The Trials and Tribulations of Importing from Sweden and Europe into the UK

March 9, 2023 Off By Peter Carol

or how to track international DHL freight shipments once they arrive in the UK

How to track international DHL freight shipments once they arrive in the UK
A Pallet of Gransfors Bruks Axes arrive at ProAdventure from Sweden

If you ever have a missing import that is shipped by DHL freight into the UK the key thing to know is once it lands it goes into the excellent care of Baxter Freight, once I found this out (after three weeks of waiting for DHL Freight to respond to my queries).

On Feb 1st 2023 DHL freight changed their software systems, in our case this led to half a trailer full of goods including our Gransfors Axe delivery not being automatically registered on arrival in the UK and sitting alone in a warehouse without any digital record in the UK.

By chance Baxter Freight were arranging collection from us of another item for return to another supplier via DHL in Sweden. I emailed the Swedish DHL Freight number to Baxter freight and I received a phone call from the very helpful Wade of Baxter Freight within 30 minutes. While we were still on the phone Wade worked out that 20 more consignments had left Sweden on the DHL trail than had been booked in in the UK. Over the next day he got the warehouse to photograph and catalogue all of the unregistered consignments, kept me in the loop and called me the next day to apologise that it might not arrive the next as all the paperwork had to be generated manually, but it would definitely be with us on Monday.

A brilliant Job from Wade and his colleagues after three weeks of unresponded to enquiries with DHL.

Full marks to Baxter Freight, it’s been a pure pleasure working with you.

Pete

Owner Director

Pro Adventure Llangollen

By the way the page where you can authorize customs agents on the HMRC web site seems to be hidden, it doesn’t show on our HMRC login, but if you go to this page on the hmrc site you can see your Customs Financial Accounts, Cash Account, Duty Deferment Balance and Transactions, Import VAT Certificates, Postponed Import VAT Statements, and with the link under the title line you can check the customs import agents that you have authorised and authorise new customs import agents like Gerlach by adding their EORI number. I hope this saves someone the frustration of having to find this by guess work and frustrating googling https://www.gov.uk/guidance/use-a-cash-account-for-cds-declarations#view-your-cash-account then click through to the login page. It will at least help me next time I need to authorize a customs agent!