Which shipping company is best???

[Guest JoanneHattersley]

We've been getting quotes in and so far Simpsons seems quickest to talk to us, politest and cheapest... so although we've not actually got any one in and round the house so far, they're ahead by miles on our scale!!

 

We used Simpsons back in 2005 and CazBEckham (mum!) used them last year! No hassles at all! Brilliant service. PM Mum if you want to know anymore

[Guest gary12]

Hi we used Excess international and the guys who came to pack were great. We only had a small amount (76 boxes!) and so shared a container, we were told it would be 6 to 8 weeks to ship which was spot on, it has now been in customs for over 2 weeks so we hope it will be delivered soon. The only downside of this was they told us that they had a lot of shared containers go to Melbourne each week so it wouldn't be long before ours went. They packed it up on 9th December and it wasn't shipped until 2nd Jan. We also dropped a small (car boot full) down to them and again it has taken about 5 weeks to be loaded.

 

I WANT MY BED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GIVE IT ME NOW... please

 

so my point is, that although we had allowed an additional 4 weeks grace we are still waiting. If you are sharing a container send it as early as you can before leaving the UK, we thought we had done, did I mention I miss my bed?

 

best of luck

Michelle

[Guest gary12]

This was exactly my idea. New Country... New Life... New Everything.

 

I reckon that it would cost just as much to ship over things that I have looked at in the house for a few years, as it would be to replace them brand new in Oz, so why bother. Anyway, the likelihood is that we'd rent furnished accomodation to start with.

 

My plan is to sell everything via ebay, car boot sale, local ads etc. and turn up with whatever clothing we can fit in our cases and a few DVD's and CD's for my daughter. You never know some fool may even give me a couple of Quid for Hubby.

 

Does anyone have any opinions on whether they would have done it this way in reflection, or are there any things that are relly expensive or difficult to get in Oz, that would be worth bringing along.

 

The one thing that I would like to take is the chef in our local takeaway, but he might not appreciate 2 weeks in a storeage container. Still, there is a sign up stating £1 extra for home deliveries over 2 miles, I wonder if that stretches to Oz. :laugh:

 

 

 

We shipped very little just MY BED!:cry: and a few small bits of furniture.

We shipped no white goods but I wish I had bought a spare fridge (for B, W and Spirits!) electric fans not dead expensive but when you give them away. Glad I sent my hoover over, I think they are expensive here.

 

Kitchen knifes, I paid 100 dollars for a set in the sale and they are pants, they have started to rust after 5 weeks even though they are stainless! My garden pots, parasols etc, I wish I had taken the time to clean them that will teach me, I do find them expensive here.

 

One thing I wish I had done was not rush into buying things here. we needed everything really down to cutlery I just wish I had taken a bit more time to shop about but you live and learn!

 

We were fortunate that we had a decent budget to buy new. Things do feel expensive but then I guess it is no more so than buying your entire home contents all in one go back in the UK. Be prepared in the first month to spend, spend, spend.

 

best of luck,

Michelle

[Guest tigers08]

hi gary12 how much did you pay for the 76 boxes with packing

[Guest gary12]

I think it was about 3k, that includes packing/unpacking. 76 boxes were various sizes from t chests full of clothese to bikes and a dining room table. As I said the guys who packed were brilliant, they were prepared to pack things they shouldn't ie t bags but warned us they would go through everything if customs found them so we left them behind. It is Kent who are the contractors this end and it seems from other posts they are pretty good too.

 

regards

Michelle

[Guest ami]

Thanks for posting this daunting experience. I want to bring in my stuffs sometime end of this month on the 20footer container. Agent here charging me something like AUD3300 from Freo to my house. Thinking of saving some money and want to clear the container on my own but worry about the whole process. U sound very easy to clear the container on own! Mayb u can help me with other tips for clearing container on my own like from the time the ship arrived with the container, unloading and loading and going through AQIS, custom and so forth...

Thanks and regards.

[quote name=Bulldozersand

Hi Legdes' date='[/font]

 

We packed our own container (as detailed in elsewhere), and found the whole process cheap and easy- until we had to deal with the Byzantine, crooked process at the other end! Because we were moving to a house 450km from Perth we decided, for logistical reasons, to use an agent to deal with the Customs etc in Freo. This was a nightmare, and appears to be designed to confuse and dispirit the poor migrants so that they won’t question the opaque and exorbitant fees charged for not-a-lot. We also shipped a cubic metre pallet of rammell, which arrived a couple of days after the container (the container being 2 weeks early, for some reason). We cleared the cubic metre Customs ourselves, and also did the AQIS inspection, and the whole lot was pleasant and easy. We should have done the container ourselves too, but you live and learn.

