Universal Relocations

I am happy that I chose Universal Relocations to move my things. I gave five stars for their excellent customer service and communication skills. From the time I contacted Venkat in New Jersey for pick up and Karthikeyan for delivery, every thing was done professionally in a best way. I must thank Karthikeyan for his great help in last minute trouble during delivery. My house is in a narrow street and truck was not able to enter. Karthikeyan handled the situation very efficiently and the boxes arrived in good shape. Thanks, Karthikeyan.

Move size: Partial Move Service cost: $1200

Universal relocations was recommended to me by a friend. I, in turn, had recommended several others about this international courier service. So when my turn came to relocate back to India, I was confident with Universal Relocations - and not at all, hesitant to even courier my Samsung 6400 UHD TV to India through them.

I was given a quote of around 200$ to ship the TV. I had packed the TV in its original box with the exact packaging material of the TV as requested by them.

I got my boxes and my TV within 3 months of shipping. In between, I had to pay duty for the TV which amounted to around Rs.11,000. I received the boxes and the TV at the given address, one rainy night at 2.30am (yes, in the early morning hours). The boxes and the TV was retaped using the Universal relocations tape, which meant that all the boxes and the TV was opened, inspected and re-packed by Universal Relocations.

The TV box was opened in front of the team from Universal Relocations. We were all shocked to see that the TV screen was badly cracked. We took the pictures of the cracked TV in front of them. We were speechless and helpless - not knowing what to do. Nothing visible had happened to the external packaging of the TV, yet the TV inside was badly damaged, as if it was hit by something on one side. This shows that the TV was damaged during re-packaging at their warehouse.

I immediately send all the pictures to their team in Chennai, who asked me to send a mail to their claims department. They immediately responded back saying that they are NOT LIABLE.

This is where Universal Relocations has badly let me down. I bought an expensive TV, spent a lot of money in shipping it and paying the duty and port charges for the TV. Everyone knows that the TV is a fragile object which needs to be handed very carefully. We tried to see if repairing the TV would be feasible but we were told that the cost will be that of a new TV. We tried switching on the TV but the screen was completely gone. After writing another email saying that we are absolutely furious at their treatment, we were offered $42 for the grievances caused. As a special case, this amount was rounded off to $100

$100 for a $500 TV! This did not even cover the cost of shipping the TV. I just didnt know what to reply to them. In short, I am now left with a TV which I can't neither use nor dispose off and currently is pursuing legal avenues to recoupe my losses. It looks like Universal has been pulled up multiple times by courts for negligence. Read here one such instance consumer courts ordered Universal to pay up. We are also pursuing the same option.

https://www.newindianexpress.com/cities/bengaluru/2019/feb/03/relocation-firm-to-pay-rs-60000-for-damaged-tv-while-shifting-from-us-to-bengaluru-1933679.html

I would request you all to think twice before using Universal Relocations. The team is eager and helpful when it comes to shipping your objects but does not care about what happens to your objects and the extreme distress caused to the client.

Never ever will I recommend Universal relocations.

Please share this to all your friends who are planning to relocate back to India. Help me in ensuring that NRI's are never cheated out of their hard earned money.

Move size: Partial Move Service cost: $200

Universal Relocations took possession of our container of personal belongings on September 12th, 2022, from Entry Port 4601 in Newark New Jersey, which had been shipped from Dubai in July of 2022.

On September 26th, I received an email from UR, which stated that the shipment had arrived in the New Jersey warehouse and was awaiting routing to Washington. On October 8th, Vinay R. wrote back the following: "Your Shipment Was Loaded for CA warehouse from NJ."

On November 4th, in an email with the subject line, "RE: An Explanation Is Required", I expressed my frustration over the lack of transparency over what had happened to the shipment of our belongings.

On November 9th, Mr Shabaz, the Move Manager from UR in your New Jersey offices, wrote the following: "Please note that the shipment is at our New Jersey warehouse after clearance at NY. This will need to be transferred from New Jersey to our Fremont- CA warehouse after which a truck will be scheduled for final delivery to WA. Being a groupage container, the deliveries need to be consolidated to respective branches with us and then loaded in trucks for the final delivery. We will need a few days to plan and deliver the shipment. "

Is this a company that you would do business with?

