Santa Fe Relocation

I commissioned a door-to-door full-service move from Shanghai to Paris in March. After the shipment arrived in Le Havre, the custom clearance was inexplicably delayed for several weeks. Santa Fe’s service provider(s) withheld the bill of lading due to claims of unpaid overdues — a fact that was never communicated to me. Instead, I was repeatedly told - by all employees involved in my project - that the delay was caused by uncontrollable factors including inefficiencies in French customs; everyday, they kept writing to me that it was impossible to have a clear timeline for clearance.

After a long and frustrating personal investigation, I discovered the real reason for the delay. Had I not uncovered the truth, they would have been prepared to make me pay port demurrage fees for a delay they caused! I had to change my plan for moving-in and incur unexpected and significant expenses in addition to significant amount of time spent in sorting out the issue.

Extremely bad experience!!!

Move size: 4 Bedroom Home Service cost: $15000

Sante Fe has a Berlin team (Germany) and they really blew my mind with the service they provided. Mr. H Schulz and Ms. A. Hoenow executed my move smoothly, efficiently and always with a friendly attitude. They were polite and warm yet very professional.

I moved from Berlin back home to NJ and could not even be there personally when their movers went to my Berliner apartment. Yet we did it per Skype chat, took only 20 mins for me to virtually point to what I needed packed (I left some things there for the tenant who took over the flat).

They went WAY and beyond the call of duty. All of my things arrived quickly, safely, without any damage. I highly recommend this company.

Service cost: €1000

AVOID THIS COMPANY AT ALL COST!! We contracted Santa Fe to move our family of 6 from Northern CA to London, UK. We were promised "door to door service." Our belongings were frantically packed up in CA by a large crew, and then disappeared! I called and emailed Santa Fe for 2 straight weeks and was completely ignored - no one picked up the phone, no one responded to my emails, and no one attempted to contact me. We never received a copy of the inventory. We finally received a call 2 weeks later from the Country Manager of the Americas, Braxton Dailey, who told me that our moving coordinator had quit and at this point it was prohibitively expensive to insure our shipment (she did not insure it prior to it leaving). I let this slide, and hoped everything would arrive safely.

Our shipment arrived late, and they charged us demurrage charges. Again, I was willing to overlook this. Finally, our stuff arrived and I signed off for every box. We discovered a week or so later that ALL of our power tools are missing - thousands of dollars in power tools! I contacted Santa Fe and was told that there is nothing they will do because I signed off on all the boxes. What do you do when the items ARE NOT IN THE BOXES?? This is clearly a case of theft, and Santa Fe has essentially told me that it's my fault.

"Door to door service" implies that they will be responsible for getting ALL of my belongings safely from one place to the next. When a category of items does not end up in the boxes, that is clearly the fault of the movers!

I would absolutely never recommend using Santa Fe - their customer service is horrible! It would have been so easy for them to apologize and make this right, but instead, they are blaming the customer. SO UNPROFESSIONAL AND DISAPPOINTING.

Move size: 4+ Bedroom Home Service cost: $14000

My company uses Santa Fe to relocate employees. I must say my experience overall was okay but customer service does not exist here.
Unfortunately I was not there when they came to pack my things. Most of my things were packed well but two boxes had things just thrown into them and one painting was not packed correctly. The frame on the painting broke and as others have mentioned the insurance is of no use. If you use this company buy insurance for a third party if you can. They find every loophole to not pay you. I went back and forth with them for two weeks over $350. Yes that's it - $350. My company had bought $10,000 worth of insurance and they still wouldn't cover it.

The unpacking went well they arrived on time and worked very quickly. As I said the move was done well just don't buy insurance from the company moving you - they will find a way out.

Move size: 2 Bedroom Home Service cost: €7028

Dishonest

In their form to delivery the move, all payed to the destination, they asked if the address had space to park a van of a size of two cars, I said yes, and by the way, one step from the parking space to the place to drop all the boxes, that easy. However, they sent a big truck with 2 big containers to the central London, and my move was only half of one container. I have pictures to proof. Hence, where is possible to park a big truck like this in central london????? No where! Therefore, the traffic in the area was disrupted and we quickly moved my boxes from one of the container to inside their Van (the one refereed in their form), and the Van drove literally 30 meters, cos would be easy and quickly than carrying boxes and had kept the big truck disrupting the local traffic. So now they are charging me this extra shuttle!!! Wondering if it was my fault?????!!!

On top of that, they also charged another fee due to the Increase on haulage charges, which was another £308 , as a surprise. But I’ve wrongly paid for that. unacceptable.Not trustworthy company.

Move size: 2 Bedroom Home Service cost: £700

Dont ever use those people!!! From the begining (miss calculating the volume needed and forcing us to have to use a second container at the last minute when at the port) to the end (a lot of items broken and their compulsory insurance bearly covering anything as they always consider "appearance damage" and covering only 20% of the value even for a destroyed sofa!) not mentioning their totally dubious way to recalculate the value of your items when insurance has to kick in.

Out of the 2 containers (on 2 different ships with the last one missing our port 3 times in a row and being delayed by 2 months), both were "magically" stopped by customs and we had to cover in excess of USD,4000 of fees...total racketing.

Move size: 4 Bedroom Home Service cost: $20000

I moved (am moving) a box from India to West Africa. While their partners in India - Santa Fe - have delayed the departure considerably, it is understnable as these things take time. My gripe is with a gentleman by the name of Damon Hughes who works out of their London office and was supposed to be the coordinator. Not only is his behavior rude, his manner in conversation and servicing abilities are something I haven't even endured when speaking to a bank or an internet service provider. Lack of reponse and zero help. I will try and ensure that if its my box moving in the future, I will ask my organization to recommend another relocater rather than Interdean and mainly for the misbehavior on part of Mr. Damon Hughes.

Service cost: $2000

I was recommended this company by the student housing building in which I was staying in London while I studied abroad this summer.  They picked up my box right on time, and then the entire experience went down the drain.  They took forever to send the necessary forms at the outset and never respond to any e-mails.  I have been e-mailing them for weeks now wondering where my package is (it was supposed to be shipped to me within 5-8 business days, while it has been a month).  I was finally responded to and told that they were going to charge me storage costs because I haven't paid an invoice! I was never sent an invoice, and there would be no need for storage if they had responded to my e-mails in the beginning.  Note that all of my friends who used the company had a comparably awful experience. Regardless, I will be taking this horrifying excuse for a company to court if necessary.  DO NOT USE THEM.  Complete rip-off.

Service cost: £90