Questions you wished you had asked the shippers
 

Have the first shippers coming tomorrow, supposed to be going in september, house is sold (hopefully) but visa situation has just gone to a can of worms and husband has just found out he might have to do more exams to requalify in oz but hey lets carry on as normal.


So what are the things you wished you had asked the shippers?

Who would you use or more to the point not use ?

Any little extras to look out for ?

Shellie

Re: Questions you wished you had asked the shippers
 

"do you outsource any of your work?"

we paid for a highly reputable firm to do our move...they sent out packers from another firm (but dressed them up in reputable firm uniforms with reputable firm boxes). we had loads of stuff damaged due to very poor packaging (or in one case, no packaging at all). The small print said "we reservce to right to sub-contract to 3rd parties"...didnt understand the significance of this clause till after the event! Obviousy crappy 3rd party packers were cheaper than in-house.

Hi

We were warned to make sure that the insurance you get covers on the items worth it.

example don't get insurnce on Childrens plastic toys but increase the worth of the stuff you do get insured and most people under insure.

Hope this helps

White & Company are good we used them and they were cheaper than the rest.
Make sure you are getting a sole use container and that it is sealed in front of you at your house.
Ask how much notice they need for a booking.
Do they use new boxes(some reuse packaging Mr Mover warned me about that).
Haggle, the price is not set in stone and it very much depends on the estimator on the day, my sister in laws quote was more expensive than mine for the same amount of stuff.
Do they offer free storage of your stuff in the uk if you dont want to ship straight away, some do, some dont.
The container doesnt always get shipped straight away as I thought, ours went some weeks after they took our stuff so they must have to wait for a booking themselves on the ship so might be worth asking about that.
Also we were a bit surprised that we had to pay the full amount 2 wks upfront but it is the norm as I have discovered from other posters on various forums but most accept credit cards if your money like ours hasnt been freed from your house sale yet

Ps You dont have to use the shippers insurance you can take out insurance with any insurance company. I think the shippers make quite a bit out of the commission on insurances they sell so they will be quite pushy about it and say you have to have theirs but dont believe them :D

Re: Questions you wished you had asked the shippers
 

Very important point.
Although UK end may be the original company they sometimes sub-contract out in OZ too.

Thank you all, some really good tips.

Have PSS tomorrow but will hopefully get about 4 to compare.


Shellie

PS is Sky ex of Morley ??????

:D :D :D Yes lived on King George Croft number 17 near the train station :D :D :D

Ask them what would happen if the truck bringing the container were to break down on the way to your house - and you had flights booked for that night. It's been known to happen. :eek:

We've had 4 companies round. John Mason. Pickfords, PSS and Crown.

We haggled and got the prices reduced on all but one, and that's because they haven't even bothered to call us to follow up the quote! We won't be using John Mason then!

:rolleyes:

Ensure that all charges cover door to door service, within what area the other end, most is about 30 miles area of Freemantle. Do they unpack the large items the other end? Do they remove all packaging? Does the insurance cover door to door and all packing/ unpacking whilst still in your home? What charges are you liable for at the Freemantle port? If they sub-contract out then who do they use..e.g PSS use Kent's removals who are a really reputable company in Perth.

We are in 4 bed city off westwoodside, cannot wait to escape this suburban hell but have had 2 really bad pieces of news today and feel like its never going to happen. Will go to NZ if we let our heart rule our head, OZ if we are sensible but after today will go anywhere as long as it s out of here !

Sorry having a bad day, but reading this forum gives us some hope as everyone seems to go through it.

Shellie

One tip i would give is, make sure that the company in the UK pays the agent in Aus. we have just had a terrible time with our move to the middle East. The company in Aus did not pay the agent here after 14 weeks after i had paid them the full amount. I had to get a solicitor to intevene before the company would pay up. the company here would not deliver the goods unless we paid them again!
Just a little tip.

I have just written a long reply, but lost it because I tried to
post an Excel file:mad: :mad:

So I've now copied the file to a word file, basically its a list
of quesions I asked each company that came.

Once you get the quotes in it is worth haggling as I wanted
Crown, but they were £1000 more than all the others, they came
down nearly £700!

One advantage of Crown is that it is Crown both ends, which
hopefully gives you more come back if anything goes wrong.

One point Robinsons never sent us a quote, read from that
what you will.


Anyway Crown are booked now (14th June, HELP!!!)

All the best with your search for a shipper.

Karen

Thanks for that Karen - given me some ideas

good luck on 14th
:)



Peter

Did you manage to look at the file as when I
tried to to check I'd attached it correctly it said
that it was a malicious script?

Karen