FREIGHT customers of DFDS have expressed their anger with the ferry firm after it sent out backdated invoices that the businesses had no idea they had to pay.
DFDS has admitted that it was an administrative oversight but the charge – for services provided by port operators – is always an additional and separate levy.
One exporter affected by the extra charge is Chris Le Masurier, owner of the Jersey Oyster Company.
He said: “I liked Condor, it served its purpose. They had a lot of problems which they could not rectify, which made the government’s decision to choose a new operator not an easy one.
“DFDS is a very professional and established company, and I really thought it could be a good move for the Island. I am still generally supportive.
“However, we received an email in Jersey pointing to a change of tariff – an extra charge for port dues. It said that following a review of the first three months of operating the routes into and from Jersey, ‘it had become apparent that we are under-recovering charges levied by the ports in which we operate’.
“It added: ‘It is now our intention to pass on any applicable port charges to our customers and apply retroactively to 25 March when DFDS commenced services to and from Jersey’.”
Mr Le Masurier said that a second email this month had said that customers would receive two invoices – one for dues owed March to June and one for July. Then, from 1 August, all port dues will be applied per shipment and included directly on invoices.
He said: “We have already worked out our pricing structure on the rate card we were given. We cannot go back to the customer and ask for more money. That extra charge is out of my pocket.
“Last week, I received an invoice for more than £1,500.
“I cannot express enough the difficulty that fisheries and aquaculture have gone through in the last two years, and this is putting extra strain on it.
“Then, to add more pressure, Jersey negotiated a commodity rate with DFDS for foodstuffs, such as Jersey Royals, but fisheries were omitted from the list. I met with the Chief Minister [Lyndon Farnham] and [Economic Development Minister] Kirsten Morel, who said that it was a mistake, they were fully committed to the industry, and they would make sure that fisheries were included.
“I am pretty disgusted, if I’m honest. If it was a brand new entity on the route, I could probably see how this might be omitted but we are dealing with DFDS; it is an insult to people’s intelligence.”
Responding to the extra port dues, DFDS Route Manager Chris Parker said he was aware of the issue with harbour dues but said they should be “nothing new” to Jersey customers.
“These are dues, which are paid by the customer, and we’ve gone back retrospectively because they weren’t charged on the invoice at the time. But it’s absolutely in line with, historically, how freight has been charged,” he said.
“These are not charges that we can necessarily absorb because they weren’t absorbed by previous operators.”
Conceding to the oversight, Mr Parker said: “We were working quite quickly to get up and running at the beginning and I think it was one of those things which we weren’t aware of and weren’t able to get onto the invoicing.
“But I think it’s important that we get it right now and then we can move on and everybody can plan accordingly.”
Deputy Montfort Tadier, who chairs the Economic and International Affairs Scrutiny Panel, said he was asking for affected freight customers to get in touch with him.
He added that his panel had not been made aware of the issue by the government or Ports of Jersey.
