suzannepatricia

As I am going on my own, I obviously won't have as much as everyone else. Also I am NOT taking any furniture at all. My stuff includes shed loads of books, including those belonging to both sons which they want to keep, some kitchen stuff, cd's videos clothes,shoes, handbags, some bedding, some good mirrors ,quite a few pictures and of course a fair quantity of personal things like photos etc. So can anyone recommend a company which would be more suitable for someone like me? Please?

SuperSeagulls

Most of them will be suitable - I am not shipping anything huge like furniture, and I expect I'll be using Crown or Excess. They have had pretty good reviews on this site.

SS

Joanne

Had quote from Britannia today for 539 cu ft £2,869, this is groupage as we arent taking enough items to warrant a full container of our own.

Dont know if this is good or bad. This is the first quote to come back.

Jo

Ruthyman

We used PSS in Oct and they have so far been excellent. We had someone come over to give us a quote the week we rang, we had absolutely no problem booking in the time for the move and the movers were very experienced.
Ive have called countless times for silly reasons and everyone has been professional and polite.
Our quote was for 500 cubic feet 2245.00 gbp
This included 4 weeks free storage, and door to door delivery and unpacking etc
We are going for non bonded storage in Oz as our move is delayed and this will cost aud 26 per week plus insurance (wich is arranged and paid for in UK)
We moved 3 bed house, approx 10 teachests of stuff plus 2 tables, 2 beds, an L shaped lounge, chairs, rugs, washing machine and tools, to give you an idea.
Im pretty sure we came in under estimate too so it cost less than the original quote.
One other thing-when we bought our sofa from dfs they had to dismantle part of the staircase to get it in. PSS actually found a way to dismantle the sofa rather than the stairs!

Honeybun

Hi Suzanne, snap, hope the ship doesn't go down with the amount of books I am taking. No furniture though, so mostly the same as you. Got PSS coming tomorrow night, everything has happened quickly, sold house (well hopefully), visa coming and buyer wants to be in before Christmas. Shite, I will be homeless!!

dazzyr

We're off to Adelaide and had 3 shippers price up. We've sold most of our big stuff so are only taking approx 200cu ft. All 3 quoted just under £1200 only difference was timescales.

Darren

wavy_davy

Ok,, we had our quotes today, one from the Removal Group by phone???!!!(How they can do that I don't know) £3500 door to door - Southampton to Fremantle.

Gary Fenwick from Over's International who was EXCEPTIONAL, spent two hours with us and was so thorough it was unbelievable. Explained all possible extra costs that could be incurred - fumigation, container cleaning etc. Went through the packing, storage process at length. Our quote was in our E-mail inbox less than 2 hrs later! Very Impressive and competitive at £3490 + 4wks free storage at this end and 11 days free in Oz. They use Kent's at the other end who sent us an info pack prior to Gary's visit.

Allied Pickfords spent just 40 mins with us, didn't voluntarily tell us anything about the company, wasn't forthcoming with any advice about extra surcharges or prohibited/restricted items and then when asked told us the shipping company are responsible for cleaning any dirty containers. This is in fact not true as under marine law the exporter/importer is entirely responsible for his/her container whilst at sea. Very abrupt and cocky, almost expecting to get the business........also they run a new for old policy on their insurance which would end in an enormous premium!! We were also advised that if you undervalued too far then they use loss adjusters which means you would get even less than the container value! Quote in the post

Hope this helps

Dave

LesleyM

We used Brittannia to bring our stuff from South Africa to here many years ago. They were excellent. We havent got quotes yet but think we will be using them again to move to Oz.

Richardm

Hi If you have the facilities to load your own container it works out a lot cheeper.
Most companies will pick your stuff up in a removals lorry then take it away and load the container so you are paying for the removals lorry.
If you have the space for a container lorry they will wait until you have loaded it, not sure of costs for waiting or how long but cheeper than the ramovals lorry.
the company I work for, deals with sending container loads mainly to Africa on a regular basis. I will get more info from work and update the thread in a couple of days

Anne4Terry

I have had both Crown and John Masons out today. I am still awaiting quotes but I was impressed by both of them as they both told me things I had never heard before. Had Allied Pickfords out on Tuesday and I think the lad who came must've been about 12!!!!! Either that or I am showing my age. I also had Alton Moves out on Monday, he merrily mooched through our drawers and read Terry's socks!!! Also managed to see us having 800 cubic feet volume where everyone else has said about 550!! Don't think we'll go with them then

I am looking forward to getting the quotes from the others.

