Opening a Container: How to Check the Seal and the First View

A container that reaches your gate has already passed through many hands: it was loaded at the supplier's, handled at a port or a rail terminal, possibly opened by an inspector, and then driven to your site. The moment its doors open in front of you is the last chance to show what the cargo looked like before anyone touched it. Many disputes with suppliers and freight companies are lost not because the goods were fine, but because nobody wrote down how the seal, the doors and the first view looked.

Start with the container number and the seal

Before anything is opened, read two numbers and compare them with the documents: the container number on the doors, and the seal number on the locking bar. Both should match the bill of lading and the packing list.

• Read the numbers aloud and photograph them so that the digits are legible in the picture.
• Note the type of seal: a bolt seal, a cable seal or a plastic one. The documents or the carrier will usually say which one to expect.
• Look for signs of tampering: a cut bolt that has been rejoined, scratches around the lock, a seal that turns freely, a number that looks freshly printed.
• If there is more than one seal, record each of them. Which seals are expected after customs handling follows customs requirements, so ask your broker.

A mismatch does not prove theft. It may be a typing error on the bill of lading, or a seal replaced after an inspection. What matters is that it is photographed and written down before the seal is cut.

Walk around the outside

Spend two minutes on the outside of the box: the roof and side walls for dents, holes, patches and fresh paint, the door gaskets and corners, and the ground underneath for any liquid. Photograph anything unusual with something that shows scale, such as a hand or a tape measure. If the container stands on a slope, the cargo may lean against the doors, and opening them carelessly is a safety risk.

Opening the doors

1. Gather the site manager and, if he is still there, the driver, so that the opening has witnesses.
2. Photograph the intact seal one last time, then cut it. Keep the cut pieces in a bag marked with the container number and the date.
3. Stand to the side and open one door at a time, slowly. Cargo can shift in transit and lean on the doors.
4. Before anyone touches a package, take the first-view photographs: the whole rear face of the load from the doorway, then the left, centre and right.
5. Write down the time of opening.

What the first view tells you

The first view often says more than the count that follows. Look at how much space is left between the cargo and the doors, whether the pallets stand straight, whether bracing or airbags were used, and whether there is a smell of damp or droplets on the ceiling. A void where the load should have reached the doors, or a stack leaning to one side, belongs in the report with a photograph, even if every package turns out to be intact.

A conditional example. The packing list shows 18 pallets of 36 cartons each, which is 648 cartons. At the first view you see two rows of 8 pallets, and at the back a heap of loose cartons that looks like what is left of two pallets. Do not start counting yet. Photograph the scene and write: "16 pallets standing; loose cartons at the rear, about 70". That sentence, with its photographs, is worth far more than your memory of the scene a week later.

Typical mistakes

• Cutting the seal first and taking photographs afterwards.
• Opening the doors at dusk with poor light, so the first view cannot be read from the pictures.
• Taking close-ups only, with no wide shot that shows where they were taken.
• Starting to unload before the first view is recorded.
• Accepting "the seal was like that when I got it" without writing it down with the name of the person who said it.

In short

The seal and the first view are the cheapest evidence you will ever collect, and the first to disappear. CargoChek attends when the container arrives, matches the seal and container numbers to the documents, photographs its first condition before the door is opened and then follows the unloading, so that you hold a record made at the right moment.