AndyD

This is much debated topic on BE, who is good and who is bad. We chose Allied Pickford's even after reading some negative reviews of them. It cost us £3600 for a 20ft container, an average price at the time.

Just like to say that the service in the Uk and especially in Australia was excellent. It was sent on the 13th Nov and arrived on the 8th Dec. It cleared Customs and quarantine and was delivered 100% undamaged (including the sofa standing upright) today at 8:30 am. So full marks to them, from a almost happy customer.

The only problem I have (nothing to do with Pickford's is that the colour is distorted on one of my 3 TV's I brought. I Know that they need to run through Fox tell or a VCR etc, but I just connected them all to a DVD player to check them. The annoying thing is that it's a newish TV out of the 3 that we brought across. Is this a problem caused by the journey and that it will right itself or I am in for a new telly?

Wendy

We've had that problem before (only moved a mile down the road?). Our Tv is now fine, no idea what happened? Took about three weeks for it to make itself right.

Hopefully yours will be the same.

Rooksie

did you use their insurance matey??

extrameant

You're bloody lucky with pickf@rds. We had a terrible experience with them. Just moved country again, used a cheap budget company this time, and...
not as bad but not great either. We were really shocked at how stupid some of the packing was. How these people call themselves professionals... At least they did pack things though, unlike Pickf@rds who just chucked everything into a container as it stood.

Anyway, TV's have little magnets round the neck to account for the local magnetic field (well CRT's do) The magnetic field is quite different in Australia to UK, and is kind of upside down. If you turn your other tellies upside down, you will see they all go funny colours too.

You can get the TV realigned no probs, but the other thing is a TV has a wire round the tube which gets mains switched to it, when you first switch on, which causes a rapidly changing magnetic field. This is meant to degauss the tube and clear the effect you are talking about. If your telly used to make a funny noise when you first switch it on for a couple of seconds, and now it doesn't, then it could be you need a repair for that (quite a cheap component)

It probably was pickf@rds fault for storing your telly upside down. Bloody pickf@rds, I'll never forgive them

AndyD

Unfortunately I did not insure the TV's.

annqldau

We only had minor problems with Pickfords like not sending our stuff in the UK for a month when we thought it was on it's way, luckily we made phone call while still in UK to check how far across the ocean it was to find out it was still in Darlington.

Was small crack on TV foot but it still works and TV stand cracked but that was old so slung it.

One thing we did disagree with was we were supposed to be getting a sole use container which our stuff would be put into and would be customs sealed in front of us, instead they turned up with trucks and took it away in 3 loads to the container and then repacked again. As a result they took a complete cross trainer from our house in the UK and it arrived in Australia in about 8 dismantled bits. Luckily my hubby managed to get it back together and it seems to still work but they never asked permission to do this and I might have had div hubby incapable of reassembling it.

Australian side of Pickfords seemed much more on the ball in our opinion and no complaints at all regarding their service.

AndyD

I did insist that they got my business only if the container come to the our house and that I would see it sealed in front of me, mainly because damages occurring from unnecessary transporting. Perhaps the container was to large for your street? They did block 2-3 house's when finally loading onto the container.

haggis supper

We've just received $16,000 in settlement for all the damages we had from Pickfords. They also sent us 2 bunches of flowers and a $200 voucher for dinner at a very nice restaurant. AP in Oz was excellent. The UK side was appalling.

extrameant

You were lucky. I used them to move to NZ and the kiwis blamed the english lot, and the english lot blamed the scottish lot and the scottish lot blamed the other ones. No one would take responsibility and since they are all separate franchises, no-one is keen to pay up even when it is clear the service was incompetent beyond belief.

annqldau

It wasn't too big to get in to the house - it was a total misunderstanding by the guy at Pickfords in Newcastle. As we didn't have accommodation sorted in Bris we told him to ship it regardless and if required we would pay storage at this end. He took this to mean - 'hold it in the UK until we tell you we have accommodation sorted then ship it' - obviously LOL. That's why we didn't get the container at the door - they only do that if it going to be an immediate shipment (which we know now of course). Now it wasn't rocket science I think, but not to sorry - I think with the initial customs delays here when the system changed we wouldn't have had it much sooner anyway. Still, it's here now and in one peice.