Originally Posted by spartacus

All makes perfect sense when delicate sentimental items are at stake.

Comes down to contracts at the end, and by your description, it all happened rather quickly. Trying to amend details, like cost, effectively voids the contract, requiring a new one to be drawn up (I would think).

Hope it all works out for the good.

Originally Posted by Ozzy dog

Look, I really feel for you, as if moving wasn't going to give you enough stress without having sold your house - this situation has obviously quite understandably put you over the edge. I do feel for you, I think most of us would agree that handing your life's belongings over to strangers and waiting for them over the other side of the world means putting your trust into a company. Now this 'trust' has been broken by their deceiving you - well it sort of goes without saying that your emotional and upset.

I would really urge you to get some money out of them - in the hope that this will help you here and try to let it go and enjoy your new life in spite of this. It would be such a shame to let this spoil something thats already going to challenge you emotionally anyway.

Good luck

Tracey

Originally Posted by spartacus

I don't quite get what the advantages are of sole use of a 20ft container, as opposed to shared use of a 40ft container, other than the cost differential you've indicated? And if cost was the main driver why not save your 1700 GBP and go for shared use from the start?

Originally Posted by LIBBY

We have used then 2 times and can not fault them at all.

LibbyX

Originally Posted by moneypen20

Apart from having it sealed at your home etc, you are also given a departure date and 9 times out of 10 your container will leave on that date. With a shared one you have no idea when your container will leave as it depends on how quick and organised the shippers are at filling the rest of the container. You are also more likely to be opened by customs judging by comments on here about shared containers.

Originally Posted by Fiona&malc

we've used Crown twice as well, and had absolutley no problems with them.

Originally Posted by Jasonmb

I think we seem to be in the minority with this problem, glad you had a good experience. We chose them as one of our 3 to contact on the back of others positive experiences.

Originally Posted by Jasonmb

Earlier this year (Jan time) we did our BE research and found what we thought were the top three shipping companies, based on individuals personal experience. We were impressed with all three and did not make any immediate decisions as we had not sold our house and it was our initial intention that I would stay in the Uk until sold then we would ship our belongings.

During February all three companies stayed in touch, but mainly Crown, when we decided (last minute, mid March) that we would leave the house for sale and all travel in April, we rang all three compaies and asked if the quotes would be the same, they were for the first 2, we spoke to Crown last and when they confirmed the price, we immediately told them that they were too expensive (by a long way) and we would be going with one of the other cheaper quotes as we were satidfied that we would get the same level of service but at a cheaper price, the Crown sales man agreed to match that quote if we gave them the business, so we did.

How wrong we were to do that, we should have had doubts when they arrived to pack!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It was agreed during our consultation that we wanted sole use of a 20ft container, we also have a large drive and it would not be a problem to bring the container and pack on the drive, we have documentation to verify this was agreed.

On the morning of the packing a HUGE and I mean HUGE delivery van turned up, before they started doing anything we told the packers what we had been told about the container coming to the house and questioned why this was not the case, he rang the office to check this to be told that as they would be packing over 2 days this was the easiest option for them, Ok we let them carry on, what fools we were.

After we had been here a week or so we decided to have a look at the Crown site, and track our container, when we had a look we had very little information, if I had paid Crown full price thinking that I would be able to track my container then I would have been disappointed, but one thing we did notice was that our container had not left the UK until 16th April, this is a delay of 15 days, so what had they been doing with our belongings all this time. We were concerned and emailed the office to be told that ” sometimes there are delays getting to and at port and this will have been when the ship departed and should not cause a delay in our shipment arriving”

We accepted the response, but Jason was keen to try and track the container himself, he eventually found a web site, which is

https://www.maerskline.com/appmanager/,

we had received an email from our local contact and when responding to her asked what the container number was and she very kindly provided this so we could track the shipment.

Tonight we have tracked our shipment and the 40t container that it is in, we believe that we have knowingly been deceived by Crown, who are currently investigating this. Because they reduced the price they have placed our belongings which should be in a sole use 20 ft container in a 40ft shared container, had they knowingly not tried to deceive us, when we asked what they delay was we would have been told that they were waiting for the container to be filled wouldn’t they, not that it was traffic and the port.

We will be taking this further but wanted to warn any others who were considering Crown, that if Crown reduce the price it seems they also reduce the specification that you believe that you are getting, but don't tell you, so make sure you aren’t fooled, also if anyone else didn’t have the container packed at home you might also want to check the above site and see if you have paid for sole use and are sharing too!! I wouldn’t mind but the price we have paid is comparable with the other companies sole 20ft use price, as Crown were way off the mark with the initial quote and had I wanted to share could have got that cheaper than this price.

I am furious, I don’t think anyone will be able to comprehend how cross we are at the moment and just wanted to share our not so great experience so far with Crown.