I’m not sure if this qualify as shipping delay, however there’s delay in the story and it’s about shipping (and collecting)… so here it is:
I lived in Bermuda for 5 years, during that period I obviously accumulated a lot of stuff. My wife (fiancée at the time) and I decided to move back to Canada in 1999. We sold and gave away most of our stuff but still ended with a cubic meter on stuff to ship.
We packed everything carefully and kept a complete and detailed inventory of what was in our shipment. I rented a cubic meter in a container and sent it. The shipment arrived a few weeks after us and we received a note letting us know that we had to go to customs to clear the goods.
I rented a pickup truck and asked a friend to tag along to help me load and unload the goods. This was a Friday morning, we showed up at custom to fill the paperwork with our detailed inventory in hands. In our stuff was a bottle of Rémy Martin XO, a fairly valuable cognac that we acquired in Europe. When the custom agent reviewed our inventory, his stopped at the Rémy and he looked up to us and asked;
Agent: is this really in your shipment ?
Me: Yes, it is, and we are hoping it’s not broken…
Agent: Are you sure you didn’t make a mistake, if you did, you could scratch it off the list….
Me: No-no… it’s in there we’re sure. (I didn’t read the signals)
Agent: Well if you are sure, we do have a small problem. To import alcohol that doesn’t arrive with you on your flight back, you’ll need to get an importer permit !
Me: Oh well that’s seems a bit extreme and complicated, why dont you take it off the shipment and we will not import it.
Agent: Sorry, can’t do that, your shipment is in a protected zone and can’t be access until I have all the paperwork and duty paid.
At this point I realized that, he previously was telling me to cross it off the list…. But it was too late.
He explained to me that I had to go to the SAQ (liquor board) and request a permit. Sadly, on Friday they close at noon, I looked at my watch and it was already 11h30, not enough time to get this sorted out. So, I returned my rental and headed back home without our goods. The following Monday, I showed up to the SAQ to obtain that importer permit. Showed up early 9am, just as they open. We get directed to import/export department, met a nice lady that gave us some paperwork to fill. Did our stuff and showed up to the lady to get the permit…
She then asked us for proof of living in Bermuda because we were importing this bottle as personal goods. I showed her my passport where there was many stamps of leaving and re-entering Bermuda. She tells me that wasn’t enough but a letter from my former employer would do. So we retreated in the wait room and I got on the phone to make calls for a letter. Made contact with an admin who agreed to draft one quick and get it signed by our CEO.
About 1h30 min later, a fax comes in for confirmation. We get called back by the lady, who now has all she needs to give us our permit. She looks up the bottle description and can’t find it in her little “booze black book”, I explained it was about worth 250CAD, she kept looking, asked around for nearly 20 min and finally agreed on the value.
She completed the paperwork, gave us an invoice to pay at the next counter.
Total damages: 3hours wasted at the SAQ and a invoice for an importer permit of 4.39CAD$
3 days of delay, about 5h wasted, provincial and federal tax payers money, for what ? Less then 5$ !!!
Gotta love shipping !
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