I fear my wedding dress is destroyed

Graduate student Nicole Lobo returned to the U.S. in late August after a year in the United Kingdom and shipped 10 boxes of items back to Philadelphia, expecting them to arrive within a few days.

Six weeks later, he’s still waiting for the shipment and fears the shipment will be lost, destroyed by UPS, as the company struggles to cope with the flood of packages facing new customs and tariff rules.

“It was a terrible situation,” says the 28-year-old, who was informed last month that her boxes would be thrown away and had to make frantic phone calls and emails to escape the outcome.

This is a pain many UPS customers have faced since the Trump administration in late August. Packages valued less than $800 are not allowed into the US without inspection, tax or duty.

The decision suddenly made an estimated 4 million packages each day subject to new, more onerous processing and documentation rules.

As this influx leads to longer processing times and higher, sometimes unexpected costs across the industry, some UPS customers like Nicole say they fear their packages will get lost in the backlog.

“This is inconceivable to me,” says Janani Mohan, who lives in Michigan and has been on hold for hours and emailed repeatedly since receiving a follow-up alert that a box sent by her parents in India was destined for destruction.

The package included, among other items, her mother’s wedding dress, a sari from her grandmother, and wedding photographs.

“I literally cried to them on the phone,” she says. “Everything there is very close to my heart.”

Oregon-based Mizuba Tea Co., which has used UPS for more than a decade to import matcha from Japan, has five shipments totaling more than $100,000 held in process.

The firm received conflicting warnings about their condition, including some saying the items were being prepared for destruction.

“My whole team is basically on screening surveillance,” says Lauren Purvis, who runs the business with her family and is starting to worry about running out of inventory if the uncertainty continues.

“It is clear to us that current import systems are not prepared to handle the large volumes and paperwork.”

Importers generally have 10 days after the goods enter the United States to submit documentation for the goods, pay tariffs and other fees, and allow the package to go to the recipient.

But shipping companies like FedEx and UPS, which provide customs services and often act as importers of record, say the Trump administration’s rapid changes to tariff rules are making it increasingly difficult to meet customs deadlines.

For example, businesses are now responsible for paying tariffs on any steel or aluminum a product contains and, in many cases, vouching for the product’s country of origin; This is information that many businesses, let alone shipping companies, don’t know about.

“Due to changes in U.S. import regulations, we are seeing many packages failing to clear customs due to incomplete or missing information about the shipment required for clearance,” a UPS spokesperson said.

While the company acknowledged that shipping times are longer, it also noted that more than 90% of international packages are completed successfully within the day of arrival.

The spokesperson said its policy is to contact customers three times before attempting to destroy a package.

But seven people interviewed by the BBC, including several businesses responsible for shipping the products, said they had received no word from UPS about the problems before receiving a follow-up warning that their packages would be thrown away.

FedEx, another major player in the industry, said it generally does not destroy packages unless instructed to do so by the sender.

Graduate student Nicole said she was asked to provide more information about her belongings and did so promptly in early September.

He heard nothing more until he saw the notice of destruction in late September. After the BBC inquired about the package, the tracking information was updated for the first time in weeks and it was written that the package was “on the way”, raising their hopes.

Similarly, Janani said that after being contacted by the BBC, the company asked for a few more documents last week and that his package now appeared to have cleared customs.

But for businesses, chaos has already had real costs.

Swedish candy exporter Sweden Candy Land said more than 700 packages it sent to U.S. customers via UPS in the first few weeks of September were intercepted.

Co-founder Tobias Johansson said that after becoming aware of the problem, the business switched to FedEx and its shipments are now arriving without problems, although the process took a few days longer than before.

But the lost packages, some of which were reportedly destroyed, cost the firm nearly $50,000 in refunds, including shipping and brokerage fees.

“This has been a big blow to us and we haven’t heard anything back yet,” Mr. Johansson says.

Experts say ripple effects are being felt across the supply chain, even at businesses like Mizuba that don’t ship shipments using the $800 duty exemption, known as de minimis.

“This is felt across the board,” says Bernie Hart, vice president of business development for logistics and customs business Flexport.

In a call with financial analysts last month, FedEx executives said this was a “very stressful time” for its customers, especially smaller players.

“This is a big negative,” Chief Executive Raj Subramanian said, warning that changes in the trading environment will likely lead to a $1 billion hit this year; This includes $300 million in additional expenses as the firm faces hiring and other costs related to the new rules.

But John Pickel, vice president of supply chain policy for the National Trade Council, which represents many shipping companies, fears problems could get worse before they get better.

Overall trading volumes last month were lower than normal; This was partly because many businesses shipped their goods to the United States early to avoid tariffs.

“There was always a widespread notion that companies would solve this problem,” he says. “What we’re seeing is that it’s a lot harder than anyone expected.”