Shipping from UK - Lessons Learned: Dont Use ****** Ltd

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.

Nightmare, letton Percival were fab to deal with good luck x

Well to be honest that just sounds extraordinary and in terms of extra payments, sounds like you just didn't read your documents properly. I have moved four times now and had quotes about 12 times and it has always been perfectly clear what I would be paying for.

Three months is a normal time frame for a move to Australia. Yes sometimes it is faster, but that is within normal time frames.

Many people get things pinched too- we certainly did and many I have spoken to did, too. Sounds like nothing has changed.

Sounds like a pretty poor company to deal with, especially if they had not paid their agents the other end.

That said, £5,500 excluding quarantine and customs charges for full service on a 40' seems on the cheap side with ~£70k value of items inside. We paid £4,800 excluding charges for full service (wrapping, storage, shipping, insurance, Aussie agents) and our belongings took 8 weeks door to door in perfect condition on a £20k load - a lot of the value was sentimental.

Appreciate that this doesn't help your position BUT it's worth people knowing that moving your stuff ain't cheap. If you pay peanuts you get Monkeys.