International movers - Anglo Pathetic

[pault]

Hi, moving abroad is a big step. It takes a fair amount of organising. It is quite stressful. Do yourself a favour and avoid AngloPacific. You do not need the added stress caused by their short comings. To cut along story short, our consignment was collected from our house in August, we are still waiting for it in December. The latest guess from the shipping company is delivery some time in January. I'm not holding my breath. :x

[Tim]

Yep -me to-Pickedup in Sept, arrivedin Perth early November and still waiting to be released, absoloutely no contact from their agent here in Perth about when - We have had to do allof the chasing..won't use them again.

[John Payne]

Hi,

My name is John Payne, and I work for Anglo Pacific. If you would like me to investigate your shipment please email me directly. My address is:

john.payne@anglopacific.co.uk

Regards.

[Mick N Jo]

Hi, we were packed and ready to move out by early Aug. Shippers came and emptied hous in to a shared container. We were told that the consignment would be in Brisvags docks by mid Nov. Called in Sept to be told the container would be loaded in Sept, Called in Oct to find out container had just left Dartford docks.

Container arrived in Aus in Dec. Shippers in East Anglia were contacted and we were advise to speak to the Aus agents as we had contract with them not UK. Aus shippers were like nothing on this earth. Could not tell us when consignment would be unloaded, late dec we made frantic call to agents and told that it had been sitting in customs awiting our payment of fees. Pity we were not told before hand about this.

Took 2 months to get the consignment from Bris docks to current location Townsville some 1200 km. Infact the container stopped in town and then got re routed to Cairns. Cairns handlers denighed it was there, bBrisvagas agents said it was.

We contacted UK and started to wrattle our gums, and asking for compensation due to being messed around and having to buy goods we had shipped. UK company got all shirty, saying we needed to seek compo from the Aus company as they were the ones we had a contract with.

Sorry ********* Neave, we paid you a lump sum for door to door service and it did not happen as advertised, Ensure that the delivery agents are aware of what you have signed up for. We should have had everything unpacked and inspected for damage in accordance with BN sales brouchure.

Be wairy and do ask questions weekly, there is no tracking of your worldly possessions by many of the companies who insist that you pay before the service is completed. Yeap it is very stress full.

Good luck to all you lucky people who have been fortunate enough to get the visas in your passports.

PS Weather is fantastic here +32 at 8 pm and a light breeze. Just had a BBQ on the sea front....... Throw another prawn on for me..

[pault]

Mick n Jo, sorry to hear of your problems with international shipping. I thought it was only Anglo Pacific that were capable of such cock-ups...

John Payne, We wasted hours of our time and who knows how much money in phone calls to your company and noone could give us a satisfactory answer as to why our consignment was not sent until nine weeks after collection from our house without any communication - lack of communication appears to be a speciality of Anglo Pacific's.
The additional nine week wait for our belongings may have been easier to swallow if, at the very least we had been notified of any difficulties you may have been experiencing; but even that appears to have been too much like hard work.

[jules29]

your in townsville how are you finding it? thats where we are hoping to move to once we have sold the house. are you renting or did you buy and where in townsville are you. any info would be appreciated.

[Gollywobbler]

Originally Posted by John Payne

Hi,

My name is John Payne, and I work for Anglo Pacific. If you would like me to investigate your shipment please email me directly. My address is:

john.payne@anglopacific.co.uk

Regards.

Hello John

I have never used your firm and I wouldn't, because I have read so many criticisms of it on other forums besides this one.

I think you are very naive if you imagine that that you can silence the complaints of crap service by persuading people to e-mail you privately. Frankly, my own sceptical impression of that notion would be, "Give this hero yet another chance to sweep his company's alleged shortcomings under the carpet instead of convincing a sceptical public that instead he has been prepared to stand up and be counted in public."

Been seen to apologise publicly to everyone who has been let doen by the company. Been seen to to pay the full replacement value of goods damaged in transit. (If you have made sub-contracts with Australian agents whom you feel have let you down, then you sort that out with them, chum, instead of turning the end-customer into the victim, I strongly suggest.)

I do not think that a bit of PR flannel is actually going to cut the mustard, my friend.

Cheers

Gill

[Tim]

Hi John,

For some consructive critisicm, The main thing that got me was the lack of communication about what exactly was going on. In my case it was as follows:

Excellent guys in the Uk packing, filled out customs documentation and everything else. Was given an estimated time of arrival in Australia of the beginning of November, the date came and went and heard nothing, two weeks later phones the agent here and was told the vessel was going to be late. Thought Ok that is good was told it was going to be a few weeks as the vessel had arrived and had to clear customs, another couple of weeks passed and called agent here in Perth. Ithen had a return letter fromthe agent here saying i needed to fill out customs documentation again and urgently!!! How can such an important bit of documentation go missing between the UK and Oz???

