Sea & Air International

This is the most dishonest company that I have ever dealt with in my entire life. In my life I have moved from Rio de Janeiro to Paris and back, from Rio to Toronto and back and, recently, from NYC to Rio. I contact Sea & Air on September, 2018 for a quote to ship my things from NYC to Rio in October. I got an answer from Jon Smith, which is the most disgusting person I have ever interacted with, a liar, and he sent me a quote of US$1, 845 + insurance. It was slightly cheaper than sending everything by plane but (i) because I would still have to find a place to live in Rio and (ii) given my (good) past experience sending things by sea I thought it would be a good idea to use this 8-10 weeks shipment. Because of my past experience, I asked Jon many times by email (attention: not once but many times) about any possible extra cost I might have and every time he guaranteed me that that was it: US$1, 845 + insurance and no extra cost at all. On the day of scheduled for pick-up, two rude people showed up and took my stuff and from there it was one problem after the other. The first problem that shower up only after we had signed the contract and our things in their possession was that I would be forced to hire another company to which my things would sent in Rio and, obviously, pay a lot of many to have my things. I argued that Jon had never said anything about that before even though I had asked about it. He only mentioned this after the contract was signed. In many exchanged emails he simply said that there was nothing he could do. So I studied about international shipments and talked to my father, who is a lawyer, and answered back that what Sea & Air was doing was illegal and I would sue them . After that, Jon told me that "my situation" was analyzed by the owner of the company and that they would "open an exception for me". So, I said let's move on, I want to pay for the insurance. The answer from Jon is that, in my case, they could not offer insurance because they would not deliver my things to my home but only until the port. I shower him all his previous emails and quotes that had insurance included and asked him if he was crazy, besides dishonest. He answer that he had made a mistake and that he would talk to insurance company to open another exception form me… He did get the insurance company to give me quote that basically didn't cover anything. Even if they threw my boxes from the ship into the ocean I would not be able to claim anything given the amount of exceptions and "not covered items". The departure from NYC was delayed 3 times and the 5-8 weeks time to receive my thing is long gone and I still don't have them (today is 01/05/2019). But the worst was still to come. A few day ago I received a call from a woman named Isis Melo, from a company called Vanguard, which I had never heard of, saying that for me to be able to gat my things I would have to pay them additional US$500.00. I was obviously upset and explained to her that Sea & Air had guaranteed me that there would be no extra cost and that I had never heard of them. She went on too explain me step by step what was going on with my shipment and suddenly asked me how much I had payed ro Sea & Air. I told her US$1845, 00 and she said "well, you see, they only payed us US$415.00 and we still have to pay for space in the ship" among other things. At this point, after a miscarriage and overwhelming stress I decided to just pay and get this over with but… this was not the end. I still have to pay another US$500.00 to another company to handle my things in the port of Rio and another US$500.00 to another company to deal with the bureaucracy. It didn't matter that I asked Jon in at least 4 different emails about extra cost (that he always said would not happen), I am now having to pay an additional US$1500.00 (almost as much as I payed to Sea & Air) to retrieve my things that are in their possession. These people are dishonest, liars, misleading. This company should be shut down and never allowed to rob people as did with me. I am preparing to sue them to get my money back but, in addition to that, I want to let as many people as possible know what they do to their customers so they will not fall into this trap that I have. Don't hire Sea & Air, they are little cheaper at first but in the end you will pay twice as much and you will go through a LOT of stress. Do yourself a favor and hire a serious company that treats its clients with respect and honesty. Sea and air is garbage. Specifically, don't accept any information or quotes from Jon Smith, who is incompetent and dishonest (other people answered my emails too, like Yaniv Risman and Julie Nagar but no one seemed interested in fixing the situation).