Overall Horrible Experience
Von F.
Submitted this review about
Universe Express Inc
Review made Live: 1/4/2013 2:54:00 PM
****MOVERS BEWARE*****UNIVERSE EXPRESS ARE RIP-OFFS*****
I would have to agree with the other reviewers and say stay clear of Universe Express! It was the absolute worst experience I've had with a moving company in my life. The problems conveniently started after I paid my deposit. I was having items shipped from my grandmother's home in NJ to WA. I set up an agreement with the company for them to send me all of the documents needed to sign since I will not be present in NJ during the scheduled pick up. Although they agreed at first, they retracted and said there were documents that had to be signed in person. I stated I would be ok with my grandmother signing documents as long as I was able to review the documents first, so avoid her being taken advantage of. They agreed but did not honor that agreement which I didn't find out until later.
They were two days late for their scheduled pick-up. Only calling once on their initial scheduled date to say they were running a few minutes behind. I had to call them on the second day late to see what was going on. They rescheduled with me and was late for their rescheduled time, they were supposed to show up in the morning and didn't come until 4:00 p.m. During the pick-up process, items they initially agreed to take (chandelier) during their site-visit/estimate they all of a sudden couldn't take. They pressured my grandmother to sign documents without her reading them, stating they didn't have time for her to read them as they were in a rush. Come to find out they wrote "broken" next to each of the items they picked up, no doubt a tactic to cover them in case they broke something during the move as the items were in great condition and were not in fact broken. Although we have no 'proof', my grandmother's brand new 4g phone (which was a gift) went missing the same time they left, never to be found again. After many phone calls to the manager, I was able to get them to pick up the chandelier they decided at the last minute they would not take, although they did increase the total price. Keep in mind they changed the price, while they had possession of the items I was having moved.
Once the items got to WA, it took numerous reschedules before they actually delivered the items. The driver was looking for people to help him unload since the original people that were supposed to help didn't show. They unloaded the items, and everything seemed fine until they unloaded the antique dining room table and placed it on its face to assemble and then proceeded to step on the table. Once they turned the table around, I immediately noticed a piece of the table was broken off. I pointed it out to them and they attempted to state it was already like that using their document that had broken written next to every item. My husband found the broken piece in their wrapping and at that point we had proof that they couldn't argue with. I submitted numerous estimates to fix the item (which was not cheap) along with the other requested items for their claim process within the 9 month time frame I had per their agreement. I received a response stating they denied the claim because it was not within the time frame and I signed a document stating they would not cover damage to those type of items. Not only have I not signed a document stating that, I had never seen or heard of this document before. They never submitted this document to me nor had I received a copy of this document upon delivery of items like I did with the documents my grandmother signed in my absence. I rate them a "0" out of 10.
