldn't or wouldn't help me. The person was so uninformed and useless I thought I had called Livingston by mistake!!

Sadly, that is a true story. I have often told my customer that there will be additional charges for a delay at the border because of the customs broker. When my customer asks me to get their freight to them, they expect good service. Why don't they expect that from the broker? I have often suggested a new broker to a customer and surprisingly some have taken my advise.

Who in their right mind actually chooses to use Livingston? The smaller companies they bought up like Peacebridge knew what they were doing. Livingston had to come in and dumb-down the staff to meet company expectations.
 
RK in MB said:
I once called UPS because I was having trouble with a shipment. I got the runaround and a bunch of excuses and the person I spoke generally couldn't or wouldn't help me. The person was so uninformed and useless I thought I had called Livingston by mistake!!

Sadly, that is a true story. I have often told my customer that there will be additional charges for a delay at the border because of the customs broker. When my customer asks me to get their freight to them, they expect good service. Why don't they expect that from the broker? I have often suggested a new broker to a customer and surprisingly some have taken my advise.

Who in their right mind actually chooses to use Livingston? The smaller companies they bought up like Peacebridge knew what they were doing. Livingston had to come in and dumb-down the staff to meet company expectations.
Click to expand...

That is what happens when you are owned by MULLEN.
 
A few years ago we were having major problems with Livingston and one of my drivers got peed off at the bridge office and the next day one of the Livingston Vice Presidents called me and we explained our issues with them. Touch wood ever since that day Livingston has been awesome with us.

On the other hand some of the brokers and the standard answer of "we did not get the paperwork please refax" is still an issue. But maybe just maybe if ACI ever gets going - the issues will stop like they seem to have for the most part since Paps. If a broker is giving us "the not done yet wait at the bridge BS" - my drivers have been instructed to tell them you have 15 minutes and we are crossing and can deal with customs as to why it is not done. Customs knows when the paps are sent. More than one broker has had a customs officer ass chewing as to why paperwork sent in 4 hrs previous was not done.
 
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