Bob

They probably just use a local agent that subs to whoever can do it at cheapest price.

Doesn't matter much to you if the UK side never use the US side again if they're the ones holding your stuff hostage. That's why you find out who they are subbing to and you check that outfit out to see if you want to avoid them or not.

It's a pretty unregulated business over here and there are a lot of scams. Plenty of outfits that aren't, but you've basically got no come back if you are scammed and want your stuff because they have all your stuff.

slummymummy

I got curious and googled North American Van Lines reviews. Pretty scary reading... Nothing mentioned about scams though but just seems like a lot of other problems with them.

Based on my own experience I would recommend Doree Bonner and their american partners NAVL.

But if you believe what you read on the internet then NO!

Sorry OP, hope you get some other recommendations.

Katydid83

Hi again. Thank you to everyone who took the time to post.

We will not be shipping any furniture or large items. Anyone had an experience just shipping boxes? Apart from boxing everything up and weighing all the boxes I have no idea how to get an accurate quote to send everything. Anyone have any experience with this?

Thanks

slummymummy

The weight usually does not matter unless it's air freight. For normal shipping by boat you are charged by the volume. Usually the shipping companies are pretty good at estimating how much space your stuff will take up. Not sure if they will come out and do a free quote for "just" some boxes, maybe depends on how much it is... I would give a few of them a call and see what they say. When we did ours, 3 companies told us our stuff would take up almost one container, and they were right!

TimandRae

Sounds like you're doing much the same as us. I've phoned a few companies to get quotes and it seems that they base the cost on the volume - rather than the weight - of stuff you want to ship.

When I've spoken to the companies I've made a guestimate at the amount of stuff we're going to take and reckoned it would be a Transit van full. They figure this equates to about 300-350 cubic feet and have quoted between £1,200 and £1,800 with the usual caveats that this is just a rough estimate etc.

We've rented a storage unit and are boxing things that we want to take with us and putting the boxes into storage. At the rate we're going (ie quite slowly and steadily) I reckon we'll be done by the middle of next month. At that point I'll phone a couple of the more realistic (and helpful) shippers and say this is how much stuff we have; how much will you charge to send it to the other side of the atlantic for me?

There's one agent that posts on BE (Bournes-UTS I think?) who were really quite helpful on the phone. Don't know if anyone has any experience with them here though. I suspect it would be a risky gamble to post regularly on an expat board if you used dodgy sub-contractors though...

Hope that's of some help.

kirstyp

Absolutely The destination agent issue is a great one to raise and should always be considered in weighing up who you book with. Most companies will have a regular partner they work with in the USA, some will use a couple of different partners depending on the location or in case one is already fully booked. At Bournes we're part of the UniGroup network which owns 2 of America's biggest moving companies - United Van Lines and Mayflower transit, all of their branches must meet certain levels of quality AND must perform in line with a Service Level Agreement outlining the minimum standards we expect them to provide on our behalf. Our agent selection process and quality scores door to door are inspected by FIDI and form part of our FAIM certification audits - in short, without quality partners at destination we wouldn't be able to offer a quality service to our customers.

As previously advised by others in the thread ask your mover who they propose to use as destination agent for your individual move and make sure you're comfortable with both parties.

Regarding Katydid83's other questions... we suggest starting talking to shipping companies around 3 months before your move to have time to get in your quotes, make your selection, prepare your paperwork etc, but dont worry if you haven't got that long - it's just a guideline, we've done international moves with only a few days notice! (but I wouldn't recommend you take on that kind of stress!!)

If you're only taking a few boxes then the other thing to consider is how quick do you want your items? if you need them quickly then an airfreight or LCL (less than container load) shipment by sea would be your quickest options OR if you're not in a hurry and would like to save a little cost then a shared container (also known as Groupage) will be the most cost effective method. Here's a thread explaining more... http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=783380

re: getting your quotes - if you've only got a few boxes to move and you know exactly how many then you can ask the moving company to provide you a quote based on your list, or you could use an online inventory to get a rough idea. If you're not sure how much you want to take yet or want a couple of different quote options based on different volumes then i'd advise arranging an in home visit where you can show the move consultant and discuss your options to make sure you get a more accurate quote.

Hope all that helps, feel free to ask if you have any other questions or there's lots of other tips in our partner forum here on British Expats. http://britishexpats.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=193

steffunny

a friend moved back to america a few months ago...........they used GBLINERS.........she was very happy with this company and the price was great too.........i will be looking into using them also.......best of luck with your upcoming move