I feel that picking a shipping company is a decision that can't be taken lightly, they will all promise that they can do the job, but when push comes to shove how will they perform. When it comes to removal day it's too late to find out you've picked the wrong company, and generally you can only comment about the service provided to you on the day, but how good would the others have been, we'll never know, unless you move often.

So I decided to ask 8 companies to send a rep round to quote us, they were all given the option to come on either a Mon or Wed or Frid starting from 2nd August until the end of Sept. They were all phoned on the same day, all within a few mins of each other.

I wanted to see how they perform from answering the telephone, how efficient they were on the acknowledgement letters, how prompt were they on the appoinment day, how professional were the reps. Keeping in mind, this is their one & only chance of selling their company to me, and getting my business.

I compiled an accurate list of exactly what we were taking, as we moved house a couple of month ago we still have a lot of our stuff in box's (20 of them size, 16 X 13 X 11) then the odd bit of furniture /beds etc, so they could see exactly the volume we were talking about.

With this list, each company sung from the same hymn sheet, I phyiscally showed each rep the items so they could see the exact size & shape, I also gave each rep this list to keep, so no if's or but's, they knew exactly what I was taking.

However, to see if they were listening to me and would they provide a service to suit my needs, or were they just doing a standard process, just doing a tick box exercise I asked them to do a second optional quote on a few extra items that we may take, depending on the cost.

All the quotes were to pack all my items, ship to Adelaide, Delivery to house in Adelaide, unpack all items & removal of waste.

The companies are in order of appointment,

ROBINSONS
When I phoned the head office (0800 number) they were very helpful and polite, then they passed me onto the local branch where I spoke to a Chris Odiase (Manager), he was terrible on the phone, I got the impression that I had distured his rest, his dinner, I felt he didn't want to speak to me, very inadequate. Appoinment was booked, acknowledgement letter came on the 3rd day. The rep (Carol Handy) was prompt, very friendly and informative, very good. Unfortunatly, she phoned me up a couple of days later to say that her E/Mail had broke and couldn't send the quote to her office to be printed out (she could of posted it to head office) she was now on holiday now, so she'll will sort out my quote on her return. That was on the 7th August and I still haven't had the quote.

UPDATE; I E/Mailed Robinsons & got the quote
They quoted £1996.00 (433 cuft)
They also supplied the second optional quote

ALLIED PICKFORDS
Very friendly on the phone, appointment was booked, acknowledgement letter came on the 2nd day. The rep (Martin Wilkes), he was prompt, bang on time to the minute, he explained about Pickfords service, he detailed what they would do, he was very percise & professional, He looked at all our stuff, actually, he was the only rep who measured the items on the list and inspected them. All the other reps just looked and estimated, Pickfords also gave advice on certain items. They quoted £1498 (324 cuft)
They also supplied the second optional price.

BISHOP MOVE
Very good on the phone, appoinment was booked but no acknowledgement letter was sent (very poor). The sales rep (Kelly Lane) was 25 mins late, she did apologise, but a phone call to let me know would of been more professional. She just done a tick box exercise, she took around 25 minutes to talk about her company, look at what we were taking & left, very inadequate, unprofessional. They quoted £3,100 (600cuft)
They supplied the second optional price.

ATLANTIS
Very good on the phone, appointment was booked. The acknowledgement letter was sent the very next day, very efficient. The sales rep (Stuart Law) phoned up the day before to ask he could could delay the appointment by 1 hour which was fine as he let us know. He turned up 10 minutes late, which again is OK. He explained to me about his company, what they would do, he looked around & advised on some items. They quoted £1522 (380 cuft)
They didn't supply optional price

JOHN MASON
Very good on the phone, Acknowledgement letter came on the 2nd day, The sales rep (Barry Hawden) was prompt, bang on to the minute, very professional, percise and gave good advice
They quoted £2105, no cuft
They didn't supply optional price

BONNER INTERNATIONAL
Good on the phone, sent acknowledgement letter on the 4th day, Sales rep (Andy Oats) was 1 hour late, but he phoned me 1 hour before appointment time to ask if this was OK, He explained about his company in detail, he looked at every item, very good, efficient. They quoted £2320 (487 cuft)
They did supply optional list

ANGLO PACIFIC
Good on the phone, they said they will get the local branch to contact me within a couple of hours. 4 days later they contacted me, I advised them to go away. If they can't even phone up when promised what chance have I got to get them to turn up and pack my items competently, especially after they've cashed my cheque.

