Gatewaymovingcr

I used this company a few times prior to my last move from Costa Rica to the USA in April 2023. Everything initially went well and I was pleased with each step of their process. Come moving day the team arrived on time and began packing my large home of personal goods. All seemed like it was going well. I had asked the owner of the company if he knew a shop that could sell my furniture on a contingency basis since I did not want to have to pay for a larger container to ship everything I owned. He told me that he would be glad to help me since I was a 77 year old disabled veteran of the USA. He told me he would not charge any storage or admin fees to store my furniture until he could sell it and I agreed to pay his company a commission. So far so good.
So his crew came and removed the furniture to be sold, and also packed up my shipment doing what appeared to be a good job. I could not be in all the rooms at the same time as they were packing up multiple rooms at the same time, so I was not there to actually watch them packing my goods. I did watch one of the packers, who did not know I could watch him from my office, removed an article from my kitchen, put it into a box and then take it to the garage where he put it in the corner of the garage and covered it up with his coat. He did not pack it and at the end of the day I watched him remove that article covered by his coat into their truck when they left...it was not packed in my boxes, so I knew he had actually taken it for himself. I said nothing because in CR it is not unusual for some things to be stolen from your shipment kind of as a reward for their poor compensation and hard work. So I said nothing about it. (My first mistake)
Alvarado had provided me with his cost of shipping total door to door minus the port costs in the USA which are standard fees that he has no control over.
When my things arrived in the USA on a timely basis and were delivered, the team that was brought in was from Nicaragua and were fast and worked hard to get everything moved into my new apartment. That went well also...
The the truth started to evolve...I started discovering there were quite a few things that were missing in my shipment, like my power tools, drill and sander, and bits, then I found my collection of sacred geometry jewelry was missing, then my crypto vaults were missing, and oh no, my laser measuring device tools were missing, and on it went, until the boxes were all unpacked and I found over $5,000 worth of articles missing from the shipment. The were separate items that were from different areas of my home and not just in one box that could have been lost in shipment but items that were part of other spaces that simply disappeared before the shipment was made.
I reported this to Alvarado, and he acted surprised and told me that he would check this out, but that was the last word I heard from him on that issue.
Then as he has taken my furniture to sell it in his company on a contingency basis, from a full house of furniture, only a couple of items were sold initially and his company paid me for it as agreed to. Then after Alvarado told me he had sold a bedroom set, in June 2023, he told me he would send me the money from that also. But until today which is 2/23/2024 he has not sent me any money for anything else he sold. I finally agreed to have him take the remainder of the furniture to another person who had agreed to sell it in her business, and he did load it up and deliver it as agreed until he told me he wanted me to pay for the moving of the furniture which he had already told me that he would not charge me for that delivery since he could not sell my things in a timely basis.
Now since he told me he had sold things but not paid me, it has continued since he sold those things to give me excuses why he could not get the money to me. It was his accounting department, it was the bank information, it was this and it was that, and promises of dates continued to flow from his mouth, but those dates came and went now since then. As of today he has told me again that I would get my money within two days, but he was now going to charge storage fees, administrative fees, handling fees, a 30% commission for selling those things and would send me what is left, which most likely will be only a bill telling me I owe him more money.
I won't say this is a scam company or scammer person. You decide for yourself that fact. I have moved over 25 times internationally and never had this kind of experience. My advise is to be wary of movers that promise things they cannot or will not deliver on. I am being forced to make formal reports to the Minister of Commerce and Minister of Haciendo in Costa Rica, and potentially police reports for theft of my property, and spreading the word on the internet about my experience to let the public be very aware of companies like this and this one in particular. What shines like gold is often fool's gold so Caveat Emptor (Buyer Beware).