Guest cancan Posted November 17, 2011 Share Posted November 17, 2011 Nothing much has happened since my last post. Back in Sept the UK removal company advised me that the door to door time for my 20ft container would be 8 weeks, it docked on time, but its now 10.5 weeks and it's only just been checked by customs, and there's been no suggestion of a delivery to me. I have deduced that, because the import co-ordinator who was handling my case left the company last month, (they are advertising the vacancy) the remaining staff are now overworked, making mistakes, (today I was sent somebody else's customs bill) everything gets behind... The UK removers are ignoring my emails asking for updates. What I have learnt from this is that I should not have paid the full shipping fee up front, and if there's a next time I will use a larger company who may have more influence over the overseas agent. And, certainly, ignore claims of caring,' we'll do it all efficiently and take the stress out of your move' as proclaimed on the glossy websites of the UK company I booked through; the company they sub-contracted to and the Oz import agents! Personal recommendations are the only thing to heed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
calNgary Posted November 19, 2011 Share Posted November 19, 2011 Hi Sorry to hear your having problems,, we found the softly softly approached worked with the shippers this end,lol, the sob story of how hubby had to start work and his tools were in the container seemed to work for myself and other familys i have met. As for the payment up front, ive read of people holding money back and the container will not be realeased at all until all funds are paid so its a bit of a catch 22. As hard as it is , give them another call and sob story if you can and fingers crossed it works for you. Cal x Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scarby Posted November 19, 2011 Share Posted November 19, 2011 Hi, We also found that what the UK company promised wasnt necessarily what actually happens, we had sole use of a container and were told it would take 8 weeks to get to Perth, it actually took 12 weeks to get here and we had hardly any information as to delivery dates etc despite me asking for a rough idea so that we could book time off work for it, what made it more frustrating was that we could have sent our stuff at any time as we were staying in a furnished rental and that if they had been honest and said 12 weeks we would have sent it earlier so it was ready when we got here, in my experience once the company have your money they are really not interested in anything else. Hope your stuff comes soon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest cancan Posted November 19, 2011 Share Posted November 19, 2011 HiCalNgary an Scarby thanks for your suggestions and kind commisserations. I tried the line'its not doing the osteoporosis in my spine any good sleeping on the floor' last week to the UK company. I don't know whether they can do anything at this stage, I guess the hold ups were a couple of weeks ago. But regardless of who caused the delay, not one of the three companies that I know are involved in my shipment has had the courtesy or professionalism to contact me with a revised delivery date. But isn't it great to have somewhere to have A RANT even though we can't name and shame? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
calNgary Posted November 19, 2011 Share Posted November 19, 2011 LOL, you rant away and we will listen,,lol,, sadly we cant name and shame due to legal reasons but i know having a rant can really help. I really hope you get somewhere soon ,it must be a nightmare for you,get onto the company this side first thing Monday and hang on in there. Good Luck Cal x Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cadas Posted November 21, 2011 Share Posted November 21, 2011 We've just been through it. Our container "arrived" in sydney on 10th October. I say arrived, but i was tracking the ship an it sat at anchor until the 17th october before finally docking and then a further 2days before the container showed gate out. Then customs/aqis took the full 15 working days, they are quoting 10-15 at the moment. Then another week to sort deliveryso we finally got our stuff five weeks after the arrival date. Its also worth keeping on top of the agent, we found out near the end that our uk shipper has not sent all papers whih could have had bug impact butbi was able to sort. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Kate10 Posted November 21, 2011 Share Posted November 21, 2011 Cadas can I ask you how you tracked your container? Would love to do the same! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Kate10 Posted November 21, 2011 Share Posted November 21, 2011 Oops! Finally figured out how to track! Ship due to arrive in Fremantle on the 7th December ..so we can still have hope that will have our stuff for Christmas! Fingers crossed!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest cancan Posted November 21, 2011 Share Posted November 21, 2011 ah ha , Cadas, do you know what is the significance of 'gate out full' ? 'cos this was on the tracking website, dated 2 weeks after arrival of boat with my container. Good on you Kate with your optimism! where did pessimism ever get anybody? hope you do get your stuff for Christmas. