18 April 2006

Business Numbers Lost over Easter Weekend

Due to a programming error in the Customs Commercial System on 15 April, thousands of active Business Numbers were deleted from the CBSA’s system.

Divisions within CBSA are looking at the best way to deal with the problem, and may be able to create a program to reactivate the affected records. However, at the moment the only way to get clients’ BN’s reactivated is to call the EDI hotline, at 888.957.7224, and leave a message in the voice mailbox with the BN number and company name. At this time one person at CBSA is re-entering the data by hand, so patience is required. As well, the voice mailbox fills very quickly, so you may have to call more than once before you can leave your message.

Any further information made available by CBSA will be sent to members as quickly as possible.