When Rebekah and I moved to Oslo from the US, Rebekah's father was kind enough to ship some of our belongings here. Due to some Christmas travel plans, nothing was shipped until mid-December, to arrive mid-January. We arrived in October and knew it would be a long wait until January, but we were up for it and were thankful that we'd have our things at all.
Mid-January arrived and we hadn't received any word from the shipping company, so I did a quick Google search to find their phone number. That's when I came across a group of results saying never to do business with them. Nevertherless, I was optimistic and I attempted to contact them, but no one answered their phones and they didn't respond to voicemails.
The company in question is none other than Worldwide Relocations, Inc.. Do not do business with them. They will charge you much more than quoted and never deliver your belongings. If you value your things, ship with someone else.
Worldwide Relocations is operating out of Florida. They don't travel all over the US to package and ship goods, rather they contract with a local companies. Those companies package everything up and ship the belongings overseas. I figure that Worldwide Relocations collects money from their customers, but never pays the local contractor, so nothing gets shipped.
For the past couple of months, we've been trying to get in touch with them. We once received an e-mail reply saying they would look into our case and get back to us, which they never did. Finally, Rebekah's mother took it upon herself to get The Law™ involved. She contacted the FBI, the Federal Maritime Commission, local law enforcement, and even the Senator in the area where Worldwide Relocations is located.
Today, Rebekah's mom got a call from the Federal Maritime Commission. They found our stuff! Sure enough, it's been locked away in a warehouse in Silver Springs, Maryland. She's working out the details now, but our things should be shipped soon! Hopefully, we'll have everything in time for my birthday. It would be a great present, indeed.
Note: Comments with a light blue background were made by the site owner.
At last! :)
Better late than never, I guess... but it's pretty amazing that this company hasn't been shut down a loooong time ago!
Getting the FBI involved? No
Getting the FBI involved? Now, THAT's what I like to hear!
Seriously though, congratulations on making headway with your stuff. And can I suggest also contacting the Better Business Bureau, and local news organizations? Many television affiliates run consumer segments where stuff like this would fit in, and newspapers might run columns or print letters to the editor. Good luck!
We have contacted a local new
We have contacted a local news group. The BBB doesn't have any power, so there's not much they could really do against a company that's clearly ripping people off.
Ouch
Good thing I moved my stuff myself when I moved to Norway. But then again, moving stuff from Sweden to Norway isn't all too difficult anyway.
man,
and i thought our last name had it bad with missing bottom buns from chicken sammiches and taco bell being out of beef.
i'm happy you posted and that you posted... semi-happy-ness.
hey - guess what?! TRISHA'S MARRIED! :D i hafta go pay her toyota bill now for her new maryland-plated car. oh, the shame.
alright, really, i have nothing interesting to say. i will hopefully be e-mailing out pix later this week, so keep a sharp eye. (if you keep a sharp eye, can you poke your eye out with your eye?)
Guess what? I'll be back in
Guess what? I'll be back in the States for a week in a month! :)
:D
i know!
very excited - we are TOTALLY doing something (maybe this time not losing angie in the mall...) when you get here. where're you staying (so i have a number to reach you and bug you at)? and guess what? you would TOTALLY (i'm having a TOTALLY day... sorry) love the church i'm going to now. it's an ev. free church... with a bell choir. aww, yeah. anyway, now i'm gonna go read and comment on your other post. (pssst... angie and amy and diane and LOTS of other people graduate this weekend. so scary.)
What's even scarier is that o
What's even scarier is that one of the newer Opera volunteers is an LC graduate and Teresa Hanley's sister! Small, small world.
And we're staying with Rebekah's 'rents. Maybe when we move back to the States we can check out your church. :) Oh wait, it's in NOVA, isn't it? :P
alright, mr. jerkwadheadface,
cast all the aspersions you want. i can still sing the totally Christian 'my church is way cooler than your church, so nanny nanny boo boo' song. and that's really weird that teresa's sister is there - i just watched teresa graduate! coolness, but weirdness.
p.s. kingdom of heaven is actually not a bad movie, though it really is very "lord of the rings 4: legolas defends jerusalem" as that critic guy said. it has some seriously false undertones of 'Christianity and islam are the same religion' in it. and, unfortunately but probably very historically accurately, almost all the Christians in the movie were either ignorant or jerks. and, for anyone who's watched star trek: deep space nine, check out dr. bashir as an arab (he was actually born in sudan, i found out). and, don't fail to recognize (as i did) mr. edward norton as the king of england.
Teresa's sister isn't here, s
Teresa's sister isn't here, she works with us remotely.
Rebekah and I saw Kingdom of Heaven last weekend and liked it. We thought Legolas was very level-headed and had the right goals.
Legolas
Is it just me, or does he just look skeevy with dark, curly hair, vs. like a sweet cherub as Legolas?
It's just you.
It's just you.
about mr. bloom,
i went to see kingdom of heaven with bayo (our africa liaison) and afterward i was commenting on how funny it was that both orlando bloom (aka legolas) and marton csokas (aka celeborn... galadriel's boyfriend/husband/whatever he is) are in another movie together. bayo gave me the funniest look and said something along the lines of, "orlando bloom wasn't in lord of the rings!" wow, i hadn't laughed that hard in a while. obviously, the orlando hype wasn't as big in africa as it was here...
and, although there's no dictionary definition for "skeevy," i'd hafta agree. he just looks unhappy as a brunette, and who can blame him after having experienced being blonde? :D
ummm,
so when i said "king of england" about mr. norton, i meant "king of jerusalem". oopies. but that makes me feel a little better, 'cause i did find myself going, "whose voice is that?" during the movie. i am not as big an idiot as i thought! woohoo! and i'm at work today - yippee!
Pictures
You can see pictures of my poor parents loading up our stuff in our gallery.