DUBAI: Fly-by-night operators undercut their cost by choosing a ground agent at ports in the Philippines that offers the lowest rate, which are also those not recognized by DTI and does not have the level of organization required to handle deliveries, according to Allan Michael Bautista, LBC regional sales manager who also heads the League of Freight Forwarders (LFF), an organization of legitimate door-to-door cargo companies in the UAE.
“Ang nasasakripisyo ay yung customer,” Bautista said. (The customer bears the brunt.)
READ: Balikbayan box woes…. has this happened to you?
“Pagdating sa Pilipinas, ang kukunin ay yung pinakamurang freight forwarder; dahil mura, hindi recognized ng DTI. Yung isang container, may 200 to 250 boxes..ilang customer yan? Kung yung isang container hindi na-deliver dahil hindi legitimate ang forwarder na nasa Pilipinas, paano na?” Bautista said. (They get the lowest charging freight forwarder in the Philippines, which is also not recognized by DTI. A container has 200 to 250 boxes. If one container is not delivered, what now?)
He added that fly-by-nights usually come during peak seasons like Christmas. “Lahat sasabihin ‘We accept Philippine cargo,’ tapos ganito lang ang presyo, malayo sa standard rate kasi nga undercut, pagdating sa forwarder sa Pilipinas, labu-labo,” Bautista said. (Shops will be coming out saying “We accept Philippine cargo,” and the price is low, way lower than the standard rate because, as it turns out, the operator undercut. When the boxes reach the Philippines, it’s total helter skelter.)
Co-loading
Raju Rajendra, LFF vice chairman and managing director at Qualitair&Sea, a cargo forwarding company, for his part said the “existence of unscrupulous agents” is one of the “struggles of OFWs who leave their country to make an honest living.”
“Fly-by-night operators collect money and vanish without fulfilling their commitment,” he said.
“Merong ngang mga ganyan,” Augusto ‘Marz’ Marcial, Makati Express business development officer, meantime said. “Hindi pa naman nawawala yung mga ganyan.” (There are those who operate that way.)
Marcial also said small companies which could not fill up a whole container, resort to co-loading their boxes to bigger ones, charging full rate from their customers but holding payments owed to forwarders.
“Naniningil ng full payment pero i-uutang sa forwarder,” he said. (They will ask full payment but withhold what they should pay the forwarder.)
Another downside to transacting business with a small, unheard-of company, Marcial said, is that problem arises when something happened to the co-loaded balikbayan box. “Kapag may nangyari sa cargo, yun ang problema,” said Marcial. (That’s a problem when something happened to the co-loaded box.)
Marcial said Makati Express does not anymore accept co-loading.
