Worst Moving Experience of My Life
Worst Moving Experience of My Life.
I booked OCS relocations and it has been an unmitigated disaster from the start. As soon as they get their initial payment, you are completely on your own. They messed up the time for the initial survey. They said they would come to measure my piano and other items for crating and deliver boxes and they didn't show up. I stayed in all day waiting for them and planning to start packing personal belongings. After I complained, they delivered the boxes in the middle of the night and sent someone to measure the piano later but I had no time to pack the following day and had to reschedule to accomodate them. The day I took off was wasted. I repeatedly asked for a refund because I could see that this was going to be a disaster and they refused.
On packing day I caught their packers scooping up my books off the shelves and throwing them in boxes and stuffing cushions on top. Again, I had to complain, call a halt to the packing for two hours and then basically supervise as much as I could to ensure they weren't causing any damage which is impossible when there are so many people working in different parts of the house. I asked them to crate my paintings and I have no idea if this was done. They were gone and my packing list just has 'pictures' on it. They were packing a piano and brought a truck with more than a metre clearance off the ground and no lifting mechanism and were planning to pick up and lift the piano on manually and just hope not to drop it. Again, I had to stop everything and ask them to bring the right truck as I had made clear on the survey day that I had a piano that needed the appopriate treatment -- and they charged extra for this.
They then gave me two different container tracking numbers with different arrival dates and routes. When I checked this with them, they confirmed the latest number was correct so I used that to track the shipment, rented a house at my destination starting on the estimated date of arrival etc. I queried the multi-stop route -- it seemed to be going from Dubai, via Oman to Jeddah, then Algeciras and then London. I was told this was normal due to the war etc but I was concerned so I told them I'd hold back the second part of the payment until the ship had left Jeddah. Eventually, today, they contacted me to ask for the remaining balance to be paid as the ship had left Jeddah and sent me a link to the container to check this.... It was to a completely different container that had only left Oman the day before, was traveling around Africa to London and would not arrive until a full month later than the expected arrival date of the container I had been tracking. It was never in Jeddah or bound for Jeddah. They had clearly been conversing with me about why and thecontainer was going via Jeddah without even checking that it was, indeed, taking this route. I asked several times for a Bill of Lading to show which container my items were even on and this, to date, has not been supplied. The destination agent who contacted me apparently was expecting this other container that was NOT going via Jeddah and Algeciras -- but they also appeared to have a different client name on record at the start. (Jie Lin...) Now I am worried that, if the shipment is eventually delivered, it will turn out not to be my stuff at all but Jie Lin's!
OCS is by far the most unprofessional company I have ever dealt with. And even after I pointed out their mistake on the containers, they doubled down to say they had given me the right container number. When I showed them their mistake, their response essentially amounted to: sorry for the mixup, but can you give us the rest of the money now.
I am now asking for clear documentation linking my name to a bill of lading to a container to a pickup/deliver date and destination and they appear unable or unwilling to provide this. At any rate, they have not responded to my email.
As of now, it has been 10 weeks since my items were unprofessionally packed at my home in Dubai and taken away by OCS. And if their latest container information is to be believed, the ship only departed yesterday and will be arriving more than a month from now. I have lived around the world and the thought that this amateur company may have lost all my most precious belongings, including paintings, a piano, hand-made furniture, expensive rugs and kilims accumulated over decades, is literally giving me sleepless nights. This is apart from the fact that I will be paying for an empty house in London because I signed a lease based on an incorrect date supplied by OCS and that my children will start school while living out of suitcases in either an empty house or an airbnb.... that I have to pay for on top of rent of an empty house because of this messup.
Totally outrageous. I can't believe they are in business. I would give zero stars if I could. Stay away.
