Universal Relocations

Please do not go with Universal Relocations.

1. I used Universal Relocations to Ship 8 Boxes from Norwalk, CT TO Coimbatore. The experience which I had was terrible. We sent our Shipment by June and Received by September 3rd week after a huge struggle with damages on New branded Kitchen utensils like Hard Anodized Pans Which is Too Costly.
2. We did everything as per the instructions given by Mr. Madhusudhan, sales rep from US. We packed in XL Heavy duty Box and wrote Fragile on the box too. But then also the damage had happened. We contacted the insurance team and they are saying they wont cover individual items which is not acceptable. Because of the bends in pan and lids the utensils are non usable which are brand New ones.
3. Every one knows that the whole box wil not be lost. The boxes were not handled properly. The boxes when it reached our home was in very bad condition because of which this damage happened. This is purely their carelessness but as a Customer we have to suffer. We are not earning money just like that. We are working hard to earn a single penny by leaving our friends and family. People don't understand that.
4. After using this Universal Relocations to Move from US to India,to be frank we had lot of issues and mental torture.
5. Please please do not Universal Relocations. There many other good, safe and secure movers who wil get ur belongings safely.
6. Many of my friends shifted lot of other valuable things with other relocation providers which reached safely without any damages.

It was my mistake to go with Universal Relocations so I wouldn't recommend you friends also to do the same mistake.

Move size: Partial Move Service cost: $1100

My experience has been not good at all good. I did ship 7 boxes in two separate consignments. First consignment had 5 boxes. The boxes were picked by FEDEX from my home and delivered to their ware house. FEDEX was their representative. But, to my surprise, when I received the invoice, Universal had added $50 as packing charges. When I called and checked, they said they received two boxes in damaged condition. Though it was not my fault, I still had to pay that extra money. When the consignment reached Chennai, they charged me another Rs.3260 stating that this was port congestion charges. They do not mention anything while picking up the material. For the consignment of two boxes, they charged me about Rs. 1960 stating the same reason. Until this is paid, they will not release your material. Practically, it is like holding you at ransom. They claim to be the best though not cheap. But, it is like you are being cheated.

Move size: Partial Move Service cost: $900

I moved from Sunnyvale to Pune in April (well items reached in August) 2017.
 
In short, the move was a terrible experience full of headaches; the staff could not have cared any less. I deeply regret doing business with them and I would never recommend them to anyone. All of this is based on my experience of course.
 
First of all Universal Relocations and UniRelo are the same company. Initially they try appear as if they are two diff companies - websites, office addresses, phone numbers are all different and the sales reps are also different. They give different quotes. But end of the day when doing the paper work it becomes clear they are the same. Alert #1.
 
1. I worked with Mr. Madhusudhan. He seemed like the most professional and knowledgeable sales rep assuring me that they will make my move as smooth as possible. Well that was until I paid my first dollar, that's when the trouble started. Later I realized the hard way that it's the trick they use to lure you in - hook, line and sinker.
 
2. The packers who showed up to pack the stuff were the most unprofessional packers I've seen. The guys waiting outside Home Deport for work do a better job. All though I had segregated different items in different boxes (bathroom, kitchen, bedroom, living room etc) and placed them in different groups, the guys just dumped everything randomly into the boxes.
 
3. If I were to pack the stuff myself I was recommended to use heavy duty (double walled) boxes. I had them pack instead and they ended up using regular boxes (single walled) which don't hold up well to rough use. Of course they charged me for the heavy duty boxes. It wouldn't have mattered if half the boxes delivered after 4 months were not squashed and mangled resulting in the stuff inside them being broken.
 
4. They suggest that you have to use their special TV boxes ($100) to be able to claim insurance and they put the box through a battery of tests. That's a lie to make you pay more. It is the same adjustable box you could find at U-haul or Home Depot for under $30.
 
5. My shipment was held up in the destination port (Chennai) for almost 3 weeks and that resulted in port storage charges. Universal dumped all of that on me. I later found out other companies that do the right thing by absorbing part of the fee and having the customer pay the remaining.
 
6. The way the customs and port discharge was handled was very unprofessional. I got requests to pay all dues (customs, port charges etc) which I did, but there was no follow up to inform me of the status or provide me with the paper work to back the charges. I had to make several call and follow ups to obtain these. Again every time I called I heard the standard excuse "Sorry sir we forgot". They kept forgetting for almost 2-3 weeks.
 
