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

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

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

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

Have just read the review re move to Singapore. It almost exactly echoes my experience. Interdean conrtacted me regarding a move to Brisbane as they had our details from our new migrant bank. We were organising our move in 2 stages so this was essentially 11 boxes to be able to set up in a rental property. First contacts were very promising but once the deposit was paid they were impossible to contact regarding any questions we had.  They never answered the phone or emails and anyone who has moved to Australia knows how much red tape there is attached to importing items. Two weeks after my belongings had left my house they rang me as if I were a new customer to sell their services -  great record keeping!! I was quoted 3 months for sea transportation so sent my belongings ahead by 2 months so that I would have my possessions after a month in Aus. At the 3 month point I contacted them to find out about delivery only to be told that my stuff was still in London! So I had to go out and buy enough furniture/kitchen basics/bedding etc to get by. I contacted their managing director - only to be told that they had mixed my shipment up with someone who had the same surname who was moving to Sydney. They wouldn't consider putting the shipment on a plane or offering compensation for the hundreds of dollars we had to spend and as a gesture of goodwill offered 10% discount on any future removals with them. Laughable. My things finally arrived 5 months after leaving me - minus a 42" flat screen tv which they can not trace at all. Insurance claim now. Have notified the Aussie branch of the Bank who recommended them and will notify the London branch too. Will NEVER use them again or recommend them.They made an already stressful situation really awful.

Service cost: £400

DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY! What a Horribal Expierence! The only thing that went well was the pick up of my goods. From there it all fell appart. I was quoted 30-40 days from door to door. It Took 70 Days!! Unacceptable! Despite my numerous attempts to contact them while I was waiting for my delivery, if they responded All I could get was excuses. When my things did finally arrive, there are boxes missing & lots of dammaged goods!! In a "sealled" container! Oh, & did I mention they are very hard to get a hold of. They were good, till there was a problem. I still can't get any anwsers from them & I still don't have all of my stuff.  .

Service cost: $7000