I posted on a similar thread a while back about the costs of getting my crate from RSA to middle of nowhere Wyoming. I will give this update and will also agree with anybody above that has said that storage fees are a scam.
The crate contained shoulder mounts and backskins from kudu, blue wildebeest, black wildebeest, springbok, impala, gemsbok, and blesbok. The shipping from Johannesburg to San Francisco was handled by Badger Cargo on Turkish airlines at a total cost of just over $4100 including insurance and such. This was a little higher than what I had anticipated, but with all the horror stories of shipping costs it wasn't unexpected. The crate left Joberg on July 31 and arrived in San Francisco on August 2. I contacted my import agent, who I am not going to throw under the bus yet by naming them, and they said they were on it. After several phone calls where I was told they were on it and would be in touch in a day or two and never receiving a returned call, on August 22 they finally had cleared all the ag and customs inspection. I received my invoice and it included $4125 in storage fees. The rest of the costs were about $1500, which I thought was reasonable. I immediately called my importer and asked about this and was told that Turkish airlines had lost some paperwork and that is what caused the delay saying they would file for at least a partial refund of those costs, but to pay the bill so we could get them out of storage and stop it from continuing to accumulate.
As of today, Sept 29, after a couple of calls by me to my importer there has been nothing done. I am not sure where the blame lies here, but I feel at this time that the importer isn't really trying and is just telling me that he is working on this to satisfy me until I give up. I know they say that the importer just has to pass those costs along, but it makes me suspicious to say the least.
Once this is resolved one way or the other, I will be back and name the importer just so everybody can be fore warned, and hear the final outcome.
