johnpod

I kow there are probably dozens of such threads already on here but here goes another. We are moving from Dorset to Gold Coast last week in November and looking for good recomended shipping companies and insureres. Just had Doree Bonner round who said we need 20ft container and full shipping with packing and delivery using Grace Bros (not the Mrs Sloacome/Mr Lucas one I hope) to our new abode in Oz would be £4000-£4500 plus insurance at 2.75% so on £50K of possesions thats a grand total of between £5,375 and £5875 (gulp). Has anyone used them or had better quotes. Seems a bit steep to me but only just started the process of looking. Lots of people seem to use Crown but I can't find any contact details for them online or in My Australia magazine (or am I just being thick) - if anyone has them please can they forward on.

Many thanks

Ali

sammyg

Hi Crown can be found under 'crown relo' online.

lizhenshaw

I have had Crown quote - they were massively expensive, I asked them to come down in price which they verbally said they would and have never replied since. I have phoned their office at least 4 times now, and not had any response. We are moving 22/10 to Brisbane and will not be using them. Bishops are goint to handle thing this end and Kents removals in Brisi.

Liz

cheekivimto07

Hi there, i dont know if you have an Allied Pickfords in Dorest, but it might be worth a try. They are coming to give us a quote next week and they have been recommended by others on this forum. Hope this helps.

goingozwards2007

HI

We used anglo pacific, and they were very competative for what we moved, and they were very professional on the day of packing and taking away

lizhenshaw

I have been warned that Pickfords tend to use agency staff sometimes so you may want to check that out. Hope all goes well.

Liz

cheekivimto07

Hi Liz, thanks for that bit of advise i will definatley check that out. Cheers

Simba

We used Crown to ship about a transit van load, it cost us £1600 with insurance.

It was packed by crown on the 28th June and will finally be delivered to our house on the Gold Coast next Tuesday .

InBetween

Hi Ali - we used Brittania Leatherbarrows out of Bournemouth, the packers were great and did a fantastic job, at times we thought there is no way this is all going to fit into a 20 footer (3Bed Hse, 2kids lots of toys, bikes etc) - but in the end there was room to spare !! The Estimator was a bit airy with his correspondence, in which we ended up paying for that, you could say we took too much for gospel, and never had it in writing.
Caution when signing with any company that you specifically mention the destination address, and that do not generalise on this - an example is they (the movers) will say 'Gold Coast' on all your paperwork, make sure you have correct mileage from port to destination, and amend any correspondence that the movers send to you, otherwise you'll find extra charges being imposed on you at the last minute, with the moving company saying 'oh we didn't realise it was outside the 30mile zone from port' . Play the company's off each other, the quoted price is not final !
Other recommendations is to use Letton Percivals for marine insurance, (do a search in the Aust. thread) cheaper and you have control over what your goods are worth in replacement value (if needs be) roughly works out 1.6% of the full value. Good Luck..

marvinc

Hi Ali

We just had Abels, Crown and Doree Bonner round. Made them all aware we only wanted a 20' container. My gut feeling was to go with Crown and just get some more in for quotes. Crown were a disapointment and the quote came in about £1000 higher. Dorree Bonner meanwhile, rep was great he was the only one to measure stuff, quoted straight away (cheapest) and then asked what they needed to do to get the business, offered me some free storage as well which we need.

snow-white

we had 6 quotes in all dorree bonner, crown , anglo pacific and removal group
we chose removal group big mistake
my gut instinct said doree bonner and how i wqish wed done that. they packed anything and everything in sight i dread to think what customs will find . they were a day late they balmed everyone but thenselves and promised to pay compensation ie costs of additional chilminders day that we hadf to pay for because of their mistake 10 emails later still waiting for a refund the minute you pay your money they couldnt give a toss
my experience lesley x

sals

I had at least 6 quotes including Doree Bonner, Allied Pickford, Brittannia and a few others I can't even remember.
I can't fault Crown. Chose them for a number of reasons including Crown in UK, Crown in OZ, all Customs costs, except unexpected cleaning, included in quote, unlike alot of other companies who quote and it's not total price, the AQUIS fees etc aren't included, the extras are in small print, check carefully is my advice. They came in cheaper, I also negotiated and they matched free storage in UK. Came when I wanted. Packers where amazing, they were polite, efficient, clean, careful, worked really hard and did an amazing job. They've kept in touch and now I know my container leaves 12th Dec from Southampton and arrives in Brisbane 11th Jan, quick or what, I even know which ship it's on, when it gets changed over.

Bishop3912

Hi my stuff gets loaded onto the container at the house next Thursday (Yiks!!). We have Allied Pickfords round, they never followed up with the quote, we had to chase them!!! then they sent us a e-mail saying it would be approx £4k (ha ha approx!!), then when we chased them again we didnt hear for ages. Then we had PSS round, they were excellent, very professional, had their quote through really quickly by post and then a follow up phone call the next week. (their quote was the cheapest, even adding on the AQIS fees) so needless to say we are using them. We also had Crown round, they seemed nice, but again a week later they gave a follow up call but we hadnt received a quote, they sent it through the same day, over £1k more expensive than PSS, they then reduced their price (their AQUIS fee is included) but even after the reduction and us adding the AQUIS fee to the PSS quote they still came in cheaper. PSS to us seemed the most professional with getting us their quote etc etc. Don't know what the rests like with them, but posts on here seem to rave about PSS a bit. Good luck.

nickyjohnt

We used Allied Pickfords Poole to Perth, Paid approx £2100 with their insurance for a 20ft shared container took approx 7 weeks to get to here. We couldn't fault their service both in Poole and over here, heard good and bad about them but it all comes down to the team that actually do the packing.
We tried a few on-line quotes with other companies but non bothered to get back to us, Allied were the only ones to take time to reply so they got the job, we had no hassle at all and they handled every querie we had totally professionally. Our team were based in Bournemouth

John

Chililabombwe

Hi there,

I've had quotes from Removal group, Crown and Anglo Pacific. All roughly round £4,500 door to door srvice for 4 bed house. Removal Group and Crown never came round to check the contents, Anglo pacific came today and essitimated we may need more than a 20' container. Based on the good sales pitch I will probably go with Anglo.

He said if we collapsed the kids beds, wardropes and drawers we may just fit them in a 20'. He quoted last year Feb 06 @ £4,200 and said the price will come down this time around so I am expecting around £3.9 - £4K. Anglo Pacific seemed to be the most helpful and offered loads of advice on sterilization etc etc. He said he knew of one guy who got charged AUD$200 to sterilize a pair of trainers.