They said I quote 'We don't call you unless it is ready to be delivered'. I waited and waitand not even a courtesy callto say anything about approximate timescales, Called again and was tols it was going tobe the beginning of Dec, again waited, finally on the 20th approx of dec got a call from your agents saying they wanted to deliver the next day! Thanks for the forwarning people. Itsjust as well the better half was working from homethat day.

The main thing is the LACK of communication as I can understand if it is delayed by people outside of our control...

[John Payne]

Regular users of internet forums will know that adverse publicity is not uncommon, and that companies very seldom reply to that adverse publicity for fear that a less than useful ‘slanging’ match often ensues. It is for that reason that Anglo Pacific has not responded to posts on this site before now.

I have been following posts on forums for a little while now, as Anglo Pacific appears to have received, amongst the good and bad, some pretty poor feedback from forum posters. I was hoping to open private dialogue with the two posters who have aired their dissatisfaction with Anglo Pacific to help me get a better understanding of their problems, but responses force me to place this posting.

My name is John Payne, and I am the Group Sales Manager for Anglo Pacific and one of those responsible for the growth of our company. I believe firmly in customer service, and it is in my interest to find out what our customers experience is like to help us shape the way we think in the future. Therefore, I would like to invite anybody who has had a problem with Anglo Pacific, which has not been resolved to your satisfaction, to contact me by private email. Again, my email address is john.payne@anglopacific.co.uk

I will not promise that I can turn back the clock and provide total satisfaction for everyone, but I will review your case if you would like me to!

Now I would like to tell you something about Anglo Pacific, and at the same time try to put in to perspective our record of successfully moving people around the world. This is in no way intended to read as a sales pitch, but a few facts and figures might show us in a different light.

Anglo has been trading since 1978, and has become one of the largest international removal organisations in the UK. Every year we move literally thousands of consignments overseas (around 20,000 per annum), and believe it or not most of them successfully. You will find it easier to find negative threads about us than most of our competitors for the simple reason we ship more. If for example we ship three times as much as our neighbour, but receive double the number of negative feedback comments then the reality is we are doing a better job!

Our claims record is exceptional, and our measurement of customer satisfaction has been developed over the past twelve months to new levels with the introduction of improved customer feedback. In fact we probably do more to react to customer feedback than any other company in our field.

The loss ratio for our industry is an average of 4% (4% of customers claim for missing or damaged goods). Our record for the past three consecutive years is below 2%, an indication of how well we perform.

Having said all of the above, I recognise that we do not get it right all of the time, and it is our response to problems and mistakes that is vital. We have procedures for dealing with customer complaints, and they have recently been tested and approved during an audit by Ernst & Young. We do more now than ever before to get things right, but being a realist I also know we will never satisfy everybody every time.

I do not expect everyone to accept my post as genuine. Life teaches us to be cynical, and if I’m honest I must admit to being a little cynical at times myself.

I have been around this industry for twenty-five years. I have served on various British Association or Removers committees, including on the BAR Board and as Chairman of the Overseas Group of BAR, representing the interests of all the major international removal companies in the UK and also as the BAR delegate at FIDI. FIDI being the worldwide international association for our industry.

I joined Anglo two years ago, and I did not take the decision to join Anglo lightly. I have a reputation within our industry which is important to me, and Anglo’s reputation and business ethic matched my personal requirements.

My post is genuine, I am genuine, and the reason I am prepared to stick my neck on the block is because I believe in fair play and believe in my company. There is no hidden agenda!

I hope this posting is received as evidence of our integrity and good intention, and is not misconstrued in any way!

[Gollywobbler]

Hi John

I am not in this game for the purpose of trying to de-rail your company. The reports I have read about Anglo-Pacific's performance are so poor that nothing of mine would ever be entrusted to you.

However, I think you personally do have a genuine desire to try to help the customers whom your Company has let down.

If so, why do you need them to e-mail you now? Why aren't their already-sent e-mails on their files and logged as Complaints on the company's database? If the company were properly-organised, surely it wouldn't take more than a morning to get all the Complaints files delivered to your your office so that you could be seen to start pulling this shambles around?

I belong to about 12 different but relevant forums. How are you going to find them all, chum? Shouldn't the Complaints be obvious from the Company's files anyway? Dissastisfied Customers do tend to Whinge, after all.

Therefore you ought to know who they are and what their complaints are, shouldn't you? Why are yoiu not being pro-active about making the first move in contacting them and sorting their grouses out?

Gill