7. Finally when the shipment made it to Pune, there was more trouble from the Mathadi union. Maharashtra has a union of workers who do loading and unloading, and movers have to use these workers - that's the state law (well the union is run by you know who, which is a different issue). But universal (for a company that claims to operate across the globe ironically) does not employ them and had me compensate the union instead. Universal rudely declined they'd have anything to do with the compensations, while it was their responsibility to know about the state rules and employ the right folks as the state rule mandates. The representative quoted different clauses in the agreement (which were of course open to interpretation) to shake off their responsibility. This is exactly what they quoted from the 'exclusions' - "Difficult access charges to the door, Shuttle Service" -> interpreted as the union was causing them difficulty to access the customer's door. Cunning!
 
8. On unpacking and checking several of the items were found broken and damaged, including some expensive ones. As always universal disowns any accountability - it's the insurance company's responsibility they said. Of course the insurance company had their own way to deny the claim. Universal did zilch to help with the claim. The items would have made it safe if universal used professional packers and the right packing materials to pack the stuff in the first place. But no, they cut every possible corner to make more money at the customer's expense.
 
And by the way, I haven't been able to get a hold of Mr. Madhusudhan ever since the shipment left the door in Sunnyvale.
 
Net-net, my experience with Universal Relocations (a.k.a UniRelo) was terrible. What the staff do is nothing short of cheating the customer to make a few extra bucks.
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Move size: 1 Bedroom Flat Service cost: $3000

I had moved from USA back to India in February 2017. Received my shipment in India in May 2017.

Overall very poor experience due to loss of goods, innumerous lies from Universal throughout the transaction and hence do not recommend the services. Though the people that I had dealt with looked all genuine but loss of goods along the way and their inability to help made it a very poor experience.

Brief background: I had booked Universal Relocator as it sounded like a good brand, a company came on top while googling. I didn’t do a whole lot of research on the customer feedback as it’s get super crazy to move your household along with family. After I completed the moving transaction and terrible experience with them, I did see the customer feedback all over the internet describing same ordeals that I had experienced with them. So it was my fault of not doing a good homework before booking my shipment with them.

Zero integrity: The quote process looked little cumbersome to me as it wasn’t straightforward. The charges were based on the volume of contents. Universal measured the true volume at their place after picking up all the goods from my home. The true volume I was mentioned was more than double of what I was quoted – it was also double than what the pick-up man had indicated to me. I am no expert in measuring volume but I am sure the pick-up guys do this for living and would have a fair idea of volume by looking at size and number of boxes. So it was a shock that I took with a pinch of salt – as at that moment, you really can’t do anything

Loss of goods: Upon receiving the shipment on the doorstep, I found few of my electronic items were missing, some of the cosmetic things were missing and lot many were broken. After opening few boxes it was very clear that boxes were opened at some point in time during the transit. I had a net loss of more than $1000.

I had bought Full Packing option from Universal and also paid heavily for it. Full packing means, they pack everything on their own. Very smartly they marked few boxes as “packed by owner” instead of “packed by Packer” even when they had packed them. I am not sure if it was deliberate or a mistake – but that played against the insurance exclusions and all my claims for loss of goods were rejected as Insurance company said I packed boxes on my own.

Recommendations: While I strongly recommend not to go with them but even if you decide to go ahead, take photographs of every box before you let them pack it. There is a strong chance you are going to forget after 3 months of shipment delivery which box had what item. Also, there is no way you can verify each box contents right on delivery – so photographs taken just before you put the tape on box would come in very handy to verify if you received everything.

Be ready for the surprise cost elements: While I was told of the custom charges in advance but I was definitely surprised by bank charges, notary charges and port charges that I was asked to pay once my shipment landed on the Chennai port. It wasn’t a huge amount but again something which they never mentioned in the beginning.

Ineffective insurance: They are so many exclusions that one tends to ignore or at least not care about. I ultimately lost few valued electronic items and never got reimbursed even when I had taken insurance for them. Again, Universal will ask to buy Full Packing from them to be eligible for insurance – but in my case even after buying Full Packing option, all my claims were denied.

Keep in mind insurance has a deductible of $250. I didn’t think too much about this clause till I actually had to go for claiming insurance. In the hindsight, it didn’t make any sense of high deductible in case of P&C insurance. I had claimed insurance of about $1000 (if my claim had adjudicated successfully, I would have got just $750). But my claims were denied completely due to all sorts of exclusions that didn’t make any sense to me.

