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US Shipper Recommendation

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83xlx
  4/4/2019 15:51 EST

We are relocating from the US to Uruguay in the next few months. Have any US Expats had a good experience with a shipper on the US end that could be recommended? We have two 20-foot shipping containers that we will pack ourselves.

HHISCUS
  4/4/2019 16:13 EST

Hello 83xlx! My husband and I moved less than a year ago from SC to Buenos Aires. It was not easy to find a good shipper that would also offer decent rates. Since you are moving from US to Uruguay, I recommend a shipping company based in FL and make sure they are BBB certified. I will not recommend the one I used, since they gave me LOADS of headaches, but thanks to the BBB, I managed to defeat them. Good luck!!

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Mobility LC is committed to work hard to make your Uruguayan immigration and relocation process a reality. We can provide you with the best local contacts and will guide you all the way through the process offering support in 5 different languages. Your success is our personal goal.

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Mobility LCMobility LC

Mobility LC is committed to work hard to make your Uruguayan immigration and relocation process a reality. We can provide you with the best local contacts and will guide you all the way through the process offering support in 5 different languages. Your success is our personal goal.
Connect

Click connect to have our partner contact you via e-mail and/or phone.

sylk
  4/4/2019 16:50 EST

where are you starting from (in the US)?

Expat91364
  4/4/2019 16:55 EST

Ask Uruvan in Montevideo if they have a preferred shipper they work with. Uruvan is tops on this end.

Take care with the packing it yourself as the shipper has to provide the list (translated into spanish) of everything you are packing and it can be down to the box number. Also many shippers will not insure 1 items they did not pack and 2 accept containers they did not load, as the contents can shift on the high seas and can be dangerous.

My US shipper would not allow it and insisted as well on packing anything fragile but since they were absolutely terrible at packing, I kicked them off the job and packed it all myself and had zero damage. I also took a lot of photos which was helpful when customs questions a few items on my packing list.

sylk
  4/4/2019 17:05 EST

we shipped a 40 foot container from San Francisco last August - i am private messaging you some info.
Good luck - all went well with us. We packed ourselves and had no problems with either the ship or customs, but maybe we had a magic (and cheap! despachante!)

Vortice
  4/6/2019 08:05 EST

I second the "pack the boxes yourself" strategy. We lined the cardboard boxes with a second internal box to make them stronger for stacking. I thought all shippers framed a wood floor at 4 ft high to stack boxes below and above, but our shipper simply stacked everything 8 ft tall so I was very glad that I reinforced the box sides. Of 442 boxes/items we broke only one plate that had been cracked upon packing. I would have liked to pack the containers myself, but as previously mentioned, that cannot happen. They did not pack the sea kayaks on top of everything as requested and the double kayak was seriously deformed. In spite of boxes being clearly marked with UP arrows, many were packed on their sides, so the large format printer leaked all its' ink and was ruined. At least the ink did not leak out of the box. All in all the move went well and one must expect some minimal damage from such a huge endevour. Packing materials are expensive and need disposal at the other end. For this reason I used a large number of toilet paper rolls as packing which worked well and they certainly have use at the other end ;-)

Mobility LCMobility LC
Connect

Mobility LC is committed to work hard to make your Uruguayan immigration and relocation process a reality. We can provide you with the best local contacts and will guide you all the way through the process offering support in 5 different languages. Your success is our personal goal.

Click connect to have our partner contact you via e-mail and/or phone.

Mobility LCMobility LC

Mobility LC is committed to work hard to make your Uruguayan immigration and relocation process a reality. We can provide you with the best local contacts and will guide you all the way through the process offering support in 5 different languages. Your success is our personal goal.
Connect

Click connect to have our partner contact you via e-mail and/or phone.

alfista1
  4/12/2019 14:27 EST

Woww I thought we had a lot of boxes/items. Only 180 in a 20ft container. Loads of appliances and furniture though so did fill it quite well.

We forgot which box our son's school shoes and books were in though. Took us 2 weekends sorting through them at puntabox to find a few items we needed for him. They packed everything so fast at our home that it was a blurr and didn't have time to note everything. We had URUVAN pick up our container from customs and deliver it to puntabox directly. All smooth luckily.

Morell
  4/13/2019 10:01 EST

This was posted recently on a Facebook site.
Might be of interest for someone.

"It's crucial to understand that you have 6 months to import your stuff and it´s counting from the last time you enter the country before starting the immigration process. If you arrive months before you start the application for residency, it will complicate the importing of your stuff. You have to consider that you have to make a booking of the shipping of your stuff and it can take a couple of months to arrive. Also you might not be able to get an appointment with DNM (migration office) until three months after you make the booking. So all factored in, you risk loosing the opportunity to import your stuff. It's not enough to just go to your country and back, they didn't accept that in our case, you actually have to have left for some time to your country and come back. To extend your possibility to get your stuff here, you might want to go back home for a time and return to the country just before the meeting with the migrations (DNM)."

Vortice
  4/14/2019 07:02 EST

We had made a number of 2 week trips back to the states and they used the last trip to start the 6 mo clock, as we had already lived here a year and a half. I would add that we were told that there must be no change in your immigration status before your shipment arrives. Your stuff needs to arrive while you are a "residente en tramite". We're thrilled to have picked up our "residente legal" cedulas last week!

dawsonpointers
  5/13/2019 16:46 EST

We moved from Canada to UY. We used, and highly recommend, Alejandra Briano Moving and Relocation. http://www.ab.com.uy/en/
IMHO it is advisable to make the shipping arrangements from the receiving (UY) end because they work with customs here daily. AB made the contacts in Canada for us. We had a 3 step move because we were in a location in Northern Ontario. AB did a great job. I would say that I disagree with packing yourself. We had ZERO breakage and loss and the most important part, the inventory, was done by the shipper which I think makes a difference at customs.

Mobility LC
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Mobility LCMobility LC

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