Echo Trans World Inc

Please never use this company! I have recently moved back to the USA from Abu Dhabi, UAE. This company received the paperwork for the shipment at the end of July. The person in charge of our shipment, Mehdi, sat on the paperwork for 1 month. He also did not answer emails from the company that I initially worked with in Abu Dhabi. I received an email on the 21st of September stating that I needed to pay $3,187.00 to get the container out of the port. I was very surprised since we had not heard anything from Mehdi before this date. I had sent an email to him during the 3rd week of August giving him my contact details and asking when the estimated delivery date would be but received no email back. As we have found out since, Mehdi did not submit the paperwork to the port in NYC until after the 7 free days of storage and we were now being charged storage fees that were not covered in our initial contract with Abu Dhabi. Once Mehdi submitted the paperwork on the 13th of September, then the port conducted the customs exam that could have been completed in those first 7 days if Mehdi had done his job, and the paperwork was submitted on the 30th when the container arrived in the port. The container could have been released in time so that no storage fees were incurred. I tried to call the company several times to speak with Mehdi's supervisor. I left a message for someone on their answering service but never received a call back. I also asked Mehdi to send me his supervisor's information. Again no information was provided. My shipment has finally been delivered on October 22nd. Almost 2 months after arriving in NYC. In the end, we had to pay $4,400 on top of the original cost of the shipment plus the company in Abu Dhabi also had to pay close to $3,000 to get the shipment released from the port. Mehdi would not and will not take any responsibility for his negligence in this situation and now we are going to seek legal help to get the additional $4,400 we had to pay to Echo Trans World.