My forwarder billed a $420 remeasurement charge after delivery, though the CBM matched my packing list. Fight it or pay?

Physically, somebody at the destination warehouse taped your pallets after unstuffing and got a bigger number. That is not automatically a lie: a packing list is cartons times dimensions, a warehouse measures the outer profile, bulge and overhang included. Nor is it automatically an invoice. Ask in writing for the tally sheet the warehouse wrote that day, the rate applied to the difference, and a picture of your pallets with the tape on them. Until those arrive it is a claim, not a charge; leave it unpaid and unrefused.

Mine was a parcel of rattan trays to a buyer in Germany, same move. The carrier came back weeks later saying it measured bigger, so the dimensional weight (volume turned into chargeable weight) went up. Now I answer the same day: send the photo of the parcel on the scale, dimensions showing, and I settle whatever it shows. I never say no; I say yes on sight of the picture, which keeps the charge open on their side and the proving on their side too. The photo rarely arrives.

I keep the quotation stapled to the front of every file for afternoons like this. Two separate things sit in yours. First, what you agreed: does it list destination charges, and say the CBM is subject to remeasurement? An all-inclusive rate without that clause is most of your case. Second, whose measurement counts, which depends on whether the container was yours alone: if so, the verified gross mass certificate and stuffing report; if your pallets shared a box, those say nothing about your CBM; the warehouse intake record does.

The question underneath: whose forwarder was this? If you booked the freight under your term of sale, the invoice is yours to fight and the customer never hears of it; if the buyer's forwarder pushed it back to you, that is a commercial conversation, not a freight one. You will know which within a week: real paperwork turns up fast; missing paperwork needs excuses. The clause I now put in every freight agreement is who measures, where, and that their number has to reach me before the invoice does.