Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Links Moving Review

Sorry--normal readers!  I want to post a review so that others can find it on the web. 

 
In March or April of 2012 we hired Links Moving Asia to ship our household items (a full container load) from Singapore to Qingdao, China.  A very professional person came, gave a quote, and gave almost immediate feedback when e-mailed.  However, when we went to set a date for the movers to come, she no longer answered any e-mails.  After countless attempts to contact her we went through the main office and were informed that she had "left the company."  Nobody ever said a word to us. We had put down a hefty deposit and couldn't communicate with the company.  The person we talked with next had no idea of our situation and had us pack our things over a month too early.  The packers were friendly Indonesians who had all our things ready to go in a day and a half.  (The list of items in the box was really poorly done.  Sometimes they would list one our two things in a box that had 40-50 different objects.) When the day came to load our things, the truck did not come.  THIS WAS A MISTAKE!  Watch all your items being put in the container.  Some of our things went missing.  We think it was at this point.  All our things sat in the humidity and extreme heat for an extra month.  (We think this led to our Clavinova piano malfunctioning and a large crack in our leather chair.)  When we finally got all the paperwork necessary, they were not ready to ship our container.  It sat in Singapore for another three weeks.  At this point we were beyond frustrated.  Communication with the local staff was awful.  They almost never responded to e-mails.  And if they did it gave little or no information. 
When our container arrived, they had two young Chinese that did speak some English unpack the things.  They had a checklist and were supposed to help me remove all items.  After it became clear that there would not be time to unpack everything, they left. I had to rate them and sign a form saying that everything was there.  I really couldn't do this as 1/4 of the items were still boxed and/or wrapped up.  They accidentally left behind their checklist which showed three items not checked off.  They never told me that items were missing. Because I hadn't unpacked everything I had no idea what was not here.  (They also left a horrible mess of boxes, bubble wrap, and paper outside our apartment.  While they did removed it from our apartment, they literally dumped it right outside the door.  Poor service!)  When we e-mailed the staff about what was missing they had us fill out insurance forms and said they would look into it.  I honestly believe they never did.  (I've read other reviews online that say the same thing--they couldn't be bothered to look for lost boxes.)  Our boxes contained scrapbook paper, scrapbook dies and cases, China's handmade quilt (I figure I spent at least 50 hours quilting it), a teak chair, and other misc.  items.  A few months after we filed the claim and then they told us they would pay us a whopping 2 US dollars!  Unbelievable.

PLEASE avoid this shipping company.  They have poor communication, could care less about the things they are shipping, are extremely slow about getting your container on a boat, not completely honest when they lose something, and the insurance is the biggest joke I have ever seen.  Seriously, how can you e-mail some and ask them where they would like their two dollar check sent to?  Matt had it sent to Links Movers for all their services rendered.  :)

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for this post. We were almost about to use them even though we had had the same communication problems that you described already.
Now we used someone else and v happy.
MANY THANKS

Sunrise said...

I have the misfortune of using this company. I share everything you've experienced. we too have goods stolen and damaged piano. NO customer service after we signed, can't contact them on all channels. We bought insurance from them...but it was worth nothing! They have all sort of excuses when we make the claim. We got AUD$168...it will cost USD$50 to do a bank transfer!

All I can do, and I hope you will do the same...post as many post on the web to warn people away from them. And send the post links to them to make sure they know we are helping others to not engage in biz with thieves!.

God Bless
Sean

Unknown said...

We used them to store goods in SG whilst we moved to Bermuda, and after a few years to move to AU. They are awful - they 1) moved the goods to HK (without asking us) 2) lost a queen bed (the whole thing), 2 bikes broke huge amounts of items. BUT we paid for insurance - so, all good right?

No - they filled the insurance form in incorrectly, resulting in us being under-insured. This came to light when we tried to claim ... only AFTER we explained this, the adjuster penalised us 79% - so of as 12,000 AUD claim they offered 1,900!!

The customer service is crap.

The insurance adjuster is an arrogant, condescending &*(k who will do the most to avoid paying anything.

They are utter, utter *&^*(.

They never respond to phone calls, emails, anything. We finally got an offer from them for 4,500 AUD ... of a claim of 12,000 AUD ... we took it as we could not be bothered dealing with them.

In my personal opinion, they are nothing more than thieves ... they take your money, but never take any responsibility - avoid this company at all costs.

DJBLOG said...

**DO NOT USE LINKS**
I paid them to look after all my wordly possessions and ship them back to the UK. They STOLE all the expensive items and broke many of the other things. They then became impossible to deal with. If you need to contact me for proof my email is davongs@gmail.com

DJBLOG said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

Bullshit. Heard they fired 5 staffs in December 2016. And now is busy hiring back staffs. Why terminate them at the first place? There must be something fishy going on in that company. Operation manager goes by the name adnan aljunied, HR / accountant goes by the name rose derus and Country manager nick dobson. You guys better have an explaination on those acts.

Anonymous said...

They have a marketing manager named Edzel Manalang. You can contact him. Search his name on facebook