US Customs and Border Protection offers a wealth of information about your shipments. The only thing you have to do is ask for it. A new industry has flourished offering this valuable information as a paid subscription. Freight forwarders, trucking companies, and other intermediary companies use it to find qualified leads; but your competitors use it to gain an advantage over you.
When your agent, freight forwarder, or licensed customs broker process the importer security filing it transmits information about your shipment. This available information contains 22 elements, among them:
- description of goods,
- name and address of the shipper,
- consignees’ names and address,
- notify party for each of your shipments.
Guess what? They know who your clients are. To your surprise, no one told you. No one told you that you can hide your information.
US Customs and Border Protection has deployed an automated online application for submitting electronic vessel manifest confidentiality requests. This allows ocean carriers, importers, exporters, and consignees utilizing ocean transportation to make their own confidentiality requests electronically via an online application.
If you want to stop spreading your information, and stop your competition from gaining an unfair advantage over you, click on this link to download the instructions to start it now.
To avoid unpleasant surprises like these, contact us.