Blind shipment

A blind shipment uses two bills of lading. The driver picks up on a BOL that shows the real shipper and, in place of the consignee, the broker’s or distributor’s name and a delivery address. At delivery the driver presents a second BOL that shows the distributor as the shipper and the real consignee as the receiver. The carrier knows both ends; the two ends know only the middleman.

A double-blind shipment hides both parties from each other and typically routes the paperwork through the broker. The carrier is responsible for swapping the documents at the right time, and a driver who hands the receiver the pickup BOL has just undone the point of the exercise.

Blind shipments cost more, partly for the extra paperwork and partly because a mistake is expensive for the party that arranged it. They are common in wholesale distribution and drop-shipping and are legitimate as long as the freight itself is described honestly on both documents; hiding a hazardous classification or misstating weight is not what “blind” means.

For document processing, a blind load is the case where two BOLs for the same freight disagree on purpose. A system that matches documents to loads by shipper and consignee names will pair them wrong; matching on the reference number and the carrier is the way through.