vsaumarez

I hope to be moving to the Us some time this year, and will be shipping all my possessions. Has anyone had a difficult time with customs clearance? Do you have to provide evidence of purchase for newer items?

Scorchio

I have umpteen boxes of my junk that were supposed to be arriving on a container ship last Thursday. Presumably they're currently unloading them and heading for customs*. I haven't heard anything yet, but I can let you know when I do.

I put everything down as "household items >1 year old", because it is, except maybe for a handful of CDs I got last year. [Un]Fortunately, money was a bit tight last year, so I didn't exactly splurge!


* Or, having spotted the "owner packed" label, the dock workers are currently playing football with my crystal wine glasses...

rincewind

I'm too cheap to have my stuff shipped. I get relations to bring bits and pieces as they come to visit. One more trip and I should have all my CDs and books and I'm done

doctor scrumpy

DONT use Simpsons Removals of Kent. I found they were a bunch of cowboys, with every box looking like they had been used as footballs.

Scorchio

I went with GB Liners - almost 30 boxes of various sizes for around 800 quid, which didn't seem all that bad!

I'll see if anything arrives intact before I fully recommend them, though!

abb

I am sending my households to US next week and i was wondering if is worthed to take out insurance?
any comment would be appriciated.

superpat

I second that... Simpsons moved us across Chatham (Kent, not MA!) and they dropped our dining table while unloading it from the wagon

Pat

dunroving

Same as any kind of insurance, depends on how upset you'd be if anything is broken and you have to pay to replace it. If you have any particularly fragile and particularly expensive belongins, then I think it's worth it. Just look at it as all part of the shipping costs and you won't miss it.

Scorchio

I ended up insuring about half of what I'm shipping over. Like dunroving mentioned, as with any insurance, it's just peace of mind. That and Sod's law dictating that if I didn't insure it, there'd be a perfectly positioned ice berg somewhere out in the atlantic...

Insurance was roughly 3% of insured value, plus the form insisted on having everything enumerated down to the last sock. My, that was a fun weekend...

crazi_daizi

Our stuff arrived on Wednesday, but we are picking it up today (hooray!) will report on the condition of the goods later! We used First Move who seem to be ok they came and collected our boxes on numerous occasions as we had to move house at home before our move here, but only charged us once. Can't remember the full amount, I know we have over 3 cubic metres of stuff (36 boxes) and I think it was around £900, but paid for by hubby's company. The people here - don't know if they are related to First Move or just people who deal with all the shipped items are a pain in the ass though! They have added crazy charges we weren't told about for this that and the other. Also told us our stuff would be ready the next day, then denied ever saying that and said Monday at the earliest, then guess what, Monday they decide that they never said that and we could have had our stuff Friday and would like to charge us storage...

USBound

Yeah... and I just found something else out about the shipment we have to pickup today... they are in CENTRAL COMPTON... yeah... we have to drive into the worst possible area to pickup our stuff...

FirstMove's total costs was 750quid
Total Charges from Primary Frieght Services at the Port $236

I would recommend that anyone else getting things shipped to get a DOOR TO DOOR service and confirm it in Triplicate in Writing. Ours was supposed to be...but c'est la vie

crazi_daizi

I stand corrected (nosy husband)

Scorchio

Hmm.. ours is supposed to be, too. They had me fax a form back last week that included information like, yes, they can deliver as soon as possible, and the apartment's on the second floor, and no, there's no lift. I'm hoping that's a good indication that they actually are going to deliver it.

It's been about five days now since the ship was due to arrive in port... how long does it take to unload one of these things? I bet my stuff is at the bottom at the back - that's usually the case when I go looking for stuff.

ireland132

I know everyone has had different experiences when shipping things and all I can add is that clearing customs can take longer than you may expect (or were quoted in the UK).

We shipped all our belongings from London to Los Angeles (900 cu ft/150 boxes) last September.

It took 3 weeks to make the crossing (exactly on time) and then about 5 weeks to clear customs. There was no way to speed it up and we just had to wait. Backlogs, Thanksgiving, increased level of secuirty were all to blame. You just have to be patient.

However, nothing was damaged and the delivery guys were great. They reassembled everything that needed doing so. Have forgotten about the hassle involved.

crazi_daizi

Wow! As soon as our stuff arrived we cleared our stuff through Customs ourselves - took all of 5 minutes!! Saved us $150 too, the chrage if the shipping company did it.