Allied Pickfords

...have read the previous review on Allied Pickfords. Seems a couple of lost boxes seems to be not such a rare occurence after all.

Perhaps its