Sooo, don't ever use this company...

[SkylineObsession]

http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/360453/cost-after-cost-stranded-container

That's my step mum, father and half sister.

Cost after cost after fricking cost they've had to go through just to get their belongings.
Effectively they are paying all the bills the company should have paid when they gave the company their money to ship their belongings, but because the company didn't pay anyone (not even insurance, so if it went overboard they woulda lost everything with no compensation), they are having to borrow money to pay themselves. I've given them $4,000 of my savings, and my wife took out a $2,000 loan and lent them $400 of her own money. But the costs are still coming in!!

Fumigation turned out to be $500 something, and now the moving company (i think?) want $2,000 for something, PLUS they still have to fork out $400-$2,500 (depending whether renting a truck or paying a company) to get their belongings to their house 500km's away.

They are mega stressed out, beyond being at their wits end, and i've already given as much as i think i can. I contacted the newspaper, gave them money, tried to spread the word further, tried using people i know to get things cheaper (didn't work) and so on.

Maritime commission in the USA is sending in their big guns i think (and shutting the company down?), because even they can't get hold of them.

A huge frigging mess, and not a very nice 'Welcome to New Zealand' for my step mum and sister. :down:

Any ideas mega welcome...

Someone in my step mums family started a money raising page. They intend on paying us back our money, but not sure how the people on the site would be paid back, unless you can leave details on it?
If any of you have a couple of dollars spare, it could go a long way. https://www.gofundme.com/gz6pj6ps

So sorry for posting that link up, but it's pretty much my last ditch effort to help them - i've completely run out of ideas, since the newspaper idea didn't garner as much response as i thought/hoped it might (was hoping a truck company would pop up and offer to transport their belongings down for free, or at a mega discounted rate).

[Yw-slayer]

Swift are NJ based, right? Why not contact US lawyers? The lawyers would probably be able to negotiate a contingency fee arrangement for getting an injunction on the company, which they'd have to honour if their director wants to stay out of jail.

[SkylineObsession]

Assumedly that would cost a bit of money, and take a while to process? Or am i thinking about suing? Dad was saying the other day how suing someone isn't as easy as it seems to us outside of the USA, in that it can take months or years to finally get to court, and cost thousands.

If not, i'll suggest it to them. :)

http://www.swiftintermove.com/

[thesameguy]

There are a lot of angles to look at, but given they've got their stuff back, what's the goal? Penalize the company? Get all the money back? Get some?

[SkylineObsession]

They don't have their stuff back, it is still with the moving company. :(

Then they have to chase the company up to get their money reimbursed so that we can all be paid back.

[thesameguy]

Oh, the article said they paid the shipping company but were waiting on a fumigation... they still don't have possession?

Getting money back is going to be a letter-writing/public smear/maybe FTC or FBI job. I don't think it would be useful to hire an attorney, there isn't much money on the table. Although, I guess if the lawyer manages to get $20k and takes a 30% fee they still have $12k they'd didn't have before, so maybe. I would start by getting a snapshot of the company - is it incorporated, properly licensed, private vs public. Knowing what the company's assets are will help get an idea of their ability to pay. You can pay a lawyer to do that, but you can probably do most of the legwork without one.

[SkylineObsession]

Yeah shipping company is paid, but now it is with, or nearly with, the moving company (who were only going to move it half an hour to an hour away to Dad's brothers place).

The newspaper wants to do a follow up story too, but at the moment no-ones really offered much help,. possibly because of how they ended the article with Vanguard saying 'its up to the customer to contact Swift, and then we can reimburse'. It was mentioned IN the article that NO-ONE can get hold of Swift. Not my family, not the US Maritime commission, not the local newspaper. When reading the last part of it, even i thought "Oh, so its up to the family to contact Swift then, i don't need to help in any way".

After all this is said and done, i hope there's still a way we can spread to word or do something to try fix the stress levels etc that they've had to endure. Maybe via legal action as you mentioned.

[Yw-slayer]

I'm not qualified in NZ or US law so these are just some thoughts and TSG's first statement is correct.

US lawyers may work on contingency fees. The main point is that if you desperately want the stuff you can pay a lawyer to ask the courts to force the company to pay vanguard, or go to jail for contempt if they fail to comply. At least the threat of jail puts things in perspective even if you might not necessarily end up wanting to fund the contempt proceedings.

One alternative might be to pay vanguard the fees on behalf of swift and sue Swift for the money. You'd probably need a lawyer to advise on that anyway, but it should be straightforward. The risk is that swift is going under anyway and you'll be left with nothing. Although you may be able to get an order prohibiting the officers from being directors or holding similar positions in the future, or to be jailed for trading while insolvent, again it depends who'll fund the litigation relating to those orders.

BTW the funding page might also have legal implications as to damages or litigation funding. So I a lot depends on what they want to achieve (i.e. How far they want to go) and how much money they want to go about doing it. If you lawyer up then someone's going to have to pay. PT you could get your belongings and leave the US authorities and publicity to sort it out.

[speedpimp]

Their Yelp (http://www.yelp.com/biz/swift-international-logistics-inc-west-orange) page. Unfortunately your sister isn't the first to experience this rip off.