Do Not Use Omega Shipping

Original Author: Amanda from Wellsville, PA
Occurred In: Vienna, Virginia

Hi - I just wanted to warn anyone that was moving to Turkey and thinking about using Omega Shipping (located in New Jersy USA omegashipping.com)
My family and I moved to Turkey about 5 months ago from the USA. It was a company paid move but we were required to find a shipper.
I researched moving companies on the internet and sent out several bids for quotes, one of the companies I sent a bid request to was Omega Shipping.
After receiving my request, their sales person Micheal called me 3-4 times every day asking me if I had choosen a shipper yet.
He seemed very nice and very attentive.
There price was not the lwest, or the highest, but I thought it was fair and I thought if he was calling as much as he was that we would be in good hands.
We signed the contract and paid the 25% down.
The very next day all tlephones calls stopped.

My shipping date was in 3 weeks, I was not contacted at all during this time.
Several times I called Micheal and left messages on his voicemail asking if there were any documents I needed to prepare either here or in Turkey.
After a couple of days he finally called me back and assured me we needed to do NOTHING, our items would be picked up at our door and delivered to our door in Turkey, no problems, and again, NOTHING we needed to do.At 9PM the night before my pick up date, the driver called me to tell me he would be at my home at 9AM.
I said that was fine. An hour later he called back and said he would be there at 3PM, again, I said that was fine.
The day of the pick up they did not show up at 3PM, 4PM or 5PM.
I tried calling the cell the driver gave me, but noone answered.
Finally, at 6PM they called me and told me they would be at my home at 6:30.
When they arrived, the driver and 2 guys came in.
They took 5 minutes to walk around my apartment and then told me they did not have enough space left in the truck, they would come back tomorrow morning at 9AM and that I would be their first stop and they left.
The next day they did not come at 9, 10, 11 or 12. Finally around 1PM the driver called me and told me they would be at my home at 3 PM, they got there at 4:30 PM.
It took them less than an hour to load my items (mainly boxes and a couch and chair were the only pieces of furniture - we were not shipping that much).
A few days later I received a call from the accounting department at Omega Shipping and was told they weighed my items and it would be 2000 more than the original estimate.
I was shocked and upset, becasue we were not shipping that many things and already the quote was around 4000.
I called Micheal several times to talk to him and each time he said he was having his manager check it out.
Finally after several days and several telephone calls, I called and told Micheal to forget everything and just bring my items back.
Ten minutes later his manager Joe called and said he had personally went to the warehouse himself and weighed the items and I was correct, they were overcharging me that I should not be charged for extra weight.
He did say though that he needed to charge me $350 for packing materials (they wrapped my sofa and chair in some type of paper material).
I agreed to pay the $350 and told him how important it was that my items be in Turkey when I arrived, in a month.
He again told me there would be no problems and that we needed to do absolutely nothing, Omega shipping would handle everything.
We paid for door to door shipping from Virginia USA to Adana, Turkey.

Around June 10th we received a telephone call stating our items were in Istanbul (they should have been sent to Mersin).
My husband was told he needed to fly to Istanbul and fill out paperwork.
Due to my husband's job position, he was inable to go to Istanbul.
Istanbul started making demands. They told us several documents we needed to get, they wanted my husband's US passport, when we would send them papers, the next day they would give us a list of 5 more papers we needed to get, stamped and translations.
THey also wanted papers from the US government.
During this time I called Omega shipping.
I had been told their agent in Turkey would handle any paperwork or anything that needed to be done.
Their agent NEVER contacted us.
He NEVER helped us at all.
Everything was left to us.
Anyone who has had to get any type of paperwork done in Turkey knows it is an all day adventure to get one paper completed.
You need to go to several offices, see several people and pay moeny. It is not an easy thing.
My husband is Turkish and it was even difficult for us.
This went on for 2 MONTHS! During this time, no one from Omega Shipping helped us or called us at all.
I emailed Omega Shipping and called them on a daily basis, no called me back.
Whenever I did get to talkt o a person and not voice mail I was told someone would research and get back to me.
Finally I reached the owner of Omega shipping.
A receptionist had given me his cell number and I called him all day and left 11 messages.
During this time, all our items were in Istanbul and they were charging us daily to store the items.
Finally I called the owner and he answered the phone. He told me in no uncertain terms was there anything he was going to do to help us.
He admitted it was Omega's mistake that our items were shipped to Istanbul and not Adana.
He told me the agent in Turkey should have been helping us and if he was not that was not his problem, we would need to contact the agent in Turkey (when we contacted the agent in Turkey he told us there was nothing he could do we had to contact Omega).
He told me he had my money (approx. $5500) and he wasn't going to do anything and hung up the phone on me.
I tried to call since and cannot get anyone.
Finally we had to pay $5000 to someone in Istanbul to release our items.
Omega shipping is a rip off and horrible.

My recommendation is not to ship anything to Turkey - bring a few suitcases full of things and start new here.
Shipping is a extremely expensive and complicated.
When we received our items most of our glassware, plates etc were broken.
All the boxes were cut open and squashed.
I had to rewash all of the linens and close because boxes were open and dirt and dust had gotten in.
Several boxes and items were missing.
Someone slashed the back of our couch open with a boxcutter.
It was horrible - do not ship anything! Save yourself time, money and sanity! If you do need to ship, please do not use Omega shipping.