Check Your Paperwork!

I thought I'd share an experience I had last weekend on a load from Midland, Ontario (1.5 hours north of Toronto) to Grand Rapids, MI. Please learn from my mistake and always double check your paperwork before crossing any port of entry and never try to rush things.

I was at home when I got dispatched for a midnight pickup going from Midland to Grand Rapids. It ended up being a hair over 450 miles and it had to be delivered at 7am according to the travel order on my Qualcomm. I'm governed at 63mph so already I was positive I would be late with only 7 hours to include pickup, the border crossing and the drive time. So I leave Toronto and arrive at the shipper at 11:40pm. By the time I get loaded it's about 12:15am. I finish off my log and get my new one started for the day. I start making up my ACE manifest and get all my documents scanned and emailed to our broker. By now it's 12:30am and I'm hitting the road again with the (albeit restricted) hammer down.

I'm heading east on the 401 towards the 402 to cross in Port Huron. I get calls from the broker that the paperwork has been received, cleared and my entry number gets sent to my Qualcomm. Sweet. Looking good so far. And so it begins...

There are no trucks in line at customs so I pull right up to the booth. Hand over my ACE manifest and FAST card. Answer all the questions and expect to get my FAST card back any moment. Guy at the booth says, "you have a problem here. Port mismatch. You were supposed to cross in Detroit. Go through x-ray and then park, call your broker and get this corrected immediately. By the way, I'm confiscating your identification until you get this cleared up."

My first thought was, "wow, my broker really messed this up. I was cleared for Port Huron. They even confirmed I was good to cross there. How could this happen?" I wasn't very happy but I was cordial as I called my broker and tried to figure out what happened. I'm looking at my paperwork as I have the broker on the phone when it finally comes in to view. My heart sinks a little. Right there on the pro forma invoice. Port of entry: Detroit, MI. D'OH!

My little screw up cost me a valuable hour and a half at the border trying to correct my STUPID mistake. I arrived at the receiver at 9am. Someone from above must've had pity on me, or at least a good chuckle at my expense, because I found out afterwards that my delivery wasn't until 10am. All that rushing was for not, and ended up costing me a bruised ego and a lesson learned.

Moral of the story? Don't be in a rush. Check your BOL, your invoice, everything. Have all your documents in order. Be a professional. I've been doing this for two years and while I'm far from perfect, I'm confidently experienced. But that one glaring mistake made me feel like it was my first day on the job.

At least I didn't park backwards in the busy fuel island to shower and do my laundry.