An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers

@guardian.co.tt

Cus­tomers of ship­ping com­pa­ny Trin­ba­go Ex­press con­tin­ue to ex­press frus­tra­tion and anx­i­ety over long-de­layed ship­ments and a lack of com­mu­ni­ca­tion from the com­pa­ny’s lead­er­ship.

The com­pa­ny, which op­er­ates out of Brook­lyn, New York, and in T&T, has come un­der in­creas­ing scruti­ny fol­low­ing mul­ti­ple cus­tomer com­plaints sur­round­ing un­ful­filled de­liv­er­ies, unan­swered phone calls, and shut­tered of­fice lo­ca­tions in Cou­va and Port-of-Spain.

Last month, in an ex­clu­sive in­ter­view, Pamela Lind­say, the CEO, apol­o­gised and ex­plained that the sit­u­a­tion be­gan with de­lays at the New York port due to a back­log of con­tain­ers and high rental fees. Though the port charges were even­tu­al­ly ne­go­ti­at­ed, a sig­nif­i­cant de­mur­rage fee from a France-based ship­ping line fur­ther de­layed clear­ance.

Lind­say said con­tain­ers would have be­gun mov­ing, and cus­tomers can ex­pect de­liv­ery to re­sume be­tween Au­gust 22 and the week of Au­gust 25. How­ev­er, sev­er­al cus­tomers reached out to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day and said they have not heard any­thing, and no one is an­swer­ing calls.

One cus­tomer, who spoke on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty, de­tailed their ex­pe­ri­ence, which they de­scribed as “dis­heart­en­ing and deeply frus­trat­ing.”

“We de­liv­ered our items to the Brook­lyn of­fice at the end of April and paid a de­posit for ship­ping. The bal­ance was paid with­in the stip­u­lat­ed time to en­sure smooth de­liv­ery. We were ad­vised that the items ar­rived in June, but since then, we’ve just been get­ting the runaround,” the cus­tomer said.

Ac­cord­ing to the cus­tomer, up­on vis­it­ing the Port-of-Spain of­fice in late June, they were in­formed that the com­pa­ny was pro­cess­ing ship­ments that had ar­rived in May and that they should ex­pect a call by the end of Ju­ly.

“That call nev­er came. The of­fice was then closed, and all at­tempts to reach some­one by phone have gone unan­swered. I even­tu­al­ly got through to some­one in New York af­ter be­ing placed on hold for a long time. They told me they were work­ing to re­open the of­fice on the Tues­day af­ter the In­de­pen­dence hol­i­day. But to­day is Sep­tem­ber 3, and the Port-of-Spain of­fice still has a closed sign,” they added.

The cus­tomer said their ship­ment in­cludes two bar­rels, one large bin, and a pal­let con­tain­ing per­ish­ables, house­hold ap­pli­ances, and items of sen­ti­men­tal val­ue, and the to­tal paid for ship­ping was US$810.

“At this point, I am hop­ing the au­thor­i­ties, name­ly Cus­toms & Ex­cise, can in­ter­vene to as­sist af­fect­ed cus­tomers and deal with the com­pa­ny sep­a­rate­ly,” they said. “I al­so checked the Bet­ter Busi­ness Bu­reau on­line, and there are mul­ti­ple com­plaints list­ed about Trin­ba­go Ex­press.”

Nisha, a cus­tomer who shipped two com­mer­cial bins through the com­pa­ny, said her items were col­lect­ed on April 17, 2025, with the promise of de­liv­ery with­in one month. How­ev­er, more than four months lat­er, she has yet to re­ceive her goods —on­ly re­peat­ed as­sur­ances and ex­cus­es.

“End of May, I con­tact­ed the Cou­va of­fice and was told noth­ing had ar­rived. Then I was in­formed the con­tain­er ar­rived on June 1st, but there were is­sues at the port re­gard­ing scan­ners, and on­ly one con­tain­er was be­ing opened per week,” she ex­plained.

Ac­cord­ing to Nisha, de­spite per­sis­tent fol­low-ups, she was redi­rect­ed to call the New York of­fice, where the cy­cle of de­lays and un­ful­filled promis­es con­tin­ued.

“Every week it’s the same thing: ‘we’re work­ing on send­ing the pa­per­work to Trinidad.’ That’s the line every time,” she said.

In an ef­fort to clear any doubts about pay­ment oblig­a­tions, Nisha vol­un­tar­i­ly paid the US$305 ship­ping fee last week, even though she was ini­tial­ly of­fered the op­tion to pay up­on de­liv­ery in Trinidad. De­spite this, she has not re­ceived her ship­ment.

“I even con­tact­ed Mr. Ed­ward Nevins of Sealine Ship­ping in Flori­da. Both he and one of his staff con­firmed that they have not been paid by Trin­ba­go Ex­press. Yet Pamela Lind­say and her staff in­sist they have set­tled the bal­ance,” Nisha lament­ed.

An­oth­er af­fect­ed cus­tomer, Ms. Joseph, shared a sim­i­lar ex­pe­ri­ence.

“Pamela told me in June that I would be called by June 9 or 10. That call nev­er came. Since then, noth­ing. The of­fice is still closed, and they no longer an­swer any calls in New York,” she stat­ed.

These ac­counts add to a grow­ing list of cus­tomer com­plaints, in­clud­ing those al­ready logged with the Bet­ter Busi­ness Bu­reau (BBB) in the Unit­ed States.

When con­tact­ed for com­ment, CEO Pamela Lind­say ac­knowl­edged the de­lays but as­sured Guardian Me­dia that the mat­ter is be­ing ad­dressed.

“I am work­ing with the Sea Ship­ping Line in con­junc­tion with Sealines In­ter­na­tion­al. We are al­so work­ing with the port in Trinidad. Give me un­til Fri­day; by then, con­tain­ers will start be­ing un­stuffed,” Lind­say said.

Still, cus­tomers re­main scep­ti­cal, es­pe­cial­ly as pre­vi­ous com­mit­ments have gone un­met.