Before You Buy a Container

We don't sell shipping containers, and we have no stake in which one you buy or who you buy it from. That's worth keeping in mind, because almost every other guide on this subject is written by somebody selling the box.

The pattern is the same everywhere: an attractive price, a slick website, pressure to pay a deposit fast — then silence. Container fraud isn't a South African problem, it's a global one. In South Africa, containerfraud.co.za logs these scams and lets you check a supplier against a free database; elsewhere, find the local equivalent and apply the checks below — they work in any country.

• Check the seller before you check the container. Search the supplier on containerfraud.co.za, confirm the company registration, and make sure the bank account name matches the company name exactly — a mismatch is the clearest warning sign there is.
• Insist on seeing the actual unit — not a similar one, but that specific container, photographed today, with its number legible.
• Check the container number, wherever you are. Every ISO container carries an owner code, serial number and check digit under ISO 6346. The owner prefix is registered with the BIC — appointed by ISO in 1972 as the global container-prefix registry — and its register can be searched free at bic-code.org.
• Verify locally. A company registry, the local shipping or freight-forwarding association, and the depot the container is supposedly standing in will each confirm or contradict a seller with one phone call.

Ask which scale a condition grade is quoted against, because they're used loosely. IICL5 is the strictest used-container criterion, the standard leasing fleets work to. Cargo worthy means fit to carry cargo internationally — this is where the CSC plate matters. Wind and water tight speaks to holes, not structure. As is means sold with its faults intact. Grades A, B and C are retail shorthand that nobody defines, so what one yard calls a B another calls a C.

Once corrosion means a container can no longer be lifted by a spreader or carried on a chassis, it's a constructive total loss — scrap steel shaped like a container. It's also the point where the corner castings can no longer be trusted: a unit that can't be picked up safely shouldn't be trusted to hold anything down either.

Before any money changes hands: confirm the CSC plate is present, legible and in date. Check all eight corner castings for cracks, dents or ovalisation. Open and close both door leaves fully, checking cams, hinges and seals. Walk the floor for delamination and soft spots, then get up on a ladder to check the roof and, with both doors shut, look for daylight through pinholes. Surface rust is cosmetic; pitting that has scaled through or perforated the steel is structural, and it concentrates at the bottom rail and under the door sill. Before you commit, also confirm truck access, turning circle, overhead cables, gate width and ground-bearing capacity at the delivery site — and insist on a tax invoice in the seller's registered name, proof of their right to sell the unit, and a release note from the depot.

Buy from a reseller with a name, a yard you can drive to, and a track record — the reputable ones would rather lose a sale than their name, and will happily let you inspect before you pay anything. If you'd like a second opinion, get in touch. We take no commission from container sellers, so we've nothing riding on the answer either way — but we deal with the people who do it properly, and we're glad to point you toward sellers we'd use ourselves.