Miss Clinique

Incorrect. Quotes are always done in cubic feet.

toniochen

You are both correct.
Quotes is usually done in CBM if the company estimates that there will be less than container load (LTC) otherwise they generally quote full container load (FCL), either 20' or 40'.
Just need to check the quote and the fine prints about potential price changes.

SchnookoLoly

Our quote was in cubic feet, and was for our share of a container, since we were going by groupage.

Miss Clinique

Believe me, my husband has been in international moving for over 30 years and has never quoted for an FCL. He would quote for X cft or cbm going as an FCL. How do you think a company costs a shipment accuratly if the estimator says " oh yeah, you have 1500 cft so need a 40ft can, we will send one round, and you can fill it as much or as little as you like, that will will be $5000 please". The job needs to be costed, how much packing material will be used, how many men to pack and load, what about if you have certain items of furniture that needs to be crated, Oh then there is that piano that needs to be dealt with. Before a quote goes out to a customer your shipper will contact partners in the destination country to get a price from them for handling the shipment, the address of where the shipment is being delivered to, to make sure there isnt any access dificulties. All this get's done before a quote goes out, or should do. A lot of the time we know roughly what a certain company will charge for handling a shipment to some destinations, but we always get a secure quote from them first. If we quote for 1500 cft (for example) and you then think to your selves we are getting a 40ft so there wont be a problem if we put extra's to be shipped and it turns out to be 1700 cft beacuse there is space in the back of the can, then those extra 200cft need to be paid for.

For the OP I would ask you, when you got estimated, did you say to the estimatior, everything you see in every cupboard, closet, garage, shed, loft, basement is going with us? if you did and thats what he based his quote on then I think you may have some recourse with the company you used. Sometimes people will say, "not everything is going in that closet, we are clearing the shed, and garage, so only the bikes and garden tools will be going" etc etc, the estimator then does his quote based on what you tell him is going, then when the crew arrive to pack, and you have not got around to clearing as much stuff as you thought you would, or you really couldnt part with will little Fred's baby toys, clothes, first bike, scooter, and pram. Then confusion and miscalculations will happen.

In a nutshell. If you are quoted for 1500 cft and you then think we can take extra as there is room in the 40ft for it, and it turns out to be 1700 , then those extra 200cft need to be paid for as they were not costed into the original quote, remember, a quote from the destination agent was for 1500, so if he is sent 1700, he his going to want more money than orginally quoted as the shipment size has gone up.

OP you dont need to answer my qustion on here, but I hope my ramblings will help you with your problem.

People need to get away from the idea that they have a 20 or 40 ft can going to BC, ON, AB. What you have is X cft/cbm going in to a 20 or 40. or LCL. Each move is different, you cant come on to this forum asking how much others have paid for a 20ft to a certain area when all moves are individual, people are moving to different types of homes, with varying contents, that may have special requirements. for example - If a container can pull up on your drive and be off loaded straight into your home, all well and good, but what about shipments that are going into the city apartment, the container may not be able to be parked in a busy downtown street for unloading or if it can, then 9 times out of 10 there will be a cost for that, traffic will be distrupted and the man at city hall will want $$ for it. What about the apartments that dont have elevators, poor crew running up and down stairs, extra $$ for that as well. Its not all like for like is what I am saying.

rivingtonpike

Still not clear whether the original figure given to the OP was an estimate or a hard and fast quote. Also, whether a cubic volume was given?

Siouxie

Apologies. I was given to understand where someone booked a 20'/40' container then it was priced at the maximum cubic capacity of the container.

I stand corrected.

Miss Clinique

No problem Siouxie. Its an easy assumption to come to, most people's shipments are either 20, 40 FCL or LCL. So its understandable that they think thats what they were quoted for. I just tried to give an small insight as to what is involved when getting a quote from a reputable international moving company.

Miss Clinique

The estimate the surveyor does, always turns in to a quote. Only the OP knows what cubic volume he was quoted for, and what was shipped.

Our crews would always call the office when packing to say that the pack amount is more than the amount on the work order. Its then left with the office to deal with. I can honestly say that we would never get to the end of the pack, and bring the shipment to the warehouse before letting the customer know the amounts differ, most FCL go straight to the terminal from the residence for loading on to a rail car, for its journey to port of departure. In fact we send someone out to see the customer while the pack is being done. I can also honestly say that if we have under estimated we pick up the tab. I have to say though the amount of extra the OP had was an awful lot, if one of our estimators was out by that much, he would be looking for a new job.

Maplease

Thanks for your responses. Just to clarify; it was an estimate that became a quote (if that makes sense) and our argument is that their estimator is way out. I am currently working through what they say they have packed and what was on their original inventory. Our argument was/is that we said; we are taking all that and they said, that's about 3 boxes and turned out to be 5 etc. Until I have been through it with a fine tooth comb I can't work out exactly where it has all been added. However, as far as we are concerned we can't have added the additional volume that they have stated since the original inventory.

It's interesting to read how varied people's experiences are on this. I really thought we'd gone into this with our eyes wide open and done our research. For those that have asked; we live(d) in a 4 bed house and there is myself. my partner and our 5 year old son. We didn't take any vehicles and left the kitchen sink!!!

Thanks again for the info.

SchnookoLoly

How many companies did you have come do quotes?

izzi81

We had quite a few companies come and do estimates for us and provide quotes (including PSS). There was quite a variance in their estimates (if I remember rightly from 750cuft to 950cuft). We eventually went with the Moving Partnership, who didn't actually come out and view what we had (I know, much frowned upon, but they would have sent someone if I'd really wanted but I figured we'd had about 6 companies in so I used their figures).
The cuft estimates we'd had were quite close to the full container load for a 20cuft container, so I made sure that if we ended up using a bit more, and basically filling the container, we wouldn't be charged any extra. He ended up quoting me the same price for a full container. While the guys were packing they were a bit worried as to whether it would all fit - we have a lot of 'stuff' inside cupboards etc. - but in the end it was only about 3/4 full! (I wish I'd found more stuff to put in it lol).

It's too late to give this advice to the OP, but for those who haven't shipped yet I'd discuss this with the shipper, maybe get them to err on the side of caution and use other estimates you've had to haggle the price down a bit.

(Incidentally PSS came back with one of the lowest estimates - 750cuft. I don't know if that's relevant though because that's probably the amount of space we actually used! Others must have over-estimated...)

SchnookoLoly

I would be curious to know if the OP had multiple estimates.

We had 3 companies come in to do ours. Two were pretty close to each other, one was notably lower. We went through the details of the estimates and could see where the lower one had lowballed the other two, and we agreed with the higher ones.

Definitely a good idea to err on the side of caution. All they can do is give you an estimate and a quote based on a certain amount of cubic footage used... and I think it's up to you as the consumer to do your research and try to apply some common sense to the estimates that the shippers have given...

Anyways. Curious to see what OP comes back with.

Maplease

We had 3 companies come and quote.

SchnookoLoly

How did the cubic footage quotes compare across the three?

Maplease

Hi SchnookoLoly,

We had PSS; Fox and A N other, which I can't remember. A N Other was way over and the other two were pretty similar.