Yeah we are intending to use john mason's too, have heard loads of good reports about them. We did have Angelo pacific, atlantic international and PSS round also and we compared all four companies, narrowed it down to Atlantic and Jm's in the end and they seemed much of a muchness, i couldn't find as many good reports about Atlantic as i could about JM's (not saying that atlantic are bad) but JM's beat them on price by over £500 too. Only time will tell whether we have any breakages or scratches or anything tho, we are still awaiting the house to sell so won't be able to say anything any time soon.

good luck and play them off against one another to get a better deal too.

Also another tip is, if you are moving into rented over there or for some reason are looking into getting your stuff stored, ask the shipping company if your things can go on the slower boat this will save you a few hundered quid. Obviously this is not an option if you need your things sooner though.

great advice all round, will play them off at each other..lol..
much appreciated peoples time to write in here..
keep it coming...

Had several quotes in and some are including GST and some are not. I believe this is a 10% tax, but on what and should it be paid to the shipping company? Also one quote has mentioned demurrage in their description, sorry if I sound dim, but what is this and any ideas of cost?

If a shipping container is held up beyond its return date, [to its owners ] then the leasor is responsible for costs incured after this date.
The return date is usually 10 days after its arrival in port, we get them emptied into bond as quickly as possible, so as not to incur demurage ,at $100 a day........mm

So when it arrives from sea, Aquis and quarrantina do there bit (could take as long as week), then after that I have up to 8/10 free days to have the container at port but after that while the container is still there, I start getting charged this demurrage ?

Hi All,

Have done a search on comments on here regarding shipping. Found loads of good comments about John Mason's but very few comments about Allied Pickfords. Has anyone used Allied Pickfords and how did they find them. There quote has come in under John Mason's by about £400. We are doing groupage and transport from Brisbane upto Townsville. Best quote was £1600. Many Thanks in advance for any advice.

Hi
Sorry can't help with Allied Pickford really, except PSS told me they were not that good, not that they were being bias of course, but have heard good things regarding John Mason's. Also just wanted to say we are also going up to Townsville hopefully October time, I think there is a few of us.

Good Luck
Clare

Have a look at these threads:

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showt...ight=pickfords

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showt...ight=pickfords

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showt...ight=pickfords

Mixture of all reports about them, trust your instincts and go with teh one that you think are best, all company's have negative reports about them just as much as they have positive ones too.

good luck in your decision

Hi all,
I hope I will be of help advising you of who not to use, this is due to a very bad experience that my family and I have had 12 weeks ago.
I have informed the companies that I will be informing you guys on the expats that I was going to be doing this, they will obviously try to defend there actions and there reputations. You can only decide who to go with but please be careful.
It began after I contacted Global Relocations for a door to door quote. The removals were carried out by Armishaws as subtractors for Global relocations. They left 1/2 my kitchen behind and all the removal man did was kept asking if they could have this and that. He asked for the washing machine, loads of kids toys,clothes etc at one point I had to tell the removal guy to put my childs new tractor in the container as it was obvious he would of liked this also.
After contacting Global relocations about my concerns he advised me not to worry as they would forward the rest of our items at a later date at their expense. This soon changed once we had got to australia our stuff is still in the uk 3 mths on and an email from global asking for a further £300 pounds to send. When our belongings arrived in Oz we received a phonecall from the oz removal team asking for an extra $500 as the "door to door" quote didn't cover all the costs and if I didnt pay we don't get our container. When our boxes were unpacked we found the boxes 1/2 full, clothes thrown in boxes with glassware, leather settee tape marks all over, Tv and Hifi unit scratched to buggery, wheels missing off our bed this is still propped up by books. I have photos taken with the ozzy removal team showing how bad things were. To cut a long story short Global & Armishaws failed to resolve our issues and there comment was "You got what you paid for". Please advise everyone to avoid these companies with a wide birth unless they want to have a nightmare like us.

That is terrible, sad to hear that and so many other negative experiances for people. There all more than just "bad luck" or "coincidence", maybe theres that many people emigrating that there just not bothered about customer service, the easy money is there to be made.
When we get the green light we're defo gonna pack ourselves, any info regarding container and shipping prices only?
Were in Merseyside, anyone any recommendations/advice??

Cheers
AllanDebnJack

OMG poor you guys, my heart really goes out to you it must be awful to be in your situation. Thank you so much for sharing your experience. I hope you manage to resolve something in the near future.

Allan, Deb & Jack,
As per my other threads on here i can't recommend the service that we have had from John Mason's enough, from Toni first visiting us up until this point the company have been more than helpful even when it came to me asking really silly questions and not having any idea of when our house will sell. We are still in the UK and our stuff hasn't gone yet but i have read a lot fo positive reports on here about them and there is a local depot in Liverpool too.

The best advice i could give you is to get about four quotes, play them off against one another (it's very competative at the moment) and follow your instincts.

As i said i have no idea when we are going but i will be posting on here when we do. I do know quite a few other people on here are planning and have used JM's too.

Good luck, it's a mine field out there

Your agent in Australia will pick up your container from the port of entry, and unload the contents in to their bond store, So AQIS {quarantine} can do their inspection, if every thing is ok ,then AQIS inform customs who then clear your documentation.......the m/t container is returned to the owner or agent................mm:

I guess they're all only as good as their local representatives and crews, but we had a very good move with Unigroup Worldwide UTS, albeit from Singapore.

I don't think they would be the cheapest although they were comparable with KCDat (it was a company move so I don't know the final cost) and they did initially say we needed a 40ft container, but their packers were excellent and managed to get it all into a 20ft with inches to spare, which saved us money personally as we didn't have the budget for a 40ft.

Everything was packed very well; we had a few things with very minor damage that a carpenter soon fixed. No breakages of any pots, etc., and I have a lot of fragile stuff. They made crates for the TVs and some large teak mirrors.

Nothing went missing - I did a very detailed inventory and advise everybody to do likewise - and nothing got held up in customs.

Thank you all for your replies has been really helpful.

Timandjayne - So sorry to here you have had such an awful time with your shipping company, hoping things get sorted quickly for you both.

Vicky - Thanks for the links, was an interesting read. We are going to haggle the price with JM's and use them. There reputation seems to be exceptional amongst all the BE's that use this site.

When people talk about a 20ft container what are the dimensions? If I was to ship from north west of England to Gold Coast would I be looking at about £1500 if I was to use a 20ft container

Thanks
Ste