One thing that made life easy was our attention to cleaning everything that had touched the ground before we had packed it ie Shoes; tyres; garden tools; rotovator (!); vintage hay cutter (!). These items were put at the front of the container with the box of wooden items, just to show that we had thought about it. We made all of this clear on the Inventory. As each box was packed we made a list of every single item that was in it, then typed it into a Word doc at the end of each day. To fill each box completely we packed anything together, so ended up with hay cutter parts with clothes etc etc so the Word doc was a God-send, and still is, for doing a ‘Search’ to find anything. We then ‘condensed’ the list to give to Customs, hoping that it still looked ‘anal’ enough for them to realise that we had conformed to the letter of the law.

It is worth bearing in mind that on top of the quoted fee for a ‘full service pack and ship’ there will still be any costs for AQIS etc.

There are port charges to be paid- through the agent who, we think, deals with the whole ship. The rest of it you can do yourself quite easily.

 

The other grief entailed the import of my motorcycle: the whole registration process in WA is set up for people coming to live in Perth. Being 450km away, then finding (not mentioned anywhere on the net or in the documentation) that the bike has to go to Welshpool to be inspected, twice, with no appointment system, meaning 4 days in Perth was a real blow. Obviously, the ‘Shiny-bums’ hadn’t realised that not all Poms migrate to Joondalup.

 

Anyway, for anyone who is interested, I have pasted and edited the following from an email sent to a friend relating the sorry tale of the grief at Freo (it’s a bit of a ramble…):

 

 

The simple and cheap process of sending a 20 foot container load of personal possessions 10,000 miles across the world, with a change of ship at Singapore, ended at the side of the SS Maersk Kamakura at Fremantle docks. We didn’t understand the process or system of the ensuing costs and movements but had an agent allocated to what we thought was the entire ships cargo. We went to visit the agent in Fremantle and passed over some documents and an inventory of the goods. The agent seemed really efficient, and gave us a quote for the port charges and customs and quarantine costs. One part of it wasn’t clear so we queried the terminology; this seemed to throw the confident woman into a complete tizzy and eventually she had to go away to ask someone. She came back with an explanation that was obviously a complete load of rubbish so we asked if they had actually dealt with a container of personal possessions before. She assured us that they did them all the time. She had already said that we didn’t have to accept their quote but could go elsewhere, so we did. One part of the quote was for $487 plus GST plus $42 fuel surcharge to get the container from the boat to the bonded storage. This we assumed was at the offices with warehouse that we had visited in O’Connor, about 3km from the docks. We soon learned not to assume anything! Of course this cost seemed astronomical so we reported to my cousins husband who is a truck driver pulling containers out of Freo docks. He was amazed at the high cost and offered to fetch the container and deliver it to our house for “the cost of the diesel and a bed for the night”. He also insisted that the containers weren’t always opened, and sometimes the dogs were sent in or a fumigation ‘bomb’ thrown in. He claimed that they were all X-rayed for contraband and Chinese and that Customs knew from intelligence who was likely to be trying to bring in illicit goods. All of this went against all that we had gleaned so we were totally confused. Fortunately we had obeyed the letter and the spirit of the regulations: jet-washing everything that had come anywhere near the ground, and dousing many items in Jeyes Fluid. The gardening implements were then wrapped in plastic bags, as were the shoes. All wooden items were placed in one box for easy inspection. This all proved later to be the correct and trouble free way to do it.

Of course, the offer came to nothing, especially as we knew that the containers are all unloaded and so to reload it for transport would be ridiculous. There would also be rental to pay for the use of the container

We met a chap who told us that his sister worked for a customs and shipping agent, so we obtained a quote from the company. They were based on the Albany Highway, which we reasoned would be easier to get to for us although further from the docks to cart the container (little did we know…). On the phone they insisted that my Suzuki would need to be steam cleaned by the quarantine people, but I insisted that I would not allow this as it fetches paint off and wrecks electrical items. They said that 99% of all vehicles fail the cleanliness check and have to be cleaned. She then told me that “the gas will have to be taken out”. I told her that the petrol tank was not on the bike but had been dried and packed separately, but she said: “No, the gas in the air-conditioner needs to be removed…” I should have put the phone down at this point, but gamely carried on “So, I can assume that you haven’t ever been on a motorcycle, then?” This worried us greatly but we had run out of time and enthusiasm so gave in and let them process our load.

