Universal Relocations

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 Home Service cost: $2500

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 Home 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

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