travisthedog

Hi All,

I had carried out some research on which company to use for my move from UK to Canada; there seemed to be a few decent ones, Whites being one. They quoted slightly cheaper that the competition so that swung my decision. My contents where due to arrive in Oct. Everything got here except our expensive table top; the legs arrived, damaged. The Canadian delivery agents did not, as contracted remove the boxes and then claimed that we didn't want them removed! White and Co customer service has been poor up to now; it took quite a bit of effort at our end to find out that that the table top was still in a warehouse in England! It seems like once you've paid for the service their interest in you drops dramatically. Email correspondence was laboured and generally it required me to continue chasing responses. They eventually offered £20 compensation for the trouble only after a few strongly worded emails and delays, we received £100 and $100CAD.
We had to make a 5 hour round trip to clear our goods through customs initially and Whites stated that because the table top had already cleared in Vancouver this would not need to be done again!! Wrong, because they have shipped the table top to Toronto, we will have to travel to Vancouver to clear it with the warehouse!!! Their response to email complains is slow and I haven't heard back at all from my last one complaining about the last issue!!
It's 22 Jan, still no table!!
I would stay clear of White and Company with hindsight!!
Good Luck!!!

Muskoka

Thats really dismal. I'm so sorry. Thanks for the heads up though. Always good to know of peoples experiences for those of us looking at shipping companies.

chiefmissile

Sorry to hear of your experience, we have nothing but good things to say about white & Co they were excellent door to door.

Regards

Andrew

withabix

Where do you live?

We had our container cleared by CBSA at Kelowna airport (conveniently 5 minutes from my office), after it had arrived via Montreal and Vancouver.

travisthedog

Hi Withabix

We live in Pemberton, 25 mins the other side of Whistler BC.

travisthedog

Hi Andrew,

Being in the Forces for a long time, I've used many of the contracted moving agents including White and Co. Generally speaking you can expect some damage on a move and all of the companies that we have used have poor customer service when things go wrong. I'm glad that you had excellent service but trough my experience, and my colleagues, excellent service is the exception.

However, Canada is great isn't it?!!

travisthedog

Muskoka.

Important to remember:
1. NEVER take out the removal company's insurance. You can find good companies online with better cover at a fraction of the price.

2. The removal company's quote to move you stuff is just that: a quote, you can barter them down quite a bit!!!

3. Keep your sense of humour when things go wrong, at the end of the day, you're insured and it's only stuff!!

Good luck with your move.

Zoe Bell

This bit is so true, I remember we had issues with our moving company when we shipped our stuff.
I remember much wailing and pulling of hair and vows of never touching that goddamn company ever again.

Now I can't remember what the issues were!! (apart from the DVDs they nicked)


I've not met a moving company yet that hasn't had some negatives reviews. Seems they are all slightly dicey at some level

rivingtonpike

I would agree entirely with this. We used PSS and overall it was OK and we pretty much had the experience we were expecting.

januarymix

I have dealt with the Moving Partnership and foud the quotes unreliable, and untrustworthy. So yes, every company has its problems - even the ones with good reputations. Caveat emptor

Deb.3

Hi Andrew , We are using Whites to ship our belongings over, slightly worried now , who were the agents in Vancouver that moved it to your home? We were told when we went with whites, that the agents at the other end would unpack and take rubbish away. We are moving to Vancouver Island .... Sorry about your experience,

susieh

We used Whites to ship to Vancouver Island. I think the local company was Tippets. The guys were efficient, but were initially a little reluctant to unpack boxes (even though we'd paid for a full unpack), saying "you'd probably prefer to do it yourself" etc. They unwrapped all the furniture and took all the rubbish away and we got them to unpack all the kitchen boxes, but decided to unpack the rest ourselves in the end. So make it quite clear you expect them to unpack if that's what you want/paid for!

We decided to keep the boxes and all the wrapping used for crockery etc, which came in handy when we bought our own place.

Deb.3

Thanks Susieh , were you happy with the service , both companys provided?

susieh

On the whole, we were happy. Our main frustration was that we ended up waiting almost three months for our container, due to a supposed threatened strike, but we could never find out who was supposed to be going on strike and when, despite asking! (The answers given were very vague and I couldn't find anything about any strikes on Google, so was a bit sceptical.)

Once the container finally left Britain (two months after we left), it arrived within three weeks. There were a couple of broken glasses, but everything else was fine. The two men who packed our stuff in the UK were absolutely brilliant, very efficient and really friendly. In Canada, the men were also efficient and friendly - as I said, just make it clear you want things unpacked.

Deb.3

3 MONTHS !! oh my goodness. Our. belongings are in storage with whites as we sold our home very quickly , and i was wondering when to arrange for the container. to leave UK, been told by one person at Whites 6-8 weeks and another 4-5 weeks. Hope your experience was a one off. poor you .