 

I took a phone call in the street one day from the freight agents: they wanted to know the value in Australia of my Suzuki. I told them that I had no idea as I had only been in the country for a couple of weeks and had not had time to become familiar with the local bike scene or indeed read any magazines. I also pointed out that the relevant documents said that Customs would assess a value for a vehicle so that they could apply 10% GST and any duty payable, so I wasn’t willing nor able to give a value. Eventually I had to phone Customs to sort it all out: The chap insisted that he needed a value from me but I insisted that I couldn’t give one. Eventually I realised that this may go against the whole procedure so I gave a value of £2000, which was definitely an over-estimate but I was pressured, and I was standing in the street at the time. The officer then wanted a value for the parts of my dismantled bikes, which I had already established by phone from the UK would not incur any GST charge. Of course I had no record of this conversation, and anyway the person had finally decided that I “may have to pay GST on the frames, oh, and perhaps the wheels…” I was most adamant that these parts were just personal possessions, and had been in my possession for around 25 years. I had a house to build, a job to find and a life to get on with so would probably get round to reassembling them when I was 75. After much haggling the officer said that we could say that the parts were worth £200 and we could say the Suzuki was worth £1800, making the total the same as his original estimate of £2000. I asked if he was happy with this, and he said that he was. An Aussie Jobsworth, I suspect. He then wanted a value for the ‘aircraft parts’, but at this point I lost it and told him that they were bits of no value and if he tried to charge me anything I would personally drive up to Freo and chuck them in the dock. There was a long silence then he said: “OK, we’ll forget about those”. It was only much later that I remembered that the parts included a brand new pair of Cessna mainwheels, tyres and brake discs with callipers, and a nose-wheel and tyre. Fortunately I had listed them as ‘Cleveland wheels’ so he possibly didn’t know what they were.

The injury was that the robbing swines at the freight company then charged me at the rate of $2.5 to the £ when the buy price on that day was $2.23, so it cost $507 for the duty on the bike, for some reason.

We were finally informed that the container had arrived. This turned out to be two weeks early, and coincided with the cubic metre of rubbish which only made things worse as my 7.5 tonne truck licence isn’t valid in Australia. There was a lot of confusing advice about what I could and couldn’t drive, or hire, to go up to Freo to fetch our possessions. This is quite normal for Australia, and I’m sure that I could have got various opinions from the licensing authorities. I was assured by my friend Graham that I would be limited, as he was, to a 2.5 tonne truck.

 

I promptly went to the truck hire and fetched a 5 tonne Isuzu. By this time it was 10am with a 5 hour drive ahead to get to Fremantle. We made steady progress and arrived at the bonded storage at 3 pm only to find that there was a socking great ship parked there because the store was about 200 metres from the dockside. The company only had its office in Bentley and was separate from the bonded store company! This was the first dawning that we had been ripped off with the fuel and cartage charge. The next obstacle was that the cargo could not be released to us without the authorisation of the freight agent, so a call was made but the person dealing with it was not available. He failed to call back until 4 pm and got a huge mouthful from us as we explained that we didn’t have a credit card, and No, we couldn’t bring a cheque across Perth in the rush hour in a 5 tonne truck because the bonded store closed at 4.30 pm. He finally conceded that we could load some of the stuff into the truck that day, but would have to pay the bill before we could load the rest the next morning. The whole place was very grubby and chaotic, but we were really pleased to spot our familiar boxes and my Suzuki standing on a series of pallets. All seemed well at first glance but then we spotted the shower screen lying on the floor with a clearly labelled large painting on top of it. Sitting on top of both was the 60 kg iron casting of my hay cutter. Unbelievably, when we examined them later, neither was broken.

As an indication of the lax security, we were asked where we wanted ‘the boat’. This was a brand new speedboat on a trailer that happened to be standing next to our possessions. It came with a BMW motorcycle, and we could have loaded it on too! We were still loading at 4.45 pm so we called it a day and decided to return as early as possible the next day. When I asked the young chap on the forktruck why he was still working, he replied that he could see that we were having a ****ty day so thought that he should help out. I finally packed it in and sent him off. He turned round in the yard and returned to say: “Just in case no one has said this to you yet - Welcome to Australia!” This really touched us for some reason.

