A client of ours in the US brought in a consignment that turned out not to conform, paid just over $10,000 in duty, and wants to send it back out and recover the duty under drawback (the refund you get when imported goods leave again). The broker who filed the import will not touch the drawback side. Everyone else I have rung wants a bigger claim or an existing account.
The goods are still on the floor, a handful of SKUs, and my client reckons he could fill most of the form himself. I want to book the outbound once the paperwork is squared. Does anyone take one-off claims at this size, and if nobody does, what do small importers actually do?
In drawback, ten thousand is a small claim. Most desks see that on a single entry. Nobody wants a one-off from a stranger, because the filer carries it for years and gets a slice of not much. Two things before you book anything. Your client needs an ACE portal account to pull his own reports. And the notice of intent to export goes in before the goods move. If they leave without it, forget the claim. Ship first and this thread is over.
Your client has two questions: can someone file this, and is it worth anyone's while. On the first, Dale has named the reason, and I would only add that a one-off client is rarely around when the questions arrive. On the second, without a drawback application in place with CBP the refund waits for liquidation, which can take several years, assuming every import has an export set against it. The claim may be simple. The before and after are not.
I had assumed drawback was a form you file once and then wait. The part that surprises me is the years afterwards. One thing I do not follow: if Customs and Border Protection (CBP) sends a CF28, the request for information, to an address at the claimant that no longer exists and nobody answers, the claim can liquidate at zero and the money is gone? Is that avoidable by putting a shared mailbox on the claim rather than one person's address, or does the notice go to the filer?
When a US customer sends non-conforming fabrications back and claims the duty, my customer's drawback filer wants notice before the container closes, and later asks for records from our side. So separate what your client can produce now from what the claim will require later, because the later part reaches back to the supplier. My question for the filers here: what does the claim eventually need from the supplier's side, beyond our commercial invoice, so that I can keep it from the first shipment?
Your client, had he imported into Denmark, would not be looking for a drawback filer at all, which is the contrast, not the answer. Under the Union Customs Code, duty on goods that were defective or did not conform is repaid on application to the customs office, provided the goods were not used and the application is lodged in time, and no separate claim follows anyone afterwards. Where the claim lives is the whole difference: with the authority here, with a filer there.