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cadas Posted November 22, 2011 Share Posted November 22, 2011 If you know what ship it is on, you can use one of the many "vessel tracking" websites that are free and see exactly where it is. Unless, like mine you go through suez and near to somalia then you cant see anything until it gets to Singapore nearly. Gate Out means the container has left the port area and gone probably to customs. It can take quite a while for the ship to offload and put the container on the dock, then for the container to come to the front of the queue for moving out. Ours took a week. Once it is gate out, we had another 3weeks wait for customs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marta Posted November 22, 2011 Share Posted November 22, 2011 I thought all the ships from the UK are ging through the Suez? Well, ours did. And yes, we could track it as soon as the ship was near Asia, not inbetween and that was the time we were worried about because we did not take out insurance and of course guessed that Somalian pirates might be interested just in our ship. (I was paranoid during that time to be honest.) Phew, luckily everything went fine. All in all our shipment took quite a long time (June - September) but we had groupage/partial load, which always takes longer. Also, when the ship finally arrived in port MEL it still took another three weeks until our stuff could be delivered due to customs clearing. Anyway. Chin up everyone and let's hope everything goes well! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest MontyClaude Posted November 22, 2011 Share Posted November 22, 2011 Our container arrived in Oz on Wednesday, it was only about 10 days later than they originally thought. No idea when we'll get our stuff but the movers at this end send us weekly updates. We used two different companies, one in Ireland, one here and we packed ourselves so we'll prob get our stuff next July! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marta Posted November 22, 2011 Share Posted November 22, 2011 Haha hopefully not that late!:hug: Wishing you the best of luck! We also self-packed our 90 cardboard boxes and moved via Italy and England to Melbourne. The first pick-up was in May in Italy, the second one in June in England, and despite all the complications with organizing the removal ourselves everything went fine. Well, ok, I suffered from severe hairloss due to all that stress but anyway.:eek: So we got lucky and were able to use a shipping company which had an Italian partner who picked up the first load in Italy and drove it to England where it then was merged with our second load (the boxes) which we prepared two weeks later in England. From there the total load was moved to the nearest port in England and was sent away. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest cancan Posted November 22, 2011 Share Posted November 22, 2011 If you know what ship it is on, you can use one of the many "vessel tracking" websites that are free and see exactly where it is. Unless, like mine you go through suez and near to somalia then you cant see anything until it gets to Singapore nearly. Gate Out means the container has left the port area and gone probably to customs. It can take quite a while for the ship to offload and put the container on the dock, then for the container to come to the front of the queue for moving out. Ours took a week. Once it is gate out, we had another 3weeks wait for customs. Thanks Cadas, it now makes even less sense that the UK shippers told me 8 weeks door to door, anyway, today I've heard from the importers here with a customs query and my stuff is all ready to be inspected by quarantine so we're definitely moving along now. Any tips on how to feel Christmassy in all this heat? and how long or is it indeed possible to get a tan using SPF 30? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest cancan Posted November 24, 2011 Share Posted November 24, 2011 It's over 11 weeks since my goods were packed in the UK, and I was told "8 weeks door to door". The importers have been in touch with me - they'v asked me to tick a couple of boxes on the AQIS form which I missed when I filled it in, they must have had this form since Sept or Oct, but they're only now checking it. The Uk shippers have come back to me and their excuses for delays are 'customs', 'busy summer season', 'backlog has developed'. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest eddie Posted December 6, 2011 Share Posted December 6, 2011 Hi all, we are waiting for our container (Fremantle) we were told 13/11/11, that came and went, then 23/11/11, ship docked 25/11/11. Phoned the shipping agents this end, was told "we prob wont receive our furniture until after Xmas"! However am in regular contact with them, customs are apparantly taking forever, checking everything etc etc. Theres not a lot you can do, but wait. Hopefully we maybe lucky and get our things before Xmas Bloody airbed is starting to get uncomfortable!! Regards Paul Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest MontyClaude Posted December 6, 2011 Share Posted December 6, 2011 We got our stuff 10 days after it arrived in Oz. Think we were very lucky. Ice never been so glad to see my bed in my life! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChrisH1979 Posted December 13, 2011 Share Posted December 13, 2011 We got our stuff 10 days after it arrived in Oz. Think we were very lucky. Ice never been so glad to see my bed in my life! Same here, I only hard a part container though. The remainder of the container still hasn't been released according to the maersk tracking website. --- I am here: http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=-37.810499,144.966423 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunniecat Posted December 13, 2011 Share Posted December 13, 2011 It's over 11 weeks since my goods were packed in the UK, and I was told "8 weeks door to door". The importers have been in touch with me - they'v asked me to tick a couple of boxes on the AQIS form which I missed when I filled it in, they must have had this form since Sept or Oct, but they're only now checking it. The Uk shippers have come back to me and their excuses for delays are 'customs', 'busy summer season', 'backlog has developed'. We've been quoted anything from 8 weeks to 14, and I have to say I'm more inclined to believe the latter and plan for our stuff to arrive a good 3 months after we do (we're shipping literally the day before we fly out). It's so frustrating when they tell you something that clearly is unlikely to happen! