kins

Ohhh really, what did they do? I was going to recommend them as they were okay with us, apart from trying to charge me a £300 'handling fee' for the 'free storage' that they offer.

c17age

Any Mods out there, can we make this thread sticky????
Worth it i think.

Bob

nope, it's what the wiki is for, people can add to that with info they have....we'll end up with loads of stuck threads that way and have in the past. Plus people are able to do searches, and even when threads were stuck, the same questions were asked

Steve Lawson

For the USA part loads, ALWAYS insist on a Lift-Van service. It costs more, but means that all your goods are loaded in one (or more) wooden crate at your doorstep. That same crate will arrive intact at your new home and camn be lifted from one lorry to another and one container to another. A good SHIPPING company will help you here.

Shame about this experience. The American movers are generally not known for their tender care, but always talk a good job!

Steve Lawson

Allow 4 weeks door to door. Make sure the container is loaded and sealed at residence (not taken away in a van). Then its down to the men on the day. Any of the established firms will do an excellent job for you. If I were you, I would ask at the American end (your new colleagues) to recommend a good local New York mover with a UK agent and you can grill the local salesman when he comes.

nooka

OK, so I've done a search of threads (not that easy to find what I wanted though, had to try a few times), and this is who I ended up with as possibilities:
Curtiss
Pickfords (although there were some negative stories too)
Wheaton Worldwide
SHA Maritime Services
Simpsons
Allfreight International
Robinsons
Bishopsmove

As we need to find three quote for my husband's company I'm ringing them all up to fix surveys and I'll post here who was good at this end.

IceBrit

That's great, it will be very helpful for a lot of people. I'm having a someone around today, Dolphin movers, so will post back on cost and customer service.

vegas

All my goods were loaded into a wooden crate at my doorstep by white & co but still ended up being delivered to me in the back of a van without a crate.

wisewol

As I stated before, we are using Curtiss which is part of White and Co. They have now been here 3 days and I would say the guys loading up have been great, nothing too much trouble for them, they have taken furniture apart and all sorts, only comment I have is that I have found out via them that they are making huge redundencys within the company and a grat majority of the staff are being laid off. It looks as though curtiss be no more and it will all turn to Whites. Also the blokes dont really seem to know much if anything about the customs restrictions for our goods and everytime I pull anything liquid out they keep looking at me as though I am mad, which might not be too far from the truth !
All the stuff is now loaded as as of tonight the OH and me get the airbed ! the things I will do to prevent spending to long living with either the MIL or Mum

Steve Lawson

Perhaps customs pulled something but you can INSIST on a delvery in the Lift-Van. If the agent has to dispose of the crate, he chose, for his convenience (not yours) to unload in a van so his crew can go straight on to the next job without a lift-van on the back of the truck (maybes).

Bet little if anything was broken, though - White & Co are pretty good.

wisewol

I dont much care how the stuff is delivered as long as its all there and not broken as they have to unload it

britgalusa

I used Excess Baggage door to door with their full packing & unpacking service at both ends. I cannot recommend them highly enough, everything got here, nothing was broken (and I had alot of breakables as I collect crystal) and it was reasonable. I shipped 24 of the large boxes.

In addition the night before I immigrated I could not get it all in my suitcases, so I dropped an additional one off with them at LHR and had that sent seperately, with no problems again.

nooka

Is your house very big? Three days seems like an incredibly long time! I'm still hoping to persuade one of the companies to let me pack my own stuff, and thought about half a day would be enough for them! That's how long it took me to move house last time (although granted we only were in the removal van for about 10mins).

wisewol

nope just a normal 3 bed detached, they arrived each day around 10.30 and left about 4 as they had hour and half journey each way and I have to say apart from the usual tea breaks they worked solidly. Not only do they pack as normal in paper etc but then they have to wrap all your furniture in specail thick paper and then a type of bubble wrap. My study was the only room with excess stuff as it is my craft stuff i use for work and that took them about 2 hrs today. (there were 3 men)

We were strongly recommended not to pack our own stuff the way this was explained to us was if you pack ANY box yourselves and it is noted then customs are far more likely to rip it open and check it and then charge you for the pleasure of doing this. Everywhere we looked up and phoned up said exactly the same so we left the packing to them. Also as a point on insurance, they pack it, they break it, they pay !

Steve Lawson

NO they don't pay! The insurance does, actually it doesn't.. long story. Dont follow the flock!