I used this company twice for international relocation. The first time, they relocated my household effects from NJ to France. It took my shipment 2 months longer than projected to arrive. I was careless enough to use them for my return relocation from France to NY. While my first experience with GOF was moderately unpleasant, the second experience was downright horrible.
To begin with, they could not find a local mover to pick up my shipment.—They found a local agent 5 days before I was to board the plane to leave France for the US.in the meantime, I had to live with a lot of stress. While my goods were in transit, GOF kept sending me extra-low-res versions of customs forms that I had to complete several times over because their customs broker rejected the forms as unreadable. They finally referred me to the US customs web site, because they (the self proclaimed shipping experts!) did not have the right forms.
It didn't end there. They billed me $1000 over the contract amount of $5,200 for extra "demurrage and storage, " because the customs took 5 extra days to clear my shipment. I paid. Recently, I contacted the port and found out that my shipment took 1 day to clear customs. This suggests that GOF defrauded me.
GOF demanded that I pay the $1000 extra charge "immediately." I paid the same day by billpay. They came back the next day and said that because the payment was not by wire, they would hold the shipment in storage at an extra cost of $500. I was trying to reason and complain, but the management of GOF made itself unavailable. It was brazen. They would not take my calls. They were offensive.
My read of Global Ocean Freight is that they are a highly unethical, potentially criminal operation. Their business model is to attract customers by low-balling the competition. They make money by under-delivering and adding imaginary charges. (Case in point, they also charged me for packing services and materials that I did not use. I managed to fight off that charge because it was stated on the front of my contract that I would pack myself. They said it was in error. How can one miss a key clause of the contract?) And buy the way, a month later, they still haven't provided me with a receipt indicating all my payments, despite my multiple requests.
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