STUBBS

Just an update, crown phoned back today to see if we had received their quote, i told them i had and they were alot dearer then everyone else and the guy said that he will phone back tomorrow with a new price , he said he will try and match pickfords, if he does that then we will definitely going with crown.
Donna xx

marco121068

I had Alton Moves give me a quote back in April (when I thought I'd be ready to leave by July - how pessimistic was that??). I've got a leather suite, and they were the only ones who offered to pack it in wooden crates for increased protection - and having read about Frasers experience with his leather sofa.....

Looking at his quote he estimated 850 cu ft. too. Maybe that's just a standard estimate?

desperate2go

Eagle Relocations were by far my cheapest quote and on the day the guys were all great.
Cant really truly recommend as stuff wont be there til Jan so fingers crossed

Bella Donna

Hi Anne,

You've had lots of ideas of quotes, so don't have anything too much to offer there.

We have had a pretty good experience, all said and done. We were packed up by Bishop's, and the freight this end was handled by Kent's. Our air freight arrived 3 days after we did and our sea freight arrived 27 days after we did, took a further 8 days in customs, and then ended up in storage because we hadn't found a rental.

When we did finally get our stuff, we were pleased at the lack of breakages. We'd lost a couple of crystal glasses, incurred a few scratches on a couple of pieces of furniture, which had obviously shifted in transit, and lost the handle off a jug. However, we found that some glasses had come unwrapped and were rolling around - still totally intact - in the bottom of one box.

We had a couple of items impounded by AQIS - a couple of dog blankets and a wooden ornament - and we were asked to submit some Native American artefacts and the dog's grooming brushes when the freight was delivered. On the day of delivery we were supposed to give the guys from Kent's the requested items, but we couldn't find them easily. There were lots of calls back and forth from the removal guys to their office, who wanted them to unpack everything there and then, but as it would have caused chaos, we managed to negotiate phoning them when the items were found.

The only real complaint I have was regarding Kent's men. While they left the vast majority of our 284 packages ( ) untouched, they did unpack my treatment chair and they managed to slash the leathercloth with a knife. We only discovered it a few days ago, so a claim will be off in the post soon.

Dh's computer - sent in the air freight and delivered to us in Sydney - also sustained damage and needed a new fan and motherboard. That was covered without question by the insurance company.

Good luck with your move - I was delighted to see you had your visas approved.

Sue

markfisher61

Removal Group - AVOID, AVOID, AVOID

What can I say?

Abysmal, not cheap.....the full story is a long one and I don't have
time here, but if anyone wants to email me....

London to Perth - asked for 20' sole container, got groupage = 5 week
delay. (Cost was GBP 3550 by the way).

Wrongly advised me of arrival date = 4 weeks hotel bills in Perth

Use a "trading as" name then when you ask their real name (so you can
sue) they refuse to give it - this is an offence under the Business
Names Act 1985 (if anyone has this info, I'd appreciate it if you could send it to me by email: [email protected])

Damaged approximately 1/3 of my goods as they did not repack them as
instructed, nor was export wrapping (where it existed) adequate

Were supposed to unpack everything at destination - did not, only
larger items.

The quote for about 850 cu. ft from London was GBP 3550 - not
particularly cheap.

Try Excess International - I have used them in the past for smaller
shipments and they have been good - never tried them for a container
load. I did not use them this time because they were a bit unresponsive
during the quoting process - I definitely made a mistake using the
Removal Group.

Clearly they have no experience of shipments to Western Australia -
they did not even appoint a customs agent until 1 day AFTER my goods
arrived, despite having three months to find one!

They offered me (only after two weeks of threats of legal action) 250
pounds compensation! my hotel bills alone were double this.

Once again - AVOID, AVOID, AVOID!

PS Note they do not belong to FIDI or BAR - not surprising!