Ever received an inflatable for your business from your supplier, only to find items missing or damaged? Unfortunately this does happen. Not often but when it does is causes major problems for all involved.

What every customer has to understand is this – When a product is sold to a customer, the inflatable supplier will ask how the customer wants the product shipped to them. Most inflatable rental companies have not established a relationship with any specific freight carrier. Because of this freight carriers can pretty much charge you whatever they want for moving your freight. Most if not all inflatable suppliers move a lot of freight each and every year which has afforded them substantial discounts that they can pass on to their customers.

So we have established that most customers will choose to use the inflatable suppliers recommended carriers to receive discounts on moving their freight. The shipping department prepares the shipping waybill for that specific carrier, listing the number of pieces on each pallet, the weight of the pallet and the class of the goods being shipped.
When the driver who picked up the freight from that carrier arrives, his responsibility is to make sure the piece count is correct, the packing is of the freight is adequate and within the accepted standards of that carrier, he’ll sign off to the shipper that all is received in good order. At this moment in time, the shipper (not the inflatable supplier) is liable for what happens to the accepted freight is in the hands of the freight company. This means, any damage or missing items are now the responsibility of the freight company. It also means that you, the consignee (customer), are under the terms and policies upheld by the freight company.

The receiving of the freight by your company carries a lot of responsibility. The receiving person from your company must inspect that all the pieces or total counts of each pallet match what’s on the bill of lading. If the count does not match what is written on the bill of lading, you sign short. Also, examine the rolled inflatable itself. Make sure that other than a little dirt from riding around in a truck, that there are no cuts in the protective bag. This could go deeper that what is on the surface. Roll the inflatable back and examine underneath. Shipping company forklift operators seem to like to travel around with the forks pointing upward. When a careless forklift operator drives into a pallet containing an inflatable, his upward-pointing forks can cause unnoticed damage to the bottom of the inflatable itself. Without rolling back the inflatable to examine, you may not notice this damage until it is to late to declare.
Our company, CEC, ships a lot of product out the door each and every day. Because of these volumes we occasionally face problems with missing items or damaged freight. Thankfully, many customers do count the items and note damage to received freight. But many do not until days later when they start to unpack the freight. This is when we start receiving the phone calls about missing stakes, missing blowers, torn storage bags, etc... long after anything can be done about it. You have already let the shipping company of the hook by signing that everything was there and no damage was found.
Ultimately the responsibly party here is you! We cannot do anything about the missing items or damage you found if you have already signed off to the freight carrier that you received the shipment in perfect condition. They will no longer help you at this point. We cannot either. We are not liable for what problems were caused by the freight company when the shipment was in their care.

But if you sign that there were problems with the shipment and file the initial claim with the freight company, contact us with the claim number. We will do our best to assist you in a resolution with the carrier in as prompt a manner as possible. No guarantees here, we can only do what we can do.