News / UPS's 'systemic breakdown' – thousands of 'stuck' parcels face destruction

The end of de minimis exemption for international parcels in the US continues to disrupt traffic, with thousands of shipments stuck in a kind of parcel purgatory, possibly facing destruction.

Shippers and consignees fear the loss of their shipments amid news that United Parcel Service (UPS) has begun to dispose of parcels that have been stuck in its system. Growing numbers of shipments, some worth tens of thousands of dollars, have been piling up in the integrator’s US facilities, owing to problems in the clearance process, the integrator has confirmed.

In a service alert, UPS confirmed that it had seen a “substantial rise of formal customs clearances, which had led to increased processing times and delays”. The company told NBC News that over 90% of shipments are cleared on the first day, while the rest have to be held until they have obtained clearance.

Two years ago, the firm was delivering over three million international parcels a day, which indicates that thousands of shipments must be awaiting clearance in UPS stations.

According to customer reports, parcels have languished there for weeks.

While this is bad enough, consignees and shippers have been troubled by poor visibility of the state of their shipments. Some have received contradictory notifications. One consignee got a status update that the shipment had been disposed of, followed by another stating that it was on its way.

Another consignee received a message stating that “your package did not clear customs and has been removed from the UPS network. Per customs guidelines, it has been destroyed. Please contact the sender for more information”.

The company has told some US media it had begun to dispose some shipments that could not be cleared.

In a social media post, supply chain industry veteran Cynthia Allen Schenk notes that US customs is authorised to destroy or abandon shipments that cannot be cleared, “but only through specific, supervised processes”.

A UPS spokesperson said packages that encountered problems with clearance could either be returned to the shipper at their expense, or disposed of if the customer does not respond, adding that the company had “made more than three contacts per package”.

The integrator has not released any details of its disposal processes.

It has blamed the clearance problems squarely on incorrect or missing shipment information, although some shippers have insisted their shipments were properly documented.

“For those of us in global logistics and trade compliance, this is more than a one-off glitch. It’s a systemic breakdown created by abrupt regulatory change and poor communication between carriers, customs brokers, and end customers,” commented Ms Schenk.

She stressed to shippers that in the current situation customs documentation must be ‘bullet-proof’, that broker involvement is no longer optional for cross-border shipments, and that real-time visibility and proactive exception management are essential.

She added that “carriers, customs authorities, and the trade community must align around clearer, more transparent processes before the next surge in holiday shipping”.

With the holiday season beckoning and the possibility of even higher numbers of parcels in limbo, some frustrated UPS customers have indicated that they intend to use rival carriers. They may see a further prompt for such a step in UPS’s recent announcement to halt its money-back guarantee on international deliveries into the US due to the heightened risk of import delays resulting from the end of de minimis exemption.

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