You might remember I’m a customs broker. Last year when the additional China duties were introduced, a customer asked us if we would classify their shipments as something else so they wouldn’t have to pay the additional. I refused. Customer was pissed and pulled their business. They had another broker they had been working with somewhat. That other broker had no problem changing the classification so the customer wouldn’t have to pay the additional China duty. It was changed to something that had no relation to what they were importing. I had been clearing their shipments with the same classifications since 2012 when I took over the clearances from someone else in my office. Customer had been with my company since the early 90s.
Customer got away with it for about 6-8 months. Couple months ago they advised us they were being investigated by Customs. They had to get a lawyer. They’re probably going to be paying the lawyer a lot more than what they saved in duties.
The current leadership of the company is the second generation and greedy. The founder had to retire in the past couple of years due to health issues and was very nice to deal with. I’m only sorry founder’s hard work is being destroyed by second generation.
Customs requested paperwork from us last week for the few clearances we had done since the additional duties had been in effect. They are obviously comparing how I did it to how the other broker did it. We can show going back to 2012 (you only have to keep hard copies going back 5 years per CBP regs, but our system has info back 7 years) that we’ve been doing it the same way. We supplied the requested paperwork.
Customer actually told us they want us to contact them next time BEFORE we respond to Customs. We plainly told them that whatever they say has no bearing on our responses to Customs. We are required to respond to Customs.
Customer has come crawling back to us and we have all their business back. They complain the other broker is not being cooperative.
What’s even worse about this situation is that the other broker appears to have not declared the shipments to another gov’t agency. If that truly is the case, whatever Customs does to this customer will look like child’s play when the other agency is done with them. The other agency will nail customer to the wall.
I’m enjoying the whole situation immensely. The customer complained to my company’s executives months ago that I was being VERY unwilling to work with them and that I am very black and white. I actually used the correct word for what this whole this is - FRAUD - with the customer and they didn’t like it. I told them I was not risking my hard-won brokers license for them. I told the same to our executives, who agreed with me. When I learning the customer was under investigation by CBP, I did a happy dance right at my desk and laughed. Karma bites.
I told them multiple times that Customs was going to watch out for importers suddenly changing their classifications to avoid the China duties. They were greedy and could only see the short term savings.
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Originally Posted by Yppej
