As seen in similar letters posted in this and other websites, I also had a negative moving experience with Global Ocean Freight (GOF). The whole process actually involved two other companies, Moving services, also based in Florida, and All American Movers, which like GOF, refused to answer many of my emails during a critical period in my transaction and showed several signs of incompetence and lack of professionalism.
I moved from Hawaii to Korea and my goods were picked up on Nov. 29. I first dealt with Moving services which 1 week before my move called me and arbitrarily changed the original quote of about $13/CBF (cubic feet) to $29/CBF claiming they had done a mistake. At that time I had already carefully planned my budget based on their quote, and by the time they more than doubled the fee it was too late for me to search around for other companies and more reasonable quotes. Then they told me I would see my goods in Korea by the time I got there, Jan. 7th. I didn't hear from them ever since.
Before my goods were picked up, I had paid all the shipment in full, based on a preliminary guess of volume which I had to do before I actually finished packing (70 CBF - which later proved to be underestimated).in Jan GOF, the company responsible for actually shipping my goods, finally contacted me. At this point the original company that I had contracted services from had never informed me about having a chain of different companies and several different people to deal with, such that I became frequently disconcerted in trying to deal with agents or staff from a company that was no longer directly involved in the process or actually just not knowing who exactly to deal with or receive information from.
At any rate, this new company comes out of the blue and requests addresses, packing lists, and other information I had already given to Moving services. After a couple of weeks of silence I finally receive an invoice where GOF was charging me an extra $3,700, claiming my shipment was 190CBF (and not 70 CBF, as initially estimated - I had already paid 2,300 for moving that volume plus insurance and other fees). After I indicated there must had been a mistake in estimating my volume, they were quick to threaten to charge more if I didn't pay quick because of storage fees in Korean customs, even though my move was still sitting in Hawaiian warehouse at that time.
The correspondence I received form GOF during that time was particularly bothersome, because it failed to specifically answer several of my questions regarding how the volume estimates were done, where my shipment was (I was actually under the impression my shipment was already in Korea), etc, and failed to assume that GOF could have done a mistake in measuring my volume at that time.
I was fortunate to have taken digital pictures of my boxes being put into a wooden crate on the day of the move and based on photometric evidence I argued that they were charging me for the whole crate rather then my shipment. Still, they were reluctant to accept their mistake and kept bouncing me between several members of their staff and telling me that their employees measurements were extremely accurate. I also tried contacting All American Movers (a third company involved in this, who actually picked up my boxes in Hawaii) to ask how they estimated the volume of my boxes and, like the first company, Moving services they never replied.
Later, it turned out that instead of measuring my shipment in an accurate and trustworthy fashion, as claimed by GOF staff, the shippers who picked up my goods simply placed them in a huge wooden crate and jotted down that the crate was full (which meant 190CBF, but the actual volume of the goods later turned out to be 133CBF)
Finally, after several days exchanging emails and phone calls, GOF agreed to re-measure my goods once they got to Korea, if I faxed them a letter stating that I would pay in full the correct amount after the re-measurement, which means that although they were the ones committing a mistake, I was the one who was looked at with suspicion and disbelief (even though I had photographic evidence)! It was only then that I actually learned that my shipment had never left Hawaii.
At the time, already in February, GOF stated that my shipment would go on the next ship to Korea. So my stuff just kept sitting around in a warehouse all this time, and for about a month I was without news of my shipment. At least one email I sent, asking if the shipment had left Hawaii, was flat out ignored.
Finally, in mid May I received an email with the insurance forms that I had to fill out for my goods, after I had called the company asking for information. During the conversation, I was still unable to find an exact date of arrival of my goods, but I was told that my shipment was heading to LA, where the volume would be re-estimated. At that point it had been about 13 weeks since my boxes were picked up, I had been wrongly overcharged and I had very scarce information on the status of my move as well as on how to proceed once things arrived in Korea.
From the unfolding of events up to here, it is not very hard to realize that costumer service is/was not GOF's main priority (and of any of the companies mentioned above). Finally on May 19th I received an email from GOF stating that my shipment was scheduled to arrive on May 28th.
At around that time I had also diligently paid the allegedly corrected balance for my move, based on the new third party measurement done in LA (149 CBF). At the time I also received the contact information for the Korean company (Ahjin transportation) in charge of handling my shipment though customs and delivering it. I must note that once I began dealing with the international relocation consultant from Ahjin transportation I was treated very politely and fairly. None of my questions at that point were left unanswered and I thank them for their frankness.
Needless to say however, my shipment was still with GOF, and through the Korean company I heard that my shipment was delayed once more and would arrive only on April 4th. When the shipment finally arrived in my doorsteps on April 12, and after I thought all the worse in moving experience that could have happened was left behind, I fell in disbelief when I found that a large portion of my boxed items were covered in fine mold (left me sneezing for a couple of days) which had damaged a large number of my irreplaceable original photo slides. Furthermore, before opening the boxes, I neatly stacked them up in a cube and measured the volume and found that, once again, I had been overcharged by GOF, although this time the volume measurement I got was a lot closer to what was re-estimated (133CBF).
After carefully taking pictures with a tape measure (a volume measurement is fundamentally an extremely simple procedure and shouldn't be a matter of argument to begin with, especially if you have well documented evidence, but must be done properly in order to avoid errors.; i.E. Boxes must be stacked up neatly into a roughly uniform cube) I felt ready to deal with GOF once again. I mentioned the overestimation, sent photos, asked for insurance info for claiming my damaged slides, and their reply was inconclusive and stated that my inquiry would be forwarded to the appropriate department; it took another month (!) for claims department to finally get in touch with me.
At the time, I had already directly submitted my claim to the insurance company myself, and was promptly and politely attended, but still needed assistance from GOF with regards to the difference in measurements. My argument was simple: Look, I have done a measurement and carefully took photos that provide an irrefutable source of evidence that I had done them correctly and I get 133CBF, while you are charging me for 149CBF without any source of evidence other than your word and reputation. Why isn't my request reasonable?
I must say that customer service has recently made an effort to assist me or at least listen to me, they even apologized for the inconvenience caused during my relocation, but failed to understand my rightful request and failed to accept my complaints as an unsatisfied customer. All my claims regarding shipment volume and staff attitude were taken with incredulity and disbelief, although it is clear that I have all the correspondence from the very beginning properly archived and have reported actual facts with absolutely no reason to make up a story.
It certainly has not been a good moving experience (I was overcharged, had some goods damaged, and my delivery was delayed considerably, amongst other things) and GOF seems to hold tight to their principles (or lack thereof) and appears not to be in the way of improving this (not in my case at least).
Finally, I must say that I do not believe that GOF is out there to purposefully hurt customers and take advantage of them but it is clear that they appear to adhere to a set of inflexible guidelines that don't leave them room to admit their own mistakes or listen to customers.in this process, customer relations and care becomes severely impaired or neglected.
Andre
Ansan
South Korea
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