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Summary

Universal Relocations
Santhosh Sundararaman@santhoshsram
Sep 11, 2017 12:20 PM, 3736 Views
(Updated Sep 11, 2017)
Terrible experience. Dishonest staff who care leas

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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