Your forwarder failed customs. Here is what they owe you.
A wedding order that never cleared Indonesian customs, why the forwarder paid back only the freight, and what we check now before a deadline shipment.
Liam Cai · Founder, SupplymoPublished · Updated · 2 min read
Short answer
When a forwarder fails to clear your goods, the usual payout is your freight money, with nothing for the goods. It happened to one of our buyers in 2025, on a wedding order.
Bobby, who handles the supplier side for us in Yiwu, was running that order. The buyer was in Indonesia and the goods were flowers for a wedding, so the shipment had a date it could not miss. The goods were worth about 150,000 to 160,000 yuan.
The shipment never cleared Indonesian customs, and to this day the forwarder has not given a reason. With the wedding date coming up the buyer messaged them every day. In the end the forwarder blocked contact.
What the forwarder paid back was the freight, roughly 30,000 to 40,000 yuan. The goods themselves were not covered. The buyer lost more than 100,000 yuan and the wedding went ahead without them. He did not ask us to cover it. We could not have recovered it for him anyway, because the contract that mattered was between him and the forwarder.
Why the payout stopped at freight
A forwarder sells you transport. Unless your contract says otherwise, their liability usually follows the price of that transport, not the value of your goods. The clause sits in their standard terms. Before booking, get a written answer to one question: what do they pay if customs refuses or holds the shipment? If the answer is the freight, plan for that.
Cargo insurance is the part that covers the goods. It is priced on the value you declare, and it has its own exclusions, so ask what happens with a customs refusal specifically. For goods that cost six figures in yuan and have a fixed date, skipping it is the expensive choice.
What we check now before a deadline shipment
Ask the forwarder for a recent shipment of a similar product they cleared into the same country, and who did the clearance at the other end. A forwarder who books the freight and hands clearance to an agent they barely know is not the same as one with a broker they use every week.
Be careful with offers that bundle freight and clearance into one low price on a shared container. One shipper's problem can get the whole container held. Nobody will tell you whose problem it was.
Leave slack in the date. A shipment for an event should be planned so it can be held for a week and still arrive in time.
What we can and cannot do
Our part is comparing forwarders with you before booking and putting these questions to them, with optional cargo insurance on the quote if you want it.
Customs release is outside anyone's control, ours included. So our quotes never call a delivery date guaranteed. Anyone who does should be willing to write down the compensation.
Related reading
All guides →Air vs sea freight from China
When express or air is worth paying for, and when sea freight wins on cost per unit.
Incoterms 2020 explained
Who pays for each leg of the shipment under EXW, FOB, DDP and the other rules, with a picker for your order.
Landed cost: what it includes and how to calculate it for goods from China
The landed cost formula with one worked example, plus the US and EU checks that change your duty.