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pintpot Posted December 13, 2011 Share Posted December 13, 2011 Ours is confirmed as coming tomorrow. 9.5 weeks door to door for a full container to Sydney which is *just* about what I expected, but I pushed very hard at every stage and have dealt with shipping before so know a few of the levers to pull I reckon they wasted a week, maybe 1.5 weeks out of that, 8 weeks is the best it could ever be, but I'm happy enough. Half a week was wasted with the container hanging about the port in the UK (it took 7 days, 3 or 4 is quite possible), likewise in Singapore when it was transshipped (again 7 days, could have been 3), and a few days were wasted in Sydney between the port releasing the container and the agents picking it up and unpacking it for quarantine inspection. Actual shipping time from the UK to Sydney (ie total time on the water) was 5.5 weeks. I think you get told lots of cobblers by shippers, based on my experience shipping things for work. "Customs and quarantine" are used as catch-all excuses but I don't think that's really the issue. Customs clearance is a paperwork exercise that can be done as soon as the container has arrived, it doesn't have to wait for unpacking. And in our case, they had the container unpacked and available for AQIS last Thursday evening, AQIS looked at it Monday morning and cleared it by Monday lunchtime. So they weren't delaying anything either Time is most wasted in the following places: a) Consolidating loads in the UK. You kind of have to live with that if you're not sending a full container but it's a convenient excuse too. Get lots of quotes, if it's not much more for a full load then do it, as you'll save yourself a couple of weeks or more b) Waiting for the boat. This is less excusable, shippers will tell you ports work on a "cab rank" principle, first come first served and you can't book containers ahead on to particular boats. This is a crock. Ships run to very predictable timescales and the actual shipping lines (like Maersk) who are doing this part of the job (as opposed to the UK/Aus removers) know very well what's going on what boat c) Transshipping in Singapore. Not much you can do about that, it's in the hands of the likes of Maersk by then. It should't take more than a week d) Delays in the port releasing the container for pick up. Depends how busy they are e) Delays by your agents in Aus picking up the container and unpacking it. This is where you need to push them pretty hard (but in a nice way, you get better service if you are friendly but persistent). They can do this in 2 or 3 days if they want, or they can take 2 weeks if they are overworked/prioritising someone else's stuff. This is where the "customs/quarantine" excuse gets used f) Delays organising a delivery once cleared. Depends how busy they are, again you can get improvements with friendly persistence and flexibility Actual shipping time, port loading/unloading time and actual customs/quarantine time takes as long as it takes - everything else can be compressed, or extended if you're unlucky. So you need to keep on top of them. In my case the incompressible time was about 7 weeks, so the rest of it took 2.5 weeks. My tip is to find out who is doing the actual work and talk directly to them. We had a relocation agent who was supposedly co-ordinating the move (Crown) but they were worse than useless, offensively so on a couple of counts. So much so I will actively avoid them in future and am about to put the boot in through my employer. Zero information except when pressed very hard and then I got excuses and BS. On the other hand, all three of the agents they actually used (Doree Bonner to do the pick up/pack, Maersk on the shipping and Grace on this end) couldn't have been more helpful. HTH a bit. Cut out the monkeys and go straight to the organ grinders, be polite but inquisitive and persistent and don't accept the BS (if it smells, start asking polite questions) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunniecat Posted December 13, 2011 Share Posted December 13, 2011 .....My tip is to find out who is doing the actual work and talk directly to them. We had a relocation agent who was supposedly co-ordinating the move (Crown) but they were worse than useless, offensively so on a couple of counts. So much so I will actively avoid them in future and am about to put the boot in through my employer. Zero information except when pressed very hard and then I got excuses and BS. On the other hand, all three of the agents they actually used (Doree Bonner to do the pick up/pack, Maersk on the shipping and Grace on this end) couldn't have been more helpful. HTH a bit. Cut out the monkeys and go straight to the organ grinders, be polite but inquisitive and persistent and don't accept the BS (if it smells, start asking polite questions) As it happens, we've just booked to go with Doree Bonner (who will work with Grace on the other end), so that's really good to hear! Helpful advice, thank you Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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