Red_V_Roger

Sorry to read your story and hope it gets sorted...but can't help having a bit of a laugh at 'Burke Bros' !

sharonm5

i feel for you too! I shipped my sea freight in May, I should get it next week. Allfreight stated that they asked me for my arrival date in Oz, and that is the dtae that they calculate their timing form. Same as my air freight. When i was calculating dtaes from the day I paid them to be waiting for me/on its way by the time I arrived!

carolinephillips

I have every sympathy with those who have not got their stuff- WHERE IS MY STUFF? We had date of 26th Sept for arrival, then the French went on strikeand held up the ship. Latest date is now 26th October, and then it has to go through Sydney customs.
I am camping, having borrowed stuff from all my daughter's classmates, and the school have lent us tables, chairs and crockery etc.I have also spent about $700 buying some essentials, but can't wait to get my own stuff- especially the summer clothes and shoes, and my OH is desperate for his pillow ( support for neck) which cost nearly £100 in the uk.
Caroline

Rainydaze

Yes, sorry to hear about your problems, our shipment has also been delayed. We are using plastic knives and forks cos there's no point in paying for stainless steel ones if you have a decent set on the way. Makes me feel like I'm living on an aeroplane.

BTW where is your stuff docking? We've been told to explect delays at AQIS in Sydney at the moment, because they have quite a backlog to get through

carolinephillips

I think it's there -even more great news huh?:curse:

Disco01

Why don''t you have a word with other shippers local to you? See if they can get your goods picked up and demand your money back.
There are ships leaving weekly for Australia if Burke Brothers can't load their own container surely they can co-load with another shipper....
Just a thought!

MarkMC

After many phone calls and emails they got our stuff on a ship that weekend, it is due to dock at Sydney on the 23rd November.
No one will answer me when i ask them why no one informed us of this delay all i have had is we had a falling out with the company that own the ship so we never sent your belonging. No one will say why it was just left to sit there for another six weeks, there international shipping manager was mean't to be getting in touch with me that was a month ago and still no sign of him.
I'm sick of chasing them, when they wanted my business i would get 3 phone calls a day from them but once they have your money you don't hear from them again.
Just hoping we maybe lucky and have our stuff for Christmas but it is looking unlikely

lastone

Had to laugh at that like.

sub

What an absolute nightmare for you, youve every right to be mad!
Great how they tell you one thing, take your money and do the opposite!
Flippin gits!!:curse:

Think after reading this and many threads like it, I shall get off plane and go to the nearest Ikea and buy essential stuff cheapily, with the money I was gonna give to an incompetent shipping company!!!!

RobertC

We are planning to get some quotes now and Burke Brothers have been crossed off our list already.

Thanks for sharing your experiences.

carolinephillips

Got my stuff- have finally unpacked the last box- the shippers didn't have enough surfaces to unpack onto-now I have to find places for it all, and fill in insurance claims forms.
Our dining table is scratched badly and a chair has split across the back, some plastic stuff has warped or broken and one glass, but overall not too bad. The worst thing is that all our furniture seems to have shrunk- it looks tiny in the lounge area! We also need to buy some bookcases and a third tv ( for the annexe) and somewhere to store all our cd/dvds.

emelems

My sympathies! Look, I know its a pain (we've been in our rental for 4 weeks and our container is still at sea... will arrive in about 3-4 weeks hopefully) but looking at it from a practical level here is a few words of surivival!

Get to Big W and they do reasonably priced blow up beds for the interim... they also do reasonably priced camping chairs (about 10 dollars) so you have something to sit on... we've taken our laptops so we have the internet (!) and the kids can watch some DVDs or downloads from UKNova... if you can do that, then I would recommend.. we also have got a camping style table... we should, looking back on it, have bought our ourdoor furniture and used that (in other words not stuff that we already have, but stuff that we will prob use)..

Pots and pans, plates etc etc, again, Big W or K Mart.. quite reasonable.. we were thrifty in that we only bought 4 of each and a couple of pans.. and we get by... its not fantastic, but its quite do-able and we spend a lot of time sitting outside on the camping chairs in the breeze drinking wine out of our plastic wine glasses bought for when we go out and about (ie, not glass and reusable") ! or just get out and explore!.. can't say we have any pets so not sure what to recommend on that level!

Suppose you have to put a spin on this situation and try and look at it like as an adventure... even bad experiences are interesting to say the least!

Thats how we are coping until our stuff gets here!

As to your shippers... I am sticking up my 2 fingers in honor of their incompetence! nightmare for you !

Em x

foxy_rich

I've had the same problem for a shared container, not with that company though. Packers took my stuff on Sept 24th and apparently it sat in the docks until this Wednesday. It's now on a ship, due to arrive in Adelaide on New Year's Day. Plus 2/3 weeks for customs etc, it'll be 4 months.

Very frustrating, even more so as there is little you can actually do about it

mi5agent

We used John Mason from Liverpool after checking on the forum - search "Shippers" will find a raft of information.
JM packed all our gear really well. Cannot comment of arrival, coz it aint due yet.

We decided not to ship out our car...and was well and truly shystered by car dealers in selling for cash.
Decided not to ship out furniture after costing a full container and cost of buying new stuff here. In fact we only shipped out two settee's coz they cost an arm and leg! The rest was LCD TV's computer (4) sewing and embroidery machines and other personal stuff - like about a 1000 books!

MarkMC

An update -

After Kerry kicked off at them:

Burke Bros - told us that the container was on a boat and was due in on 23rd November, they have even given us a boat name, container number etc. All of the details were in a spreadsheet and looked quite official. We managed to find a web site and track the ship and it was in Sydney earlier this week

Anyhow we have been in touch with Hellas in Sydney who are very helpful, thay have been in touch with Burke Bros and our stuff is not even on that ship, so Burke Bros have told us another load of bo~~ox to keep us quiet for a little longer.:curse::curse:

"Burke" being the right name for that bunch of expletives.