A buyer in Texas opened six cartons, found the housings cracked, photographed them and went back to selling. The email reached the forwarder nineteen days later. By then the container had been returned, the delivery receipt had been signed clean, and the file at the carrier was closed. The damage was real. The claim was not.
Most of what decides a claim happens in the first seventy-two hours after arrival, not in the letter that follows. Six questions cover it.
Q1. Who inspects, and who pays for the inspection?
The buyer has the right to inspect on arrival; that right does not depend on the trade term. What changes is who pays: under FOB and CIF the buyer inspects on its own account, and a third-party survey is usually at the buyer's cost. Under DDP the seller is the one delivering a finished result, so a joint inspection at the door is normal and the seller arranges it.
For anything above a small value, name the surveyor in the contract before the first shipment. Naming one after the damage is how arguments about independence begin.
Q2. How long do I have to raise it?
Three clocks run at once, and only one of them is the one people remember.
| Clock | Typical length | What it controls |
|---|---|---|
| Carrier notice | Three days from delivery for visible damage, seven for hidden | Whether the carrier will look at the file at all |
| Insurance notice | Immediate, and a written claim within a short stated period | The insurer's duty to handle the claim |
| Contractual objection | Whatever the sales contract says, often seven to thirty days | Whether you can hold the seller or the buyer to the deal |
Q3. Under CIF, is insurance the same as a claim on the seller?
No, and mixing them is the most expensive mistake in this area. Under CIF the seller arranges cover and hands over the policy; the claim is against the insurer, assessed on the insured value and the peril. A claim against the seller is a contract claim about the goods not matching the deal. One is settled by a loss adjuster, the other by negotiation or arbitration — and they run on different clocks.
Q4. The shortage appeared after unloading. Under DDP, who do I ask?
Work backwards along the delivery, and do it in writing the same day: the warehouse receipt, then the trucker's delivery note, then the container seal record. A clean signature on the delivery note is the single most common reason a shortage claim dies, because it says the goods arrived in the stated condition.
Write the exception on the note before signing, even in a short form. "Six cartons short, photographed, unpacked in the presence of the driver" is enough to keep the claim alive.
Q5. What has to be in the claim file?
- The delivery note and the warehouse receipt, with the exception written on them.
- Photographs taken before the cartons were moved: the seal, the container, the pallet, the damage.
- The survey report, if a surveyor was involved, dated and signed.
- The commercial invoice and packing list for the affected units, not just the total.
- The repair or replacement quote, so the claim carries a number.
Q6. Once the window has closed, is it over?
For the carrier and the insurer, usually yes; those deadlines are conditions of the contract, not suggestions. With the seller there is often still room, because a commercial relationship has its own logic: a documented, photographed, quantified complaint that arrives late is still more persuasive than a letter of complaint that arrives on time with nothing attached.
That is not a reason to be late. It is a reason to write the file properly even when the clock has run.
The habit that prevents all six
Inspect on the day the container is opened, photograph before touching, and write the exception on the note before signing. Everything else in this article is a repair job on one of those three.
A plain note from the desk: a claim is not won by being right, it is won by being early and documented. The photos you take in the first hour are worth more than the letter you write in the third week.
Send the term, the lane and the delivery date on WhatsApp before the next shipment, and we will write the inspection and claim clause that fits it — so the window is defined before anything goes wrong.