Universal Relocations

Moved back from Cleveland to Kolkata a few months back

(during the COVID crisis)

We started discussing about the relocation a month ahead and only after carefully understanding all parameters decided to go with Universal. Heard their name from colleagues who also used their service.

It took a total of around 3 months to get the boxes delivered (total 10 boxes) door to door (Pickup Cleveland apartment- Drop Kolkata home). We packed our own boxes and please make sure you don't hold back on packing the items with enough cushion and padding. We used ample wrapping paper, foam pads, bubble wraps etc. Also tape the boxes multiple times and make sure nothing is moving inside. Use double walled heavy duty boxes and they do accept boxes only from 2-3 vendors (like UHAUL, LOWES, Home Depot)

No big damage to any boxes. I guess that's the regular wear and tear and except for 2 boxes most were in pretty good shape.

Probably one of my boxes were opened (may be for inspection). Otherwise all boxes were as is packed when they were collected from Cleveland.

Once box reached India(Chennai) I was contacted by Ms Sandhya from Universal and she helped us clear the formalities and payments related to customs (We paid Rs 1000 per box as earlier communicated. Did not have to go through any additional documentation for customs). She coordinated the delivery from Chennai to Kolkata and everything went about pretty smoothly.

Would Definitely recommend their services for anyone looking for International relocation services.

Move size: Partial Move Service cost: $1100

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 Home 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 Home 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

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 Home Service cost: $3000