PSS
I know they've had good reports on this site, but I can only speak about what happened to me.
They couldn't make an appoinment, the best they could offer was they may be able to see me in September some time, they may get back to me. However, they were quite prepared to quote me if I told them the cuft. I have a major concern on this. All shipping quotes are basically an estimate, and are capable of alteration on packing day. What situation would I be in if PPS said the cuft was more then I said, it's a open cheque book for them, I would have no choice.

With the quotes I've got from the others, as long as I give them the items as per list I gave them on the quote day (and they inspected) then I'm covered, if they've under quoted then it's their loss, I did check this out.

The insurance from each company were all much the same, a few quid either way.

Which one will I use, not to sure yet, but I can guarantee, I will not use
Robinsons
Bishop Move
Anglo Pacific
PSS,
even if they offered FOC

However, this is only my opinion, what I've quoted above is what exactly happened.

Take Care

Ozzy

Nice one Ozzy :thumbs up:

Have you got a list of websites for all of them?

Sasha :)

As Requested

Robinsons
www.robinsons-intl.com
0800 833638

Allied Pickfords
www.allied-pickfords.co.uk
020 8219 8000

Bishop Move
www.bishopmove.com
Many phone numbers, it's dependent where you live

Atlantis
www.atlantis.co.uk or www.atlantisltd.co.uk
0800 1973 730

John Mason
www.johnmason.com
0800 731 349

Bonner International
www.doreebonner.co.uk
01159 258100

Take Care

Ozzy

Thanks Ozzy ;)

Sasha :)

What an excellent post.

thanks a lot Ozzy very informative

sally

Excellent Ozzy - I'll be able to add my posting to this next week or so. I have arranged quotes with John Mason, Pickfords and Doree Bonner with PSS added today, just out of interest! Masons have already been, with the other two on the 13th and 14th and PSS on the 22nd.

Julia :)

What a really informative post. Will definitely come back to this one when we are at that stage.

Mandy :dancing dog:

Hi Ozzy, echo what the others said...great post, but I think you may have been a little harsh on PSS. They moved our stuff a fortnight ago and apart from a muddy foot on the carpet their service was impeccable from start to finish (knowledgeable/timely/efficient/courteous). They were incredibly busy though, which is why you maybe didn't get the quality of service you were after. I reckon this is better than coming round to your house and doing a rush tick box job. If I was still to ship my belongings I'd be more concerned about the companies that had all the time in the world. If PSS are busy its maybe cos they're good at it.
Barry

cant fault pss at all everything packed and arrived safely with regular updates and the motorbike arrived safe and sound as well ;)

arlene

ps if you want a horror story look at be site for anglo pacific :o very scary stuff

http://www.uk2nz.co.uk/chat/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=4179

arlene

Check out this thread on expats

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=253342

I expect that every company has an off day on times.

Sasha :)

Agree with everyone its a great thread cheers Ozzy

Debs xxx

Hi Barry

I hear what you say, and agree 100%, no doubt they can provide a good service, they wouldn't be in business otherwise. I also agree that it's better for them not to come round and do a tick box exercise if they feel they wouldn't be able to do a competent job.

I did try not to be biased or harsh and so I only mentioned exactly what happened in my situation. This is why each company had the same opportunity so I could compare like for like, each company was given exactly the same option / list / script and available days, and they all had the opportunity to respond how they saw fit.

However, going back to PSS, I would of looked at them as a more professional business had they said they were busy and were unable to fit me in. Instead, they tried to convince me that they will get somebody out to see me sometime in September, but couldn't guarantee it. I then mentioned that if's & but's are not acceptable, they then tried to convince me on supplying a list & they'd quote on that, (One person 3 piece suite if larger then someone elses). They offered a quote using another company's cuft, this is when the alarm bells started ringing. from the quotes I've had, there's been several different cuft esitmates, so which one would I submit? (open cheque book I felt).

I'll finish off by saying, PSS has had a lot of good reports on this site, and without doubt they can at times provide a good service. I believe the main reason for them not coming out to me was because I live to far away from their base, I just wish they were honest about it instead of trying to grab business with minimal cost to them.

Take Care

Ozzy

Thanks for that what a brilliant idea and really useful to the rest of us.
Have fun packing!

Becky :D

Thought I'd give you an up-date.

We decided to give Allied Pickfords a go, but I wanted to make sure of their ability (or best I could), and so just to double check I decided to run a few scenarios passed them on what we wanted to take to see how they responded.

Each and every time the service they provided was professional, efficient and percise, with quick response times, the slowest been a day, the quickest been 45 minutes (phone or E/Mail), a confirmation letter was always in the post the next day. I 've spoken to many different members of staff and each one was very helpfull, polite & informative.

Just think, we wasn't even going to contact Allied, we expected them to be very expensive being such a large world wide company, we only contacted them because someone on this site mentioned they were one of the cheapest.

