Questions to Ask a Shipping Company Before You Pay

Ten minutes of questions before you pay will tell you more about a shipping company than a year of adverts. A good company answers every question on this page calmly and in writing. A risky one rushes you past them. That reaction — calm or rushed — is the answer to the biggest question of all, the one you never have to ask out loud.

Ask these questions in this order: about the money, about the journey, and about Haiti. Write the answers down as you hear them, and keep them with your receipt. If you are comparing two companies — and you should be — ask both companies the identical list, so the answers line up side by side.

Questions about the money

• What is the total price for my shipment — and can you put it in writing?
• What exactly does that price include: pickup, the trip itself, and what else?
• What is not included that I, or my family, will still have to pay? Where, and roughly how much?
• How is the price worked out — by barrel, by weight, by size, by value?
• If something changes the price later, what would it be, and will you tell me before it happens?

Listen for structure. A company that can explain its own price in parts understands its business. A company whose price is a single round number with nothing behind it is asking you to trust the fog. Published prices help you calibrate: when OneVision Multiservices publishes shipping by weight from $2.50/lb, or JP's Logistics & More publishes barrels at $240 and $265 by size, you can hear whether a spoken quote is in the same country as the published ones. The full comparison method is in how to choose a company you can trust.

Questions about the journey

• Where do I hand over my goods — your warehouse, your office, or pickup at my door? What is the address?
• When does the next shipment leave, and what day should I bring my goods by?
• How will I know my shipment has left, and how will I know it has arrived?
• Will you give me a receipt with the company name, my name, my receiver's name and what I shipped?
• What happens if something is damaged or missing — who do I contact, and what do you do?

An address is not a small thing. Trust Cargo lists its Brooklyn drop-off at 220 Junius St, Brooklyn — that plainness is the standard to hold every company to, whether they take barrels in New York & New Jersey or boxes in Boston & Massachusetts. “We will let you know where to meet” is not an address.

Questions about Haiti

• Which port or office will my shipment arrive at?
• Who contacts my family when it arrives — you, your office in Haiti, or nobody?
• Who clears the shipment through customs, and what will that cost on top of what I pay you?
• Can my family collect with their identification, and does the name on my papers have to match it exactly?
• If my family cannot collect quickly, what happens to the shipment, and what does waiting cost?

These answers go straight to your family, word for word, before the goods leave. Customs charges on the Haiti side are built from documented charges — explained in Haitian customs charges, in plain words — and the port choice behind them is covered in which port in Haiti. A company that answers the Haiti questions vaguely is telling you its service ends at the water.

What do you do with the answers?

Keep them. The written answers, the receipt, your contents list and your photos are one folder — physical or on your phone — that stays until your family confirms everything arrived. Companies used to these questions, like Dalbagay Shipping in the Boston area and FNN Shipping Inc with locations across several states, will not blink at any of them. If a company does blink — rushes, refuses, or punishes you for asking — you have learned what you needed before money moved, which is the cheapest tuition this business offers. More preparation lives in the pack, and quick answers in the frequently asked questions.

Bring this page to the call if it helps. Read the questions in your own words, in your own language, at your own pace — a company that serves diaspora families every week has heard them all before, in French, in English, and in every mixture of the two. What you are listening for is not polish. It is patience, specifics, and the same answers twice. When you hear those, you have found a company you can pay with a quiet mind.