Missing items from shipment

[jomac]

We arranged for our household belongings to be shipped from Australia to London last year.  Became aware during delivery to our UK address that many items were missing. 
We have finally heard from the shipping company Metromovers, they have made a huge error in that they sub contracted the job to another company who did not put all our belongings into the correct private container we paid for and actually used a shared container, therefore most items have been lost. Possibly even shipped to other countries. The sub contractors have gone out of business, so it's getting hard to put together a trail.  We are talking about huge items of furniture - parts of sofas, beds, washing machines etc, but most importantly irreplaceable and sentimental personal items.  

They have accepted liability, but that is not good enough. I am more interested in getting my belongings back. My wedding dress, photos, childhood belongings are among some of the missing items.

Can anybody with inside knowledge give me advice about how I can go about finding any of these things? Out of 126 items, we received 56, meaning 70 items are missing. 

The company responsible has said they are investigating, but I know they will not go about it with as much determination and passion as I will. 
Has this ever happened to anyone else?

I am prepared to exhaust every possibility and do have the time to spend on this.
ANY advice or help appreciated!
Thanks

[Guest The Pom Queen]

Hi @jomac I am so sorry to hear this, like you said it's the sentimental items that can't be replaced. Were the sub contractors based in the UK or Australia? Would customs have any record of who else shared the container, if they did you would probably need a court order to gain the information. 

What about insurance? It won't bring the sentimental items back and I am so sorry as that would make me feel sick to the stomach.

How about trying to track down employees of the sub contractors, LinkedIn may be helpful, if you know the name of the company you could do a search for an ABN and a contact name for the director. 

'If it was last year though I think your chances are very slim. Whoever received the wrong items probably just threw them out.

[jomac]

Hi, thanks for the nice comments and advice. I am prepared to spend time on this and your suggestions give me a good place to start. There are so many gaps I need to fill and don't know where to begin or even the whole process. 

My hope was that they may be left in a warehouse somewhere, but I guess that's hope. Even if the items have been destroyed I need to try to build up a picture of what has happened so I can put together a good legal claim. The sentimental and personal items made up the bulk of the shipment and I am beyond sick to the stomach....

 

However, I'm living in hope! 

[ScottieGirl]

Sorry to hear about this I would be gutted too. One thing that strikes me as unusual is rhe amount of stuff you lost. I can understand the odd box going astray but 76 items?? Including large furniture?? I assume they were labelled, mine were. If that amount were misdelivered it would be noticed.

Have you thought about reporting the items as stolen?  I imagine the police could access the sub contractors info quite easily and a simple conversation  might shed light on where the stuff is even if it is an honest stuff up

[Guest The Pom Queen]

Also @jomac you say it was last year. Has it taken this long for the company to get back to you? Did they have it in storage? Crown did something very similar when we moved up to Cairns they outsourced. On arrival day they decided they were going to charge us more because the road in was steep. They started unloading and I went off to do something. All the boxes had been placed in the garage but then they brought out two push bikes and I said they aren't ours, so they put them to one side and went to the next item which was a large mirror and I said that also isn't mine. It turns out they had picked up the wrong container at the depo. They nearly missed half of the items when they had to put them all back. 

I would say they will be with the other people who shared the container, let's hope they are honest as personal items hold no value to them

[jomac]

23 hours ago, ScottieGirl said:

Sorry to hear about this I would be gutted too. One thing that strikes me as unusual is rhe amount of stuff you lost. I can understand the odd box going astray but 76 items?? Including large furniture?? I assume they were labelled, mine were. If that amount were misdelivered it would be noticed.

Have you thought about reporting the items as stolen?  I imagine the police could access the sub contractors info quite easily and a simple conversation  might shed light on where the stuff is even if it is an honest stuff up

To be honest, I too was so shocked that so much went missing, even large pieces of furniture could go - but it's odd as it's like half the sofa was delivered and the cushions etc are missing! A bed frame, but not the mattress. It was all labelled, wrapped and a sticker with a bar code. There would also have been enough personal paperwork and photos in there to put together a trail. I might threaten to report to the police actually. Good idea! 

[jomac]

23 hours ago, The Pom Queen said:

Also @jomac you say it was last year. Has it taken this long for the company to get back to you? Did they have it in storage? Crown did something very similar when we moved up to Cairns they outsourced. On arrival day they decided they were going to charge us more because the road in was steep. They started unloading and I went off to do something. All the boxes had been placed in the garage but then they brought out two push bikes and I said they aren't ours, so they put them to one side and went to the next item which was a large mirror and I said that also isn't mine. It turns out they had picked up the wrong container at the depo. They nearly missed half of the items when they had to put them all back. 

I would say they will be with the other people who shared the container, let's hope they are honest as personal items hold no value to them

I can't believe how often it seems these companies do stuff up and cut corners! Like I said, we paid for a private container and maybe the other people who had stuff in our one did receive our belongings, but I just meet dead ends all the time. I think what happened is the sub contractor only put half our belongings in the right container and the rest went elsewhere. We have been chasing this up a year and only just getting answers now.

apparently they have nothing of ours in storage. But I also don't think they are doing the best investigation work either! I can't even get the names of the other containers that went on the same boat as the sub contractor has reportedly gone out of business.

The forward freighter here also failed to tell us they had only unloaded 56 items. They sent an email to the company in Oz but didn't even think to copy us in, even when I queried it at the time.