An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter
an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

Cus­tomers of Trin­ba­go Ex­press are rais­ing alarm over miss­ing ship­ments, pro­longed de­lays and a lack of com­mu­ni­ca­tion, with some car­go still un­ac­count­ed for months and even years af­ter pay­ment and col­lec­tion.

Guardian Me­dia spoke with mul­ti­ple cus­tomers who de­scribed a break­down in ser­vice, in­con­sis­tent in­for­ma­tion on ship­ments and mount­ing fi­nan­cial and emo­tion­al strain.

Ear­li­er this year, some af­fect­ed cus­tomers got their items from the Port Au­thor­i­ty, but over 200 cus­tomers are still af­fect­ed.
Su­san Melan­con, a New York-based cus­tomer, said she had re­lied on the com­pa­ny for years be­fore her most re­cent ship­ment went off track.

“Now, I’ve been ship­ping with Pamela for some good years. So I know them be­cause I live in New York. I trav­el down in time to col­lect my stuff. I av­er­age it like about five weeks be­cause she said it takes three weeks to get to Trinidad. So I flew down to Trinidad in Ju­ly, and I’m ex­pect­ing it the last week in Ju­ly or the first week in Au­gust,” Melan­con said.

In­stead, she was told there were is­sues at the com­pa­ny’s of­fice and staff were not work­ing, fol­lowed by re­peat­ed as­sur­ances that de­liv­ery was im­mi­nent.

“My phone bill end­ed up US$200 call­ing to find out. Every time now she’s telling me in a cou­ple of days or next week,” Melan­con said. She ex­tend­ed her stay in Trinidad and lat­er re­turned again af­ter be­ing ad­vised her items would be re­leased. Up to now, she has not re­ceived them.

“It is very, very stress­ful be­cause peo­ple put their life things in­side of there. Some peo­ple have their fur­ni­ture, and they don’t, up to now, get to go home,” Melan­con said.

She al­so point­ed to dis­crep­an­cies in ship­ment de­tails.

“The con­tain­er num­ber that they gave me was not that. It reached Trinidad on Sep­tem­ber 14th, so that means that was long af­ter I came from Trinidad, and she was telling me that the stuff was in Trinidad,” Melan­con said.

Do­lene An­tho­ny John said she is still wait­ing on part of a ship­ment col­lect­ed in No­vem­ber 2024.

“As of to­day, as we speak, I know noth­ing con­cern­ing my stuff. My stuff was picked up in No­vem­ber of 2024, and it was nev­er shipped out un­til the 24th of June 2025. Here we are now, May 2026, and I’m still wait­ing on my stuff,” John said. She said she paid hun­dreds of US dol­lars and re­ceived on­ly some items.

“I have a crate; I think it’s one or two crates I’m still miss­ing, and I’m miss­ing a stove, a fridge, a mi­crowave and a dish­wash­er along with two beds and some oth­er stuff. I work tire­less­ly for my things. I need my stuff,” John said.

An­oth­er cus­tomer, who asked not to be named, said a com­mer­cial ship­ment col­lect­ed in Brook­lyn in June 2025 re­mains un­ac­count­ed for.
“My com­mer­cial bin was not found in the con­tain­er num­ber pro­vid­ed to me. To date, I have re­ceived no con­fir­ma­tion re­gard­ing the lo­ca­tion of my com­mer­cial bin. Calls made to Trin­ba­go Ex­press in New York have gone unan­swered,” the cus­tomer said.

The cus­tomer added that June 2026 will mark one year since the ship­ment was hand­ed over.

In a state­ment to Guardian Me­dia, the Port Au­thor­i­ty of T&T said it has com­plet­ed pro­cess­ing of con­tain­ers linked to Trin­ba­go Ex­press at the Port of Port of Spain.

“A to­tal of 35 con­tain­ers linked to Trin­ba­go Ex­press ship­ments were re­ceived be­tween No­vem­ber 2024 and Sep­tem­ber 2025. To date, 33 con­tain­ers have been un­stuffed and processed, and car­go has been made avail­able to con­signees across Trinidad and To­ba­go, rep­re­sent­ing over 1,342 con­signees,” the au­thor­i­ty stat­ed. Two con­tain­ers re­main pend­ing, each as­so­ci­at­ed with a sin­gle con­signee.

The au­thor­i­ty stressed there are no out­stand­ing con­tain­ers at the Port of Port-of-Spain re­lat­ed to those ship­ments and not­ed it as­sumed con­trol of the car­go af­ter it re­mained un­claimed be­yond 180 days un­der the Dis­pos­al of Un­cleared Goods Act.

Cus­tomers, how­ev­er, main­tain items are still miss­ing, with some point­ing to con­tain­ers be­lieved to be at Point Lisas and To­ba­go.

Ef­forts to con­tact Trin­ba­go Ex­press CEO Pamela Lind­say for com­ment were un­suc­cess­ful. Mes­sages and calls to her went unan­swered.

At­tempts to reach a car­go man­ag­er, Adri­an Alexan­der, at the Port of Point Lisas al­so proved fu­tile.