Caribbean Shipping Scams — How to Protect Yourself

Shipping scams work because a barrel is handed over in one country and collected in another. These are the shapes that repeat, country after country.

The shapes

• The too-cheap quote. Half the real price — because the real price is waiting for your family at the port, multiplied.
• The vanishing company. A phone number, a rented truck, a social page. Goods collected on Friday; the number is dead by the next sailing.
• The arrival ransom. Your barrel arrived — but a new “fee” must be paid before release, invented on the spot.
• The opened barrel. Goods arrive light. Without your own packing list and photos, it is your word against theirs.

The protection is boring — and total

Use a company with a real website and a real address (every company in this directory was listed only after its own site was opened and checked). Get the full price in writing, both sides of the water. Get a tracking number printed on your receipt. Pack with a list and photographs. Pay by a method that leaves a record. None of this is exciting; all of it works.