bmcgivern

We moved in July 2016 to Adelaide from England and here are the lessons: 1. Use a shipping company who is accredited and has the standards - membership of BAR is essential 2. Quote - ensure the quote covers the entirety of the stuff you have - ****** applied an additional 1800GBP AFTER they had moved our stuff to the port stating we had understated the amount of stuff - we had paid an 1800GBP deposit at this stage. ****** did the survey and estimated the amount of stuff. Paul * the MD would NOT release our shipment until the payment was made. We missed our planned shipment date. When I held firm and asked for the goods to be returned, he released the container 3. Packing - ensure the items are packed by experienced staff. Over 30% of our goods were damaged on arrival due to poor packing. E.g. staff packed delicate bronze sculptures with oven ware and broke the sculptures - we are looking at 20kGBP damage with a few sentimental items 4. Container Loading - ensure the shipping company uses a restainer. We used a 40 ft container and there was some spare space. The items were not held with a restrainer, so when the ship rolled the items rolled 5. Shipping Date - ****** advised the ship would take 6 weeks to land and handed us to the Aus team. The ship arrived after three months and ****** stated the tracking of the ship was the responsibility of the Aus team 6. Payment of All Fees Excl Govt Charges - we paid over 5500GBP to move our contents to ******. I specifically made sure the contract covered all costs excl any customs or quarantine fees. Wrong. The Aus team had not been paid by ****** who would not answer any emails. I had to pay a further $700 "handling charge" for the Aus team, otherwise I would not get my stuff. The AUS team (AussieMoves were great) stated they will not work with ******. 7. Insurance - fortunately I took insurance with Letton Percival who have been great. They are taking action against ****** Overall - I hope no one has to go through what Sarah and I have. We had no items for over three months and were forced to buy stuff to cover the gap whilst moving around short term accom until our stuff arrived - only to see the scale of damage and ****** withdrawal from any engagement to help. The non-payment of the handling fees to the Aus team was the final piece in the jigsaw. Bob McGivern Adelaide *Mod note* Have removed company name for legal reasons. Please PM the OP to enquire re the company name.

Suggest you make sure the shipping company loads the items and use a restrainer to hold the items in place. We used ReloUK and they were a disaster - close to 30% of our items are damaged