After doing a lot of follow-up with Universal, they told me that one of their employees had sent wrong information to the insurance firm and they wont be able to pay the costs of damages or insurance amount.
We got our stuff shipped through universal when we moved back to India and every thing from the communication to the delivery was great. All our goods including the TV arrived as expected. Richard was our contact.
I don't recommend it. They are horrible and worst service. I got packing and moving service to India. I can't imagine for packing. I paid $250 to pack my stuffs. Only one guy showed up with poor packaging supply. I am so pissed but couldn't do much because had to fly next day. When I got my items in India? They charged me crazy and completely over budget and I wish I could slap them. Please guys don't get any service from these people. Waste of time and money.
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
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.
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.
Their team in India who handles custom clearance process was good and that is the only good thing about my move with Universal - This earns them their 1-Star rating from me.
I was also told that, if I want the cost of damages, they will deduct it from their employees salary and will pay half of the damage costs - which I obviously declined and ended getting nothing even after paying insurance charges and heavy fees for Shipment.
I had a very bad experience with Universal Relocations. My shipment was scheduled for move from USA to India. I had insured my tv with them/their insurance provider. My TV was damaged when it was delivered and when I claimed my insurance, I was told that, Universal had sent wrong details to Insurance company and my claim was rejected.
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.
HIGHLY NOT RECOMMENDED! Be prepared to lose your money and shipment items as well if you decide to move with them.
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.
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.
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.
Overall very poor experience due to loss of goods, in-numerous 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.
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.
The most terrible company to choose for shipping Damaged all my boxes and items in it. Don’t get cheated by 5 stars reviews by there employees. Worst company ever. They are initially nice until they get the payment then the real picture of company comes up. Definitely not recommended
Universal Relocations Inc is a US Moving Company based in Parsippany Troy Hills, New Jersey. Universal Relocations Inc is located at 343 New Rd #4, Parsippany, NJ 07054, USA.
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