Hello everyone,

I am moving from Toronto to UK next month and will be shipping our "worldly" belongings.

I have had 2 quotes for (what I would describe) as being a 1 bed condo's worth of stuff i.e. 2 sofas, 1 queen bed set and dining room table & chairs plus crockery etc etc, and they have come in at $5,500 and 1 "guestimate" over the phone of $3,900. Waiting for another person to come back to me.

I actually did not think it would be this expensive for a condo's worth of stuff.

My question therefore is - has anyone tried alternative methods of shipping, if there are such alternative methods? According to the shipping guys I have spoken with, it is not any cheaper to do the "pack yourself" method. I wonder if anyone has been able to cut out the middle man (i.e. the agent) and pack yourself and literally take down to the freight shippers personally? Is this possible. I have googled and googled and all I come up with are the door to door shippers - the sorts I have already had quotes from.

Anyone have any suggestions please??

Many thanks!!

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Talk to the people on this forum, very helpful..............mmhttp://www.movingscam.com/

Last time we moved, we pack and loaded the container ourselves (both ways). It is very hard to cut out the middle man as they know the paerwork etc. Having said that, you don't have to deal with local shipping companies. You can call national-level agents and try getting a quote.

I would recommend if possible, do not take you furniture. A lot of shipping cost comes not just from weight but also from the size. If you can pack most of the stuff into boxes, it might cur your price down. Also, I do not believe they have queen size beds in UK. They have double and King. If you ever need a new mattres etc or other bedding, you might have trouble. Just my $0.02. :-)

In UK a Queen size bed is called a King. They do have Queen size, just use a different name.
We checked this out when we were there last year.

I know I post this before on another thread but just thought it may be helpful.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bed#Standard_sizes

Great, thanks everyone. Just had another quote in for our shipping costs - at just shy of $5,000... ... is there any way to make it cheaper?

I have of course considered selling some of our belongings, however, to replace "equivalent" items in the UK works out to be far more expensive, plus we only bought our furniture just shy of 2 years ago so it's not that old plus we really like it.

Thanks for the info re the Queen bed set - the UK equivalent of a "King" bed set sounds rather more impressive ;-)

We're going to be moving from Toronto to Northern Ireland hopefully this year so it's good to get a bit of an idea of the cost. I wish I could think of a cheaper way too. Anyway good luck with move

Hi - did your quotes give a guesstimate on volume? I'm thinking, at the moment, that maybe $3-4k would be an average price.

An average UK home (3/4 bed) could be squeezed into a 20' container, and going in the opposite direction costs about £3,500-£4,500 (so $7-9k ish). I suspect that Canadian companies will come in a bit more expensively anyway.

So I suppose what I am saying is that if that quote of around $3,900 could be firmed up or reduced a little, that's probably a reasonable price !

Good luck

Hi everyone,

Just as an update and an fyi, we've decided to go with Amfreight in Mississauga. We will deliver our belongings to them at their warehouse and they will pack the large furniture items and ship all items back to merry ole England to our front door (albeit no un-pack service) for $3,200. Pleased with that quote!

Anyway, just thought this might be of interest to anyone else in the same "boat" so to speak

Ooh not long to go now until we leave

I do not know this company - or any Canadian removal company....... but have you checked them out, i.e. do they belong to the appropriate professional association, are they able to provide references, have you googled them for other people's experiences, etc.

Unfortunately there are a lot of scams in the international removal business... (Not saying *they* are, but you want to check them out.)

Thanks for your tip!

I have however certainly heard of Amfreight before, and they seem legit enough to me http://www.amfreight.ca/index.html

They've been one of the most helpful and efficient companies I have been collecting quotes from in fact (interestingly, the office is run mostly by Brits).

I am pretty sure someone else on here said they used Amfreight and all was good... if anyone has had any bad experience using this co., better let me know ASAP