Beware of bogus $2 moving companies.
If you are moving internationally, you really have to do a lot of homework and background checks of the companies you intend to hire to help you move. Do not be swayed by websites or even broker agents who claimed how well they know these companies.
One company to beware of is Movers@worx.
It is a $2 private limited company with no assets.
Our story:
We had to relocate recently because of my husband's overseas posting.
We had to pack up the entire house basically because we did not own any property here.
My husband looked on the web for a moving company and found Cross Roads, a moving broker firm who got us quotes from various movers. We decided to go with Astro because their price seemed fair. The agent however told us to go with another company, Movers@worx , because she had good experiences with them before. Although the price was a bit higher than Astro's, we decided to heed the agent's advice because of her claimed experience in this line and with movers@worx.
The men came to our house, packed and labelled our stuff in boxes quite professtionally. We noticed the boxes were labelled with another moving company's name and logo. It did not raise any alarm. The director of movers@worx came, we signed the contract and was given an invoice. He also prepared the inventory list as they packed our items. He said he would give us the copy later. We were told there would be 1 week FOC warehouse storage for our items. We gave him the cheque for the shipment of our items and they left.
We needed to find a house in the new country before the movers could arrange to ship our things. We found one after 2 months. We gave the address to movers@worx so they could ship immediately. Then they emailed and said we had to pay for the warehouse storage incurred plus peak shipping surcharge, fumigation fees, which weren't stated in their quote before. They would not ship unless we paid. So we paid them again as requested, asking for the documentations of the warehouse charges and shipping bill of laden. They promised to email the documents but never did.
Whenever we called movers@worx, the director guy in-charge would not pick up the phone. His staff would not know where he is and he never returned our calls and emails. When he finally did reply to our emails, he told us our things have arrived at the port. It would take about 10 days to clear customs and truck to our address. So we waited. Then after 2 weeks, no news. We tried to contact that guy again and again he's missng in action.
We contacted the broker agent to get her to contact Movers@worx to tell us where our things are but to no avail as well. We were getting anxious and frustrated.
We had our family members back at home to help us file a complaint with CASE.
Also went the to police to make a report. We engaged a lawyer to review our case.
It was at least 3 months later when we made the trip back home and wanted to confront the man. He finally replied to our smses and agreed to meet and let us view our cargo. He did not turn up. Instead, at the warehouse, we meet the owner and the owner of the actual moving company who packed our belongings! The mover told us that Mover@worx contracted them to do the move but did not pay a single cent afterwards. So they stored our items in the warehouse, and now we
had to pay for the warehouse to release our items. 6 months worth of storage mounting to nearly $5000!!!
It was clear that movers@worx was running a scam. We already had the idea that that man has taken us for a ride but we were even more angry that he only revealed the warehouse location after making us wait for 6 months with the storage charges increasing every month!
Even then, the director of movers@worx had the audacity to email us and said
he was doing his job, and asked us to pay for the storage to release the items and let him do the shipping still!!! How ridiculous??!! Needless to say, he refused to refund our money paid to him.
Our lawyer told us that it is best to pay the storage to get our things back and find a reliable forwarder to ship our items. Because movers@worx seems to be a dud one-man-show company, we would incur more losses if we file a lawsuit against him. He would not have the money to compensate our losses.
It was a painful lesson emotionally and financially for us.
Shut, that was tough luck.
But thanks for the warning, I'm sure the rest of us would appreciate it as much.
Oh no, my heart goes out for you. I sincerely hope you get matter sorted asap.
Hope this conman mover gets his punishment in due course.
instead of appointing a lawyer which'll probably cost more....why don't you just file a claim via the small claims tribunal? you need only to pay $10 (for claim amounts not exceeding $5000) or $20 (claims amts not exceeding $10000) or 1% of claim amt (amt not exceeding $20000)? http://app.subcourts.gov.sg/sct/page.aspx?pageid=4515
if you've all the legit documentation - invoices, contract details, receipts etc...then you'll have a stronger case.
you might also have to pay a couple of dollars to do an information search of the company that you are filing a claim against. through that, you can obtain the boss's home address from the company's info....worse come to worse, you can go harrass him at his home =P
seriously.. i think u should just hired a few china man to beat the shit out of this ppl... money is not a problem.. they should be taught a lesson...
Thanks guys for your sympathies...
Lostintranslation, we considered going to the small claims tribunal but it would be futile also because that man has gone MIA, and his company has no money, no assets. So there is nothing to claim.
The most frustrating thing is we go to the police, the officer sounded soooo bo-chap. Also, they claim its a civil matter even though it is now clearly a cheating case.
My lawyer said we can take him to civil court but no point, waste time and money only.
I'm really pissed cos there is an obvious loophole with our system. So now I know anyone can spend $1 to register a private limited (P/L) company, cheat ppl's money and get away. You can siphon the money to your personal assets aside from your business account and no one would go after you cos' the legal costs would be too much! Cannot touch your personal assets also cos' the contract is with the registered P/L company!
CASE also do nothing...all can only tell you to hire a lawyer. There is no avenue for us to warn others except through free speaking forums like this.
Now our belongings are being held hostage by another rogue company B who was hired by Movers@worx to do the actually packing! Sigh...all these ppl are just out to squeeze money from whoever they can. We happen to be the unfortunate suckers.
Through this lesson, we learnt a lot about shipping/freight forwarding stuff! LOL. So many documents to ask for, esp the Bill of Laden before paying in full. Hope this is helpful to those who are thinking of shipping their personal effects overseas.
Originally posted by Quartz9:Thanks guys for your sympathies...
Lostintranslation, we considered going to the small claims tribunal but it would be futile also because that man has gone MIA, and his company has no money, no assets. So there is nothing to claim.
The most frustrating thing is we go to the police, the officer sounded soooo bo-chap. Also, they claim its a civil matter even though it is now clearly a cheating case.
My lawyer said we can take him to civil court but no point, waste time and money only.
I'm really pissed cos there is an obvious loophole with our system. So now I know anyone can spend $1 to register a private limited (P/L) company, cheat ppl's money and get away. You can siphon the money to your personal assets aside from your business account and no one would go after you cos' the legal costs would be too much! Cannot touch your personal assets also cos' the contract is with the registered P/L company!
CASE also do nothing...all can only tell you to hire a lawyer. There is no avenue for us to warn others except through free speaking forums like this.
Now our belongings are being held hostage by another rogue company B who was hired by Movers@worx to do the actually packing! Sigh...all these ppl are just out to squeeze money from whoever they can. We happen to be the unfortunate suckers.
Through this lesson, we learnt a lot about shipping/freight forwarding stuff! LOL. So many documents to ask for, esp the Bill of Laden before paying in full. Hope this is helpful to those who are thinking of shipping their personal effects overseas.
the Police tell you that it is a civil matter. your lawyer tells you that you can take the person to civil court. CASE tells you that there is nothing that you can do except hire a lawyer...
it's frustrating to hear it, but if all three agencies tell you the same thing, then unfortunately, that is the only thing that you can do, isn't it?
if criminal elements are involved in your case, then you need not hire your own lawyer to go through a civil case. this is because if it were as such, the state will intervene on your behalf.