UR then told me that they planned and scheduled to load my shipment from NJ - CA in Oct and made the necessary entries in their system which showed shipment transferred from NJ. In actuality, the shipment actually did not fit in the truck and the warehouse did not load it into the trailer bound to CA, but their team forgot to update their system and as such the shipment kept showing transferred when it really wasn't.

On November 18th, I also sent an email where I asked Universal Relocations to consider an appropriate form of compensation for the long delay in delivery of our shipment due to the lack of adequate tracking used for our shipment. I was told that Universal Relocations and I were not legally bound by contract and that I should contact DTD.

On November 30th, our shipment finally arrived in Bellevue, Washington, where it was discovered and noted that "Box" 008 was missing. This was an Iranian carpet made of wool that had silk highlights that we had purchased in Dubai in 2000 for around $1000 US dollars. I noted the missing carpet on the form the delivery person, Jose, asked me to sign.

Universal Relocation now insists that they never received our carpet in the shipment from Dubai, that it was never loaded into the container. However, the bill of lading from the New Jersey customs office shows that the company signed off on the form saying 31 boxes had been received.

As I said at the beginning, choose another mover - this company is not transparent in its communications and is, at best, incompetent in being able to track your belongings.

Move size: 1 Bedroom Flat Service cost: $1200

I'll try to be as objective as possible and describe my experience so you can draw your own conclusions. I received about a 1100$ quote which seemed too good to be true (it was) for 12 Boxes and 2 Tv's Anyway, which got picked up on 13th Jan 2016 from Rockville,Maryland, I got my consignment in Mumbai on 15th April 2017, I was very happy when I saw that my boxes and TV's are here finally,

The Blunder began when I opened those 12 Boxes, I was shocked when I saw that many valuable items like my SONY Digi Cams,Homedics Massagers, Lee copper Jackets,Winter Vests, Addidas Hoddies, brand new 17inch swiss gear backpack, couple of my new skechers shoes which were bubble, even they didn't spare my shaving items like Gillette Razors, they took entire Box of Gillette Razors which was wrapped, small small valuable electrical items like google cromecasts,KODI streaming box, also couple of my new trousers were missing, many items were upside down, looks like some one has seriously did a foul play, all these above items were robbed from my boxes.

Luckily I received my few items like Xbox,Game CD's, Bose/JBL speakers and my TV's, for which I thank Universal Relocation not taking those away.

In-spite of paying all charges/customs/taxes/port charges, these guys ROBBED me

After calculating the approx price of the missing items, it comes around 600$ USD approx,

I called Barkha Rani, who is the Manager,Located in Cheenai, she literally said that you have not taken insurance, I don't think you will get reimbursed, she said I will let you know, which she never called me neither emailed me.

Also my wife spoke with Richard Maben, who is the sales Manager in US nothing help from him too.

Than I got call from Mr Jugal from Pune, who is also a manager who operates from Pune, he also took same information from me, and said I will received a call or reply from main branch, no one called me neither emailed me.

I personally feel I was cheated and robbed, after earning hard money, if these people are going to Rob you, why to do business with these guys ?

rite now no one seems to be concerned about my lost items,

So I personally request you guys, DO NOT USE THIS ROBBER COMPANY!!

It's better to sell stuff where ever you are, instead of getting ROBBED.

Move size: 1 Bedroom Flat Service cost: $1100

Oh my god!! I wish I had read some of the negative reviews on facebook before I chose this company for the move. Everyone giving negative reviews are spot on! Moving as is, is stressful, but these guys make it worse than anything.

