Deltrans S.A

Price gougers.
Hired them to handle my family's big move to Ecuador, one full size container carrying my family's goods as well as a car.
The point person who was supposed to give me information and instructions on how to do it communicated very poorly. His lack of information cost us hundreds, later on his inability to do his job properly almost cost us thousands. We were taken in by their unrealistic quotes and wound up paying 150% of what they quoted us, costing us over $5,000 more than anticipated.

In no order, their major failings.
The point person took a very long time to answer my questions over text, and he frequently ignored questions altogether. When I called, he'd give me very little information and end the call as quickly as possible.

The company's quote told us we had 3 hours to load the container, and what each extra hour would cost. They decided after our stuff was gone that actually we had had 2 hours to load the container, and they increased how much we paid for each extra hour.

They changed the day we loaded the container nearly last minute. This meant we needed to postpone our flight by a day two days before the flight, which was costly.

While loading the container, they informed me they needed to change the shipping line that would be carrying the container. They however, failed to inform me that this made their quote essentially worthless. According to them, the new shipping line charged more and allowed less time for our container to remain in the destination port (went from about a month to less than a week). I believe this may have been a ruse to get more money from me.
When I complained that they neglected to inform me the change of shipping line would cost more, the point person insisted they had. I asked him to show me when and he never did. When I told him I looked over every email and chat communication we'd had, he told me his chat history had been erased.

After everything was moved, I talked to somebody with experience with shipments in the destination port in question, and she said no shipping line gives about a month for the container to stay in port without charging extra. She said the shipping line that wound up carrying our container was among the least expensive ones available. She believed the original quote was a complete and unrealistic fabrication.

While packing and making an itemized list for what we would put on the container, the instructions I was given said nothing about what to do with items that wouldn't be in boxes (such as furniture). I sent the Deltrans point person my packing list as it was (with the unboxed items in a separate category), and he said it was fine. When I asked about the unboxed items, he dismissively said it was all fine. Unfortunately it wasn't fine, as it turns out that customs required all unboxed items to be marked with their corresponding number from the packing list. This cost us several hours on the destination port during the customs inspection, when we had to find all unlabeled items and tape the appropriate number on them.

When I needed to present myself at customs, the company asked me to provide the list I made of all the items in the container. They used this list to create a 'proper' packing list to present to customs. However, several pages in, the list was so badly formatted it was unreadable, none of the columns lined up. It was so bad the customs representative inspecting the contents of the container refused to continue her inspection, telling me I'd have to come back another day with a better list. This would have cost me another flight to the destination city, as well as several more days for the container to sit at dock, easily costing thousands of dollars. Fortunately, I had my own list I had made myself, and the customs representative agreed to use that list.

After the inspection, the customs representative provided a Deltrans worker with updates I needed to make to the paperwork before our container would be approved to leave the port. As soon as I was informed, I made the changes. The following business day, I took all the paperwork to the notary, got it notarized, and shipped (for a total of over $100. As soon as I did so, I notified the Deltrans point person, who proceeded to tell me there was another item I needed to change they failed to tell me about earlier. I had to make the new change, notarize again, and ship (again, for over $100) due to that slipup. Minor compared to other mistakes, but still very annoying as getting things notarized here can take a good chunk of one's day.

After all this, when it was time to pay Deltrans before my container would be removed from the port, the bill I received, summed up with other bills I had already paid Deltrans, added up to over 150% of what was originally quoted, about $5000 more than we were told we'd need to pay. When I complained about this the rep, for some reason, sent me the invoices to the shipping company they'd hired to take our belongings and the shipping line that transported the container to show me the costs Deltrans had to pay. It was clear looking at the invoices there were some major markups Deltrans was charging us, as the invoices added up to a fraction of what we were being charged. When I mentioned this, the Deltrans point person told me they'd reimburse us an undisclosed amount for our troubles. He also explained that one of the charges was paying ahead for the container rental, and as long as we gave it back before the rented date we'd be reimbursed for the unused days. Of course, once the container was given back, the Deltrans rep ghosted us. We never got the reimbursement he promised, or the reimbursement for the container being given back early. Not that I'd expect it, as this was very much par for the course with the company.

I highly do not recommend this company if you have any love at all for your money or your time. Do not believe their quotes as they are too good to be true, and the people they employ are neither professional nor capable of doing their job properly.Leer más