ThePackengers review: Shipping and logistics

My story in brief:
1. I hired ThePackengers to pick up, pack, and ship from Europe to the US an original glass sculpture that I had won at auction. I gave clear instructions to ThePackengers as to exactly how they should describe the item for customs, a description entirely consistent with the auction invoice and listing that I had also provided them.
2. ThePackengers confirmed by email that they would follow those instructions.
3. They then FAILED to mark the shipment as requested, resulting in a customs charge of $103, which I had to pay out of pocket to get the item released.
4. They have refused to reimburse me for their mistake.

Here are the details:

I had provided to them the auction invoice (pic 1), as well as the original auction listing https://www.the-saleroom.com/en-gb/auction-catalogues/siebers-auktionen/catalogue-id-siebers10070/lot-94bb13b6-24ff-4742-81f9-b3fd010b42fb, both of which made clear that this was an original, artist signed, handmade glass sculpture, not part of an edition of dozens or more, or any sort of mass-produced piece. Original artwork, including sculptures, is not subject to US tariff or customs duty. The auction invoice, as well as the item pictures from the listing, indicated that the piece was hand signed by the artist, consistent with the request I made that they mark the package as “Original handmade art glass sculpture, origin Italy”.

They then (pic 2) confirmed that they had “taken good note of [my] instructions”. Nonetheless, they actually marked the package as “glass sculpture” (pic 3) rather than as “Original handmade art glass sculpture” as I had requested. As a direct result, I had to pay a $103 customs charge in order for the package to be released to me.

Before I produced the waybill for them, they had the gall to claim (pic 4) that they had actually followed my instructions, and that it was US Customs that had changed the categorization from “original handmade art glass sculpture” (which is tariff/duty-free) to “glass sculpture”. Well, the waybill (pic 3) shows that to be a bald-faced lie, it was the ThePackengers who marked it as “glass sculpture”. Yet they refuse to reimburse me for their mistake.

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