One line review - This company cheats, steals and scams you! Please, please do not go with them. They are very, very nice to you in the beginning to get your business, and then starts series of problems. It has been 7 months since we shipped our items with them and till today we are dealing with our shipping problems with them. High level review – They steal your items especially new items with tags (in our case, one full box was stolen and may be few more items in other boxes), then they claim it is missing and cannot be found. It doesn’t stop there, they scam you with insurance claim as well. Packer says don’t put the item on the insurance inventory, destination support person makes you wait till the last date to file insurance and then sends you the link to file insurance. So you get no money from insurance as well or your lost items. This makes me believe even the insurance company could be involved in this. So overall total scam, DON’T WASTE YOUR MONEY AND TIME WITH UNIVERSAL RELOCATIONS. If you need details, please read all below.

Just to give you a quick summary – Richard Maben, is usually the guy in US side, who sweet talks you in to everything and makes you believe that shipping through them is easy breezy. Then he becomes the nightmare. No kidding! Here are our huge problems – they STOLE our one entire box from the shipment. The irony is, THAT BOX had the most valuable items with mostly expensive new with tags items, with a total value of over $3000. When they delivered one less box, I panicked. But the sweet talker Richard and the Bangalore support person Priya Kumar (both tag teaming in cheating people, read others’ reviews here to clarify), assured me they will find the box no matter what. They waited for 45 days (even with periodic enquiry by me) to come back to me on the 45th day with the insurance claim link to claim insurance for our missing box. But the story doesn’t end here, our items were rejected from the claim for 2 reasons – delayed claiming of insurance, and the most expensive item not the insurance inventory. Upon further research we found that one item was not on the inventory as the packer Bruce Glaze sweet talked us (again) not to worry about adding the item in inventory as we had total loss insurance. He said “only horrible thing that can happen to your shipment is if the cargo ship goes down, as long as you have total loss insurance (which we had), don’t worry about adding the item” (as that was a last minute addition to the shipment. In midst of all the packing and moving, we trusted him and now we get nothing from the insurance! So we asked Richard & Priya about our loss and said we don’t want any money, just find our box and give it to us. How can a box go missing? It has to be sitting either in the warehouse or some other customer must have received an extra box in their shipment which I am sure these people who have realized that when they deliver shipments to people and count them. But apparently Richard says he CANNOT find the box and Priya says they cannot reimburse our money. With continuous fight with the company they offered $100 compensation for our $3000 loss, 4 months of time we have spent on this issue, tremendous stress we have taken to deal with this issue and finally washed their hands off. This makes us strongly believe that it cannot be a coincidence that the most valuable box cannot go missing, in fact it has been stolen! So please do not even consider this company for your shipping needs and share this information with others as well. Thanks!

Move size: Partial Move Service cost: $2500

I will recommend anyone to use Universal Relocations for your overseas cargo needs. I have used them twice so far. First I sent a 20 ft container and the 2nd time 7 boxes. I have no words to express the service they have given. Super. No hassle prompt services and responses on your enquiries. Their staffs are remarkable. Very professional and polite. I don't think any company would do a better job. I am glad that I have used this company for my needs. Actually I have contacted several relocation companies in US to do my transfer. Out of many I finally decided with Universal Relocations due to their responses, reasonable rates and etc. Once I uses them for my 20 ft container transfer there is no way I will go with anyone. The schedule may vary for a day or 2 due to holidays, otherwise they are at their par. Thanks Universal.

Move size: 4+ Bedroom Home Service cost: $4000

If I could give 0 starts, I would. Universal Relocations is the local partner for my international move from Abu Dhabi to the US. Despite knowing the arrival date for my belongings for over 2 months, they have not been able to arrange a truck to get my belongings to me. They have kept my belongings in their warehouse for over 2 weeks and then informed me it will be another 3 weeks before my stuff arrives. I was quoted a 10-12 week arrival for our container. My arrival will now be 20+ weeks. What kind of moving company takes a month to schedule a truck when they have known about the shipment 2 months in advance?

Move size: 1 Bedroom Flat Service cost: $4500

This is my recent personal experience. I do not recommend Universal Re-locations as they charge less while quoting. However they overcharge by up to 50% without any prior intimation giving reasons of repacking, additional boxes and then charge overages claiming excessive cubic ft . This is a bad practice they are following to overcharge customers at the time of delivery.
In my case, they said they repacked 5 boxes, however I wonder how can they repack 5 boxes and turn into another 5 boxes. Original boxes were 20, however turned into 25 boxes.
Also my pick up was rescheduled several times, now my stuffs are stuck at Chennai port as they will not release unless I pay in full.
Despite repetitive requests they will not discuss this matter over phone.