We set off from the docks to a friend’s North of Perth for a bed for the night and to store some stuff in her shed. She didn’t seem too chuffed but we went anyway. We soon had the bikes, steel tool cupboard, cement mixer, gym and vintage hay cutter inside her garage. The next morning we were up bright and early to get down to the storage for when it opened at 7.00am. We cruised through Scarborough Beach and then Cottesloe looking for an internet café that was open so we could send a bank transfer to the freight agent, but eventually roared a huge string of expletives and gave up. I decided that they would have to sing for it for a while and switched off the phones.

We had assumed that security at the bonded store would be extremely tight, but it seemed that anyone wearing a fluorescent safety vest could wander in off the dock or street and mosey about amongst our personal possessions unchallenged. We did just that and proceeded to load up the rest of the stuff into the truck. The previous day we had offered our passports as ID, and were met with an amazed look: “No-one has shown us those before…” We were assured by some of the minions that our heap of stuff would not all fit in the truck, so we thought that we would have to pack as much in as we could then drive up to our friend’s, whilst she was at work, and decant enough into her garage to allow us to return to the bonded store and squeeze the rest in the truck. We wandered out into the street several times to go in a different entrance to use the loo or to have a cuppa in the workers’ snap-cabin and no-one seemed to care.

We were amazed at the great variety of vehicles being imported, mainly cars from the UK such as a Jensen Interceptor and two really rusty Jowett shells. The previous day a container had been delivered that turned out to be full to the top with boxes of red onions from China. AQIS had inspected it and rejected the shipment because the onions had got roots on, and many were starting to sprout. A number of young Chinese girls then arrived, set up tables in the quarantine area under the watchful eyes of the quarantine officer and proceeded to top and tail the cargo of red onions. This was no small task, and soon the place reeked of onions and the quarantine rejection bins started to fill up with what looked to be good big onions. There were literally tonnes of them, so The OH asked if she could have a slack handful to make some soup but was told in no uncertain terms that it was forbidden as they were rejected for importation.

We decided that Customs had not even been to look at our load, and AQIS had possibly only looked at the wooden items. We observed a quarantine visit to the next heap of possessions, and a few select boxes were hunted for and opened which took about a minute to perform. This is charged at $93 for the first half-hour, then $83 for each quarter hour after, plus 10% GST. We wondered how much the absent owner would be charged for the visit!

We chatted to a fellow Pom who was whingeing that he had already paid $4000 in fines/charges and AQIS were still not satisfied with the cleanliness of his stuff, so we wandered over to have a look: He had obviously not bothered at all so deserved all that they threw at him. Not only did he have two petrol strimmers with grass still on them but one of the two mountain bikes actually had horse **** embedded in the tyre treads. Australia was in the grip of an Equine Influenza epidemic at the time, and WA was still free from it so we thought that he should have been packed off home as an Undesirable Alien. We left him trying to brush dog and horse hairs from a pair of trousers that had been pulled from a chest of drawers. We really tried hard to get everything as clinically clean as possible; not just so we could get through the AQIS inspection but because we care about the integrity of the unique environment of flora and fauna in Australia in general, and WA in particular.

I declared to the OH that the whole lot of our goods was “****ing going in the truck one way or another”, and at 1 o’clock it did and we heaved the doors shut. We didn’t sign anything or speak to anyone at all before we drove off, and in fact the whole place was deserted because the Melbourne Cup horse race had just started. We could have driven in and taken anything, which was very disconcerting; we did return the fluorescent jackets to the deserted office.

We then had to go to the Customs House in Freo to sort out the clearance of the cubic metre of goods that had just arrived, but this turned out to be the easiest thing imaginable. We wished that we had known and we could have done the container ourselves. They looked at the inventory and cleared it all without wanting to look at the goods. We phoned AQIS and arranged an inspection in two days time at a different bonded store.

The truck felt decidedly well loaded as it negotiated the road out of Freo, and I had to crawl around some of the mini islands as we headed for Armadale and freedom at the Last Set Of Lights. There was a very distinctive smell in the cab, and I could see the dull red gleam of some Chinese onions tucked behind the middle seat.

