Truth

Hey everyone,

Now that I have my immigrant visa, and about to move from England to the US, can anyone recommend a particular shipping company that you may have used in the past? Obviously cost is a factor, but my main criteria is reliability and honesty.

Also if anyone could give me a rough estimate (I don't even know where to begin) about how much I can expect to be charged to ship over boxes of possessions, that would be great. I won't be moving any furniture or anything large, but simply boxes of photos, books, CDs, few items of clothing, etc.

Thanks guys!

Rete

I'm copying this post to the USA forum. With so many people from the UK now living in the US and the marriage-based being from all countries, the USA forum is far more likely for you to obtain a reliable reply. Also this has been talked to death and a search of the archives should yield you good results.

Rete
Moderator

clydegirl

I have just come back from scotland after my father died.I had some of his possessions that i wanted to ship back here.Only had a week to do it in.Got in touch with Pickfords.There was not a lot of stuff a small table ,TV stand and a nest of tables along with the pictures ,photos,cd's dishes ,cutlery (come to think of it maybe more than i thought ) Anyway just heard from my uncle yesterday and it's going to be 1000 pounds! they are going to pack it on monday.don't know how this compares as hubbie is in the military and we don't pay for the movers.I did not have much time and was already stressed from the funeral .You will probably find something cheaper.good luck.

Truth

Clydegirl, I'm sorry about your loss and hope you are coping OK. Thank you for taking the time to reply to me, I'll be sure to give them a look and try to obtain a quote. Thanks again.

ImHere

We moved over last november. Used Allied Pickfords. Highly recommended.

They packed it all in the UK, shipped it to Miami, cleared it through customs and delivered it to our door here in FL. All very professional and on time.

We shipped 14 boxes (about 3 cubic meters) including a very expensive Korg Keyboard and some antiques china. The rest was books, momentos that kind of thing. Total cost was just over 800 quid including insurance. The only damage was to one teacup that had settled slightly in the box and got chipped.

Highly recommended indeed.

If you use a mover that has a large US based operation (eg Allied Pickfords) and let them pack your stuff and ship via one of the pre-screening ports (liverpool, southampton I think) then the US Customs side is going to be a lot smoother.

anotherlimey

If you know someone who works for a company with a Fedex/DHL/UPS account they can use it may work out cheaper.

Don't go to one of these on your own though, rates for non-account customers are very high.

-tom

Guelder Rose

I used Simpsons, from memory I think they were based somewhere in Kent.

They were very helpful throughout the process and everything arrived in the US just six weeks later. I had a shared container, my shipment being 250 cubic feet and costing approx 950GBP which was the cheapest quote available at that time.

The only problem I experienced was that a couple of items were slightly damaged, this being due to inadequate packing. Unfortunately, I just left all the packing to the men who collected my possessions; if only I had supervised the process properly the damage mentioned could have been avoided.

Duncan Roberts

When I came I only had to ship pictures, CDs, DVDs, books and stuff like that. It cost me about £135 for 35kg using Royal Mail. Shipped it on a Thursday, flew out on the Friday and the stuff was delivered Monday afternoon. I had a teapot that was broken, but I was taking a risk by putting that in, everything else was fine.

Russ&Jayne

I got an excellent rate with UPS just by calling them. Didn't need to be an account holder either.

Big D

There have been quite a few threads on this - I used Crown who were execellent - bill was nearly 5k gbp - but we had a whole container - worth calling a few and getting the prices - Crown really helped with insurance and customs though