sportaxi

Hi,

Could not find any recent posts on this. Can any of you recommend any removal firms for household goods, there quality of service and price, also any firms to steer clear of. I gather that the containers sizes are 20 & 40 sq/ft.

We have had one quote @ £4000, I think for 20 sq/ft.

We will be shipping from Newcastle area to Houston.

MsElui

we used allied pickfords. (Surrey to Ohio). Cant comment on cost as that was handled by the husbands firm, but they did everything they said they would. Packing was quick and efficient, and they delivered the air freight after 3 weeks (promised 4-6) and the sea freight (40 ft - after 4 weeks promised 6-10). Unpackers were polite and helpful too.

Anthony919

PM me and I will tell you a company to avoid at all costs.

The Horticulturalist

We just used Doree Bonner (Dartford Office) and they were very helpful. We had a sole use container, (quoted for 600.CuFt) from London to New Orleans at £3700.

Pickfords quote was the same but for a shared container, which obviously would take longer to arrive.

Having said all that it's not arrived in the US yet....

angiedee78

My sister used PSS and that is who we are looking into. Not sure we are going to take a full container but we are shipping personal effects.

I'll be watching this thread with interest

LadyBelle

Check out movingscam.com (or is it movingscams.com) for more recommendations.

We used Robinsons from London to NY. Similar quote. 20ft sole use. Fine job customer service-wise --- except make sure the feet of your furniture get extra padding. We asked our packing crew to do so, but they did not so we had some damage with that and with another box where a framed picture was packed with bathroom goods -- some of which had liquid in them. Not good.

So not a perfect move. We will file for insurance reimbursement, and I hope that they handle it all well.

They did handle coordinating with our USA movers so that the process would run more smoothly. So for us, it's really the guys who actually packed that really needed to do much better.

Good luck.

roobeech

We're due to be moving to Philadelphia later this year - interesting to hear all your experiences. I have requested quotes using the removals quote tool on reallymoving.com which brought back some interesting variations on price.

Presumably the likes of Pickfords are pretty established; but I don't know whether just because they are a big company they will provide a good service. Any suggestions?

The Horticulturalist

Those kind of websites only give a ballpark figure, you really need to make some appointments and get an assessor out from some different firms to give you an accurate quote.

cinnamonbuns

thanks for the info! this is exactly what I'm after

TimberHut

I moved in Dec 2007.

I shipped around 80 cubic feet (about 2.5 cubic metres) of just boxes (42 of them - various weights and sizes) for just under 1,000 quid (England to Indiana, USA).

I used www.excessbaggage.co.uk

It took 10 weeks door-to-door. All 42 boxes arrived safe and sound - nothing broken and nothing missing.

That's all you can ask for really - I thought it was a minor miracle!!!

BritishGuy36

PSS are picking up my stuff next week, and are charging me about £880 (including customs tax and insurance) for 54 cu ft of space. We aren't taking that much so didn't need a full container load.

We haven't exchanged on our house sale yet so they said they would store it for me for 4 weeks FOC and if we still haven't moved by that point I could pay them to store it longer or have it redelivered to a UK address.

nooka

I moved in March with Simpsons. I was very happy with their customer service, and the guys who did the packing were very professional and incredibly fast. We had virtually no breakages (one chip in a bookcase, and a few dolls house bits had to be glued back together - although this may be because I packed them into the initial box). Bit of a cock up at this end, where we had Air and Sea shipping (I think) they refused to unpack for us - said that was the VIP package only, but I am sure they should have as that's what we paid Simpsons for. If I'd been there I think I could have sorted it out, but my husband who let them in actually wanted to unpack, so it wasn't a problem. I have only just got rid of all the boxes though!

This thread had a good discussion about shipping:
http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=514289

LadyBelle

Robinsons uses Air and Sea Shipping too; we had them and they did unpack anything we wanted for us -- and I don't think we paid for any special package. Strange.

nooka

I'm sure it could have been sorted. It was an incredibly hot day, maybe the moving team were just trying it on Anyway my husband got to do all the unpacking which he enjoyed (me and the kids were on holiday with my parents)

LadyBelle

I bet you're right; these guys asked us what more they could do too -- but we could see that they were hoping we would tell them just to go.