 

We borrowed an open trailer for the journey back to Perth for the next load and set off in the Ford Barge. The bonded store was very big and clean compared with the first one, and we had the impression that it was run in a more professional manner, although someone’s English-registered Morgan was being driven around enthusiastically by one of the employees. The AQIS officer arrived and had a glance at our pile of 12 boxes and, ignoring the antique wooden piano stool and folding rocking chair, wanted to look at a sample of my lathe. I unwrapped a belt guard that was as clean as when it left Myford’s; he asked if that was all we had imported so while we waited for some paperwork to be faxed we related our story. He was amazed when we told him how much the container processing had cost, and informed us that we had been ripped off. He then said that he wouldn’t charge us for his visit because he felt sorry for us! We felt so good that we had a sandwich looking out over the Indian Ocean next to the Damaged Container Repair Centre (best not to see this place until after you have got yours safely...).

Just to confirm my theory about the licence authority: We went to swap our UK driving licences at the Department for Infrastructure and Planning. This took two hours and we seemed to throw the place into turmoil as I wanted to try to transfer my 7.5 tonne truck class over to the Oz licence.

I left with an 8 tonne provisional truck licence and was informed that it also covered a car and a bike.

OH left with a car and full ‘R’ motorcycle licence.

-OH cannot even ride a bicycle (I tried to teach her once).

-I later found that my licence didn’t include a car or full motorcycle licence so I had to return to change it. I could have driven up to 4.5 tonnes on the car licence anyway.

 

Oh, and I nearly forgot: almost 4 months after the container arrived we received an email with attached invoice for a port charge from a company that we had never heard of, with no contact phone number, and a sender whose name seemed like some Nigerian scammer so we ignored it. A few months later we received a snail mail from a debt collection agency in Queensland, again with few contact details threatening us with the bailiffs if we didn’t pay up within 48 hours. As we have a PO box, this had already expired so I phoned and got nowhere except to get a phone number of the company charging the $250. They claimed that the debt was for rental of the container as it had not been returned to the shipping company for 8 days after it was unpacked! I asked what the **** that had got to do with me, as I never saw the container in Oz. They claimed that because my name was on the Bill of Lading they had chased me up. I told them in no uncertain terms where they could shove their invoice, pointing out that to send anyone an invoice to a UK internet ISP address when the person had just migrated to Oz was completely dumb, then to send the bailiffs to a PO box 4 months after someone has migrated was moronic: who lives at the first address after 4 months in Oz? We heard no more from the opportunist sharks, if indeed it was a genuine invoice.

 

 

Having been here for 15 months now, and loving it, we still find that the whole place exists on myths and half-truths. No-one seems to know anything, preferring to tell you anything rather than admit a lack of knowledge. This applies from State government down to the spotty oik in the store.

 

Hope this is of some use.

[Metoo]

Top post Buldozersanddirt, your experience demonstrates well the beaurocracy and hit and miss atitude of the authorities and companies in Australia, I have dealt with customs in Australia before and seriously the left and right hand don't know each other exist let alone communicate, I used to ask different people until I got the answer I wanted, then agreed straight away and left before any minds changed! It all seems like a game to them, and you are right about security, once you are in you can help yourself to whatever you want.

[Guest tramway]

Hi

We used a company called White and Co. They came and took all our stuff within 5 days of giving us a quote as we completed on our house sale quicker than expected. They held it in storage for us for two months and only charged us for 4 weeks storage. Shipped out to Oz 15th November, arrived in Oz 23rd December. We were asked to pay quarantine fee of $374 on 20th January as it had cleared customs and we took delivery of it today. We didn't charged for any storage fees while it was in Oz. Everything was there, it had been really well packed, just a couple of broken glasses (which I had wrapped!!). For a 40ft full container including insurance we paid just under £3k. Everyone told us that was too cheap and it would all go wrong, but couldn't fault the guys at either end. Really corteous in the UK and checked everything I had packed and they re-packed quite a bit of it. The guys who delivered to us this morning were really helpful and put the boxes wherever we told them to and also offered to help us unpack everything. I was so excited about getting my stuff I said no, I wanted to do it all myself. It certainly feels like home with all my belongings around me.

 

Tracy

Hi tracy just wondering if Whites had included the quarantine charge in with your original quote or not as you mentioned paying over $300? Thanks

[Darius Kedros]

Amazing!!! Very entertaining & enlightening. Thanks for the saga length account, glad i bothered to read it.

[Guest The Pom Queen]

This thread is over 3 years old and the information on here may be incorrect so I will close the thread