Net net I felt cheated by Universal with so many lies along the way. The goods were stolen during transit and Universal took no responsibility for it. It directed me straight to insurance which denied my claims because Universal smartly mentioned “Packed by Owner” on the inventory list when they should have written “Packed by Packer”. I paid a huge amount for shipping that resulted in loss of goods and very poor customer service experience. I strongly recommend to stay away from them.

Move size: 1 Bedroom Flat Service cost: $2500

I have moved from USA to Bangalore in Jan 2019. I had booked the shipment of four boxes with Universal Relocations as per my friends recommendations, Packed and dropped at the UPS store in mid Jan.
initially they said I do not have to pay anything while receiving the package, however, I received an email and a call from the company stating I need to pay near to 3k rupees for customs. Done, paid, then there was no news at all for almost 30 days. Then I started following up and got a new story stating the package is in Bangalore and there is a contractual issues with Gati courier hence my package was not delivered. In frustration I went and picked the packages from the warehouse in my car.

The story starts now.

When I checked, all four boxes were cut in the middle. (Not where you pasted the tape to close the box). Many many of my belongings were missing. When I asked and wrote multiple emails, the resolution comes as, We cannot help you as you did not signed for the insurance. I have noticed many many of the items were missing almost a full box of 16 x 24. Very much unsatisfied with the service.
Not sure how they would have behaved if I had insurance as well with a cost of couple of more hundred dollars.
I suggest to look for the alternate as everyone wanted to shovel off the responsibility and close the matter.

Move size: 2 Bedroom Home Service cost: $500

My Move is from India to Canada

The Customer service guy named Prabhu Subramaniam from Chennai office is the biggest scammer. Their other scammer include Punithan Ramu (who sent me twice the bill for volume-weight). Their customer service is a joke!! They are copied on all emails, where I am blasting for fraudulent charges, but they wont reply! they have zero interest in serving customer, or customer satisfaction.

When I was in India, I had gotten a quote from Universal relocation. They mentioned that for Canada the shipment through air is only few hundred $ more than sea, so I decided to take their air shipment package. They had also mentioned that for air shipment they will only use weight, and not volume (used for sea). I packed all my stuff and left in their storage, came here to find job, house etc. Now that it is time to get my shipment, they have changed their price. They are now charging me for weight-volume. They are a big scam, have increased my cost to twice the amount. And this is before I have paid for airport duties, insurance, and all the other random charges they add. They are a big time scam, and I don't recommend
anyone using them.

Prabhu will mislead you, never mention about the volume, and lie to you when giving a quote. I had called him and asked him several times, and he blatantly lied that I will be charged on weight alone. They will give the lowest quote on purpose, when in fact, their actual cost is 3 times their quote. he will purposely not give the bill when you are in India, but only send when it is time for delivery, causing additional stress.

I want to cancel my move with them. anyone has recommendation for good movers from Chennai to Canada?

Move size: Partial Move Service cost: $2500

Zero stars If I could add it.

We lived through a this relocation nightmare since the day we had our stuff packed and carried by Universal Relocation team. A terrible experience for our family filled with stress, anxiety, harassment and even blackmailing.

Here are some of the issues we have faced -
1) Quality of Packing - Horrible quality of boxes and packing materials were used.
2) No use of Bubble Wrap for packing our crockery and fragile collectibles. Result: All winde glasses, glass utensils and collectible bought from international vacations are all broken.
3) Personal items of glass and ceramic were simply dumped in the boxes with one layer of newspaper wrapped around. See the video for yourself.
4) Holes in the boxes so we found rodents in our boxes when we unpacked. Items were infested with mice and ants - literally had a dead mouse in one of the cartons
5) Volume was inflated by increasing number of boxes and not filling the boxes completely. Most of the boxes has large amount of empty space. As a result, so many the boxes got pressed and crushed. Also, small-small boxes were packed to increase the volume. At least 100 CFT volume was added by doing these kind of tactics.
6) Mattress was wrapped in just one layer of transparent plastic (serron wrap). Again no bubble wrap. Hence the mattress became really dirty in transit which voids the 25 year warranty that we have from Sealy on the mattress.
7) Threatened and blackmailed by their organization personnel on phone, that all our stuff will be left with the customs. This is after we had already sent our passports to you and they were in your possession. Additionally they also threatened us and the other Universal relo employees doing unpacking in our house about raising the packing issue. He basically threatened them about agreeing with us on packing quality.
8) No-one listened when we complained repeatedly on-phone about our concern regarding quality of packing.

I can share more detailed information, photos and videos. Beware, go with any other company in the world but not them.

Move size: 2 Bedroom Home Service cost: $4521