Move size: 2 Bedroom Home Service cost: $1242

I had universal relocations move from Boston to India( 2 point delivery). We opted for a full load 20 Ft container.

At the outset i'd like to mention that my 1 star is solely due to my experience with the delivery team only.

Our sales reps were Arvind and Jyothsna. Arvind was ok and did his job. Jyothsna was downright rude and condescending. Your job is to explain the process to your customers. We don't move half way across the globe every other day and in spite of our best research you need to tell us upfront what to expect in terms of the move and the costs associated. On their website the quoted deposit was $500 but they invoiced us for 50% of the full quoted rate. We almost decided to cancel our order before they fixed the invoice to what was initially agreed upon.

To their credit though ours was a last minute booking and they got the paperwork and other process done within 2 days and had the packers scheduled to arrive on time.

The packing team was professional, efficient and careful. We had multiple high value electronics that they packed very well( no crating) and we received without issues at delivery. No complaints here.

Throughout the transit we received regular updates about the whereabouts of the container and its estimated arrival date.

The shipment arrived on time and the customs process was a breeze. The team at the port was excellent and made a potentially painful process seem like a walk in the park. This is where our good experience ended and the nightmare began.

We were assigned to Mr. Rajan from the delivery team. There was a small unexpected delay with the container so he suggested we have the shipment transferred to their warehouse so we can save on cost of container for the extra days. ( I appreciate that he was looking out for us). At this point we wanted our shipment to be sent to 2 different places because we were not restricted by the container and they were happy to oblige for an extra charge.

We went to the Chennai warehouse to segregate our stuff to be sent to the 2 locations. Imagine our surprise when all our electronics were piled one on top of another with heavy items on top of it. You spend a load of money to have them pack and transport your important items and you find it tossed around like a bunch of trash on the warehouse floor because they didn't have enough space.

Going back to the extra charges. They quoted Rs 13k towards unloading the container in the warehouse and an additional Rs 25k for delivery to the second point of delivery. We agreed to the 25K but were not sure why it would cost Rs 13k just to unload the container at the warehouse. We were given conflicting answers by different people in the team. After several back and forth e-mails with the team I still got no answer but just an e-mail saying I need to pay up for them to schedule the deliveries ( Not sure if this was supposed to mean they have my stuff and i'm at their mercy until I pay up.) The issue was escalated to the management and Mr. Prabhu finally gave us a resolution and we were charged an appropriate amount for the warehouse transfer instead of the Rs 13k.

A week or 2 later we got delivery of the larger of our shipments minus one item which we saw at the warehouse but was not included by the packing team in the inventory list. We were asked to send an e-mail so the item can be sent to us at a later date.

The second shipment with lesser items took another 3 weeks to be delivered. Still no sign of the missing item. Its been 6 weeks since the first delivery and I still have not received our item ( A mattress) and neither have the team at Universal bothered to respond to my multiple e-mails enquiring about it.

The on site delivery guys again were awesome. The clean up after delivery was excellent too.

Final words to the team.

Mr.Arvind : Thank you for the quick turn-around.
Mr.Prabhu : We appreciate your help in resolving our issues as promised.
Mr. Rajan : While you continuously and repeatedly emphasized that you were doing this to help us out I would like to remind you that you are not doing us any favors. Its your JOB to help the customer and minimize their cost. Thats why people picked your company over the countless others. Maybe you should consider cutting back on your lofty speeches about customer service and put them in to action to really help your customers.

Summary:

All our items arrived safe and sound except for one minor broken item. We had a full container so based on that, one broken item is trivial. If we exclude our experience with Mr. Rajan we will rate Universal relocations as FOUR STARS!! minus one star for the delay in delivery.

I will update this post in 2 weeks to let you guys know if we received the missing mattress.

Move size: 3 Bedroom Home Service cost: $7746