So, Allied it is then, I'll give you an up-date when they've completed the job.

Take Care

Ozzy

I'm jealous,Ozzy, we wanted Allied but between 2 phonecalls we lost our date.
Pss were fab but from the outset we knew they were costing us over £400 more.

Can't remember if you have little ones but Pickfords(via Usborne) do a lovely little book about Moving Abroad.

Best Wishes
Gils :mr man:

I've now seen John Masons, Allied Pickfords and finally Doree Bonner today and so far all have been very professional and have come in within a few cubic feet of the same volume. Their 'ball park' price quotes have been very close too. Either way we'll need a 20 foot container, so no chance of getting the price down by sharing, although I'm happy for the container to get off ASAP really. I'm just waiting to see PSS next week before we make a final decision, but at the moment I think I'm leaning towards Masons with Bonners a close second.

I'll update further once I have all the written quotes in.

Julia :)

Hello

Just to finish this post off, I wanted to get the last quote from Robinson (I've now edited the main script above with the price)

I phoned up Robinson to enquire what happened to the quote, they were the most un-professional bunch I've come across, they were very rude on the phone.

I asked them for their E/Mail address & they wanted to know why I wanted it, to send an E/Mail I said, but what is the E/mail about they asked.

I finally got the address & sent an E/mail asking them what happened to the quote, as it was over a month ago that the rep came, it came through this morning, with no apology letter or anything.

I'm glad I've found out about their standard of operation now, we would be in a right mess had we chose them & wanted to know where our belongings were.

Take Care

Ozzy

Thanks for that- very useful!!

Wont touch AP with a bargepole... :sign68:

We used Crown a Midlands based firm "Tamworth" also based here in Adelaide, very good service provided by both ends of the world and very well priced too. The web site for any one interested -

www.crownrelocations.com

Juls

Just a note, for you to ponder, CROWN RELOCATIONS, is owned by JIM THOMPSON a HongKong billionaire, {american by birth], he also owns GRACE REMOVALS GROUP in Australia and NewZealand, [whom i contract to] in the USA he owns DEANS WORLD WIDE who do most of the u,s military moving, so if these guys are not doing something right, :cool shake: who would know..........mm

Just to add my tenpence worth...........

I've seen John Mason, Allied Pickfords, Doree Bonner and PSS. They all were much for muchness on professionalism, marketing info, punctuality, speed of quote arriving etc etc. and all were within 50 cuft of each other in their estimates, which all worked out to a 20 ft container.

I was impressed with all the reps and the service they were all offering.

Even the prices were similar.

Masons £3098 Pickfords £3480 Bonner £3450 PSS £2949, with the first three offering insurance at 3% of the total £ covered and no excess, with PSS offering 2.5% with a £100 excess.

So now I'm in a bit of a quandry! I think overall Doree Bonner tipped it, but money talks of course, so we're likely to go with Masons or PSS (although a few of you have sort of scared me off PSS!)

Julia :)

Hi
this has being a very helpful thread,
but has anyone had any dealings with Excess Internal Movers, based in London?
All the quotes we've had have all being much of a muchness, but they have being very helpful.
We sold house May but still have not exchanged, hopefully Thursday then completing 27th Oct.
But we have not booked movers-usual last minute madness. (Don't feel I can until we exchange.)
I have visions of our belongings on high seas or in Adelaide and us not moving until June next year.
If anyone has any dealings - good or bad with above company I would be grateful to hear.
Many thanks
Deborah

We get about 5 containers a year from excess, and there success rate is very high ,although they deal mainly with small shipments,.....................mm

Thank you Mr Mover.
Deborah

Hiya ,I have received quotes from Allied Pickfords, John Masons,PSS and Doree Bonner. There was little to choose between them but I felt that John Mason were the best and that they would taylor things more to our needs and were very professional etc, They gave advice freely (especially about cleaning items ready for shipping etc, and answered all of our questions .)
However as we get closer to moving we have changed our minds about taking some things ,so we shall be trying a couple of other companies for an updated price . Thanks for the info Ozzie ,it was v. helpful Good luck !! We are right behind you !!
:sign20: Julie Wxx

Hi,
Just before I book, has anyone used or know anything good or bad about Atlantis.
I'm thinking of using them because they are local to us, I know that seems daft as belongings and us are Adelaide bound.
Many thanks
Deborah

John Mason are coming to pack on Monday. They have been very helpful one of my concerns has been that stuff multiplies as you take it out of the cupboards I have been asured :sign03: That as long as it fits in the container it will go at no extra cost. I hope that is true as my quote for the container (20') has been larger than most of yours £3932.10 prehaps this is due to where we live. So I will update next week as to progress. My only concern so far it that when we first had the quote we where told that Kents would probably deliver as they only use Kents or Grace but guess what the movers at the other end we have been given is Wridgeways the world wide movers.Must go and clean things now.

I'm currently in Adelaide, awaiting delivery of my possessions which are probably somewhere out in the middle of the Indian Ocean at the moment. I'm using Allied Pickfords and so far they have been EXTREMELY professional, helpful, friendly and efficient in all my dealings with them, including the quotation, packing and collection, and they were also one of the cheapest firms I approached to do the job. They charged me 810ukp for 220cuft. I can't recommend them highly enough. (Our things haven't actually arrived yet, but still.)

cloppius

Lets hope , Lou Healy and his team give you the same service ,here in Adelaide....mm

:D We went with Pickfords, they were great.

Really professional & helpful, we changed our mind about what we were taking a few times, even on the day we left, and it was no problem at all (and didnt cost any extra).

The guys who packed/unpacked were friendly, great with our kids and polite. All our stuff arrived safely and in good condition, including our leather goods. They kept us informed at all times of where our stuff was and replied promptly to emails. No wonder they are such a big company. And i noted no one seems to have posted anything negative about them, which is a good sign Im sure

Cathy
xx

:huh: Forgot to say, our house sale fell through, so we even changed our mind about what day we wanted our stuff packing, and they still accomodated us.

cathy
xxxx

Up to yet we have had Doree Bonner, Masons and Pickfords round, PSS next week. Crown have yet to follow up on my initial email to them.

I am finding it interesting how I've shown them all the same furniture etc, and they've come up with different cuft.

The chap from Pickfords yesterday said that because of the sheer volume of people migrating to Australia, they are now having to quote 13 weeks delivery time. He said shipments are being held up in Singapore for up to 3 weeks.

Now I'm here and got all my stuff, my contribution:

Used Crown for my main shipment (only 75 cu ft though, no furniture). Very good, from start to finish especially as I messed them about a bit - I changed my mind about how much stuff I was taking, they requoted me without fuss. Also I was going to have my stuff delivered straight away to my sister's but then realised (when it was almost in Adelaide - only took 6 weeks!) that she didn't have space. I emailed the Adelaide contact who put it straight into storage for me, I paid retrospectively on my credit card, what I think was a reasonable rate, including extended insurance to cover storage period (even though I forgot to ask them they covered me anyway).

All packed for me very carefully, picked up and delivered carefully and right on schedule.

Last minute stuff (4 crates, about 90kg) came air freight with Excess Baggage. Again, very smooth, I packed this time and despite obvious customs check all arrived safely and delivered as requested. Cost almost as much as my main shipment but I guess that's air freight for you!

Very happy with both companies, would recommend them (and told them so, they were pleased to hear it). Not sure if they're the cheapest but I just wanted to get everything here all in one piece and on time.

Elaine M

Hi all
Just noticed the post that states that Pickfords are quoting 13 weeks delivery time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :o Is this up to date??? Anyone know??? :sigh:
Also, have any other shipping companies recently quoted these time scales??
Any replies appreciated.

Hi All,
Im at the stage now of getting quotes from various companies. What they are saying is, if your shipment is below half a container then it would take longer as they have to wait till container full to commence shipment. They are quoting 13 weeks at present, but 8 if half container.
Hope this helps
Roberta

Would just like to put in my 10 cents worth and say a big :thumbs up: to Allied Pickfords for a most super efficient job wrapping and packing the contents of our house at less than 24hrs notice would definately reccomend them to anyone , the team in question operate out of the Maidstone depot in kent and deserve a Gold medal for efficiency ,politeness & helpfullness in their advice on what we could and could not take .!!!!!


once again a BIG thank you to Adam , Ian , Simon the A Team
:thumbs up: :thumbs up: :thumbs up:

Yes lesley, this time of year in aust is flat out, we have all our military moves, teachers , police, store managers ,[woolies etc], so every thing backlogs, the international moves are relegated back so they , proceed slowly, Customs and Aqis have full work loads. ...its the "nature of the beast".............. ;) mm

Hi Mr Mover

When do things get back up to speed? We are thinking of shipping around March.....and hope for an 8 week timescale. Is this realistic???

Thanks in advance! :D

Hi,

We used Doree Bonner, who were able to accomodate us at less that 4 days notice as the completion of our house sale went a bit wrong! LOL

They were great, took two days and were so brilliant I would defo rec them. Our shipment left the UK on the 4th Jan and we have been told to expect it at the beginning of Feb which is quick!!!!!!!!

At this stage couldn't fault them, will let you know how things are once stuff arrives.

Tracey.