Custody, visibility & claims guides
Know where your cargo is, and who had it
Most freight gets where it is going. What costs money is the shipment that doesn't, or arrives damaged, short or late, and the weeks spent working out what happened. These guides are about getting that answer quickly, and getting it right: chain of custody, proof of delivery, seals, visibility and freight claims.
Chain of custody
Which events to record at each handover, and what makes a custody record hold up when challenged.
Read the guide →Shipment visibility
A tracker fix, a carrier milestone and an estimate are different facts. How to tell them apart.
Read the guide →Freight claim process
Filing a US loss or damage claim: what counts as a claim, the deadlines, and the documents.
Read the guide →Logistics glossary
AWB, B/L, Carmack, demurrage, OS&D, POD and the rest, in plain English.
Browse terms →All guides
Custody and handovers
- Chain of custody in logistics — the four questions a custody record must answer, the events to capture, and what makes it credible to outsiders.
- Chain of custody form for freight — a template with a handover log, in-custody events and rules for filling it in.
- Bill of lading types — straight vs order, clean vs claused, master vs house, sea waybills and electronic bills.
Delivery and receiving
- Proof of delivery (POD) — the fields a POD should capture, paper vs electronic, and special cases such as drop trailers.
- OS&D reports — recording over, short and damaged freight at the dock, with a report template.
- Container seal verification — the VVTT check, ISO 17712 seal classes, seal logs and what to do on a mismatch.
Visibility, security and condition
- Shipment visibility vs tracking — measured positions, milestones and estimates, and how old is too old.
- Cargo theft prevention — fictitious pickups, identity theft and re-brokering, with dock and transit checklists.
- Temperature excursion records — what to record for temperature-controlled freight, and how to respond to an excursion.
Claims, disputes and charges
- Freight claim process — the Carmack Amendment and 49 CFR Part 370, step by step, with a claim packet checklist.
- Concealed damage claims — what to do when damage appears after the driver has left.
- Cargo claim deadlines and delivery disputes — notice periods across US, air, road and ocean regimes, and how to reconstruct what happened.
- Demurrage and detention invoices — what the FMC billing rule requires on an invoice, and how to dispute one.
Reference
- Logistics glossary — freight, customs and custody terms used across these guides.
The problem these guides address
A shipment's history is rarely kept in one place. It is spread across carrier portals, spreadsheets, scanned delivery notes, a warehouse system and a message thread with the driver. Each party keeps the part of the record that matters to them, in their own format and under their own reference numbers.
That works until something goes wrong. Then someone has to rebuild the whole journey from the fragments, and the rebuilt version is only as good as the weakest fragment. Two parties with different fragments can honestly reach different conclusions, and the deadline for a claim keeps running while they argue.
Three principles that run through every guide
- Record the handover, not just the location. Responsibility changes hands at specific moments. A record of those moments answers most dispute questions directly.
- Label every fact with its source and age. "The truck is in Memphis" means something very different if it came from a GPS fix two minutes ago or from a milestone scanned yesterday.
- Capture evidence when it happens. Photos, seal numbers, temperatures and signatures are easy to collect at the dock and almost impossible to recover weeks later.
Where to start
- A shipment just arrived damaged or short: note it on the delivery receipt, complete an OS&D report, then follow the claim process.
- You are tightening procedures: start with chain of custody and seal checks.
- You are disputing a charge: see demurrage and detention invoices.
Who this is for
Freight forwarders and 3PLs who answer to their clients' clients, shippers who own the freight and carry the loss, warehouse and receiving teams, and operations teams who field the "where is it?" calls. The guides are practical and vendor-neutral in method. Legal points are summarized for orientation and are not legal advice. Where a tool helps, we say which one we build.
New to the vocabulary? Start with the glossary.