Professional freight forwarders are currently in demand these days since it’s thanks to their unique skillset and expertise that many businesses won’t have to worry about handling requirements regarding logistics. Freight forwarders are vital to a company’s operations since they can keep companies running in peak condition while being able to deliver their products to their clients.

Since many companies are actively looking for freight forwarders, many scammers have been springing up in the field and are posing as legitimate forwarders. Businesses who trust such people end up facing different problems, including having their goods set up for ransom or losing them altogether.

Freight forwarding scammers tend to hold your goods’ Bill of Lading or BOL for ransom by first posing as legitimate forwarders online then offering their services at a significantly lower rate than usual to attract some clients then denying the release of the BOL. Once paid for, the scammer would then release the shipment. Some scammers don’t bother with putting anything for ransom and just steal the entire shipment.

Such scammers can attract clients by setting up a website with a name similar to that of a legitimate freight forwarder. Fake websites set up by scammers can easily be identified as long as people know the exact spelling of the URL and spot if the hosting site is free or not. If it uses a free hosting site, then the chances are that the site is fake.

As long as companies know the regular price of freight forwarding services and the websites of legitimate freight forwarders, they can avoid becoming victims of scammers. If you need more details on the common freight forwarding scams and how you can avoid them, see this infographic by Excelsior.