I’m afraid my wedding saree will be destroyed

Graduate student Nicole Lobo returned to the United States in late August after spending a year in the United Kingdom, where she shipped 10 boxes of possessions back home to Philadelphia that she expected to arrive within a few days.

Six weeks later, she’s still waiting for the shipment — fearing it will be lost and destroyed by UPS as the company struggles to handle an avalanche of packages facing new customs rules and tariffs.

“It was horrific,” says the 28-year-old, who was notified last month that her boxes would be disposed of, leaving her making frantic phone calls and sending emails to try to avoid the outcome.

It’s an ordeal facing many UPS customers since the Trump administration in late August Stopped allowing packages worth less than $800 to enter the US without inspection, taxes or tariffs..

The decision suddenly subjected an estimated 4 million packages a day to new, more difficult processing and documentation rules.

As the 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 be lost in the backlog.

“It’s beyond comprehension for me,” says Janani Mohan, a 29-year-old engineer living in Michigan, who has also spent hours on hold and sent repeated emails since the tracking alert listed a box sent by her parents in India as ready to be thrown out.

The parcel contained her wedding dress, which was also worn by her mother, a sari inherited from her grandmother and wedding photos, among other items.

“I literally cried to them over 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 combined worth more than $100,000 held in processing.

The company has received conflicting alerts about its status, including some saying the items are ready for disposal.

“My entire team is under scanning watch,” says Lauren Purvis, who runs the company with her family and is now starting to worry about running out of stock if the forgetfulness continues.

“It was clear to us that existing import systems were not prepared to handle the enormous amount of volume and paperwork.”

Importers usually have 10 days after goods enter the United States to submit documentation about the goods, pay tariffs and other fees, allowing the package to go to the recipient.

But the Trump administration’s rapid changes to tariff rules have made it increasingly difficult to meet customs deadline requirements, say shippers like FedEx and UPS, which provide customs services and often act as importers of record.

For example, companies are now responsible for paying customs duties on any steel or aluminum contained in a product, and in many cases guaranteeing the country of origin – information that many companies, let alone their shipping companies, do not know.

“Due to changes in US import regulations, we are seeing many packages unable to clear customs due to missing or incomplete information about the shipment required to clear customs,” a UPS spokeswoman said.

While acknowledging longer shipping times, the company said it still manages to clear more than 90% of international packages within one day of arrival.

The spokeswoman said its policy is to contact customers three times before moving to dispose of a package.

But seven people interviewed by the BBC, including several companies responsible for shipping the items, said they had not received any word from UPS about the issues before seeing the tracking alert that their package would be sent to the bin.

FedEx, another major player in the industry, said it does not typically destroy packages, unless directed to do so by the shipping company.

Nicole, the graduate student, says she was asked to provide more information about her items, which she promptly did in early September.

She didn’t hear more until she saw the disposal notice in late September. After the BBC inquired about her package, the tracking information was updated for the first time in weeks to say it was “on the way”, raising her hopes.

Likewise, Janani says the company reached out to us last week, after the BBC contacted us, to obtain some additional documents, and it now appears that their package has cleared customs.

But for businesses, the chaos has already had real costs.

Swedish candy export company Swedish Candy Land says more than 700 packages it sent via UPS to customers in the United States in the first few weeks of September have been put on hold.

Co-founder Tobias Johansson says the company switched to FedEx after realizing the problem and that its shipments now arrive without incident, although the process took a few days longer than before.

But the missing packages, some of which were reported destroyed, cost the company nearly $50,000 in refunds, not including expenses incurred in shipping and brokerage fees.

“It was a big blow to us and we still haven’t gotten any answers about anything,” Johansson says.

Experts say the ripple effects are being felt across the supply chain, even on companies, like Mezoba, that were not bringing in shipments using the $800 tariff exemption, known as the floor.

“This can be felt pretty much across the board,” says Bernie Hart, vice president of business development at Flexport, a logistics and customs company.

On a call with financial analysts last month, FedEx executives said it was an “extremely stressful time” for its customers, especially smaller players.

“These are significant headwinds,” CEO Raj Subramanian said, warning that changes in the trading environment will likely result in a loss of $1 billion this year, including $300 million in additional expenses as the company hires and faces other costs related to the new rules.

But John Pickle, vice president of supply chain policy at the National Foreign Trade Council, which represents many shippers, fears things will get worse before they get better.

Overall trade volumes last month were lower than usual, in part because many companies rushed to move goods into the United States early to beat tariffs.

“There was always this idea that companies would figure it out,” he says. “What we’ve seen is that it’s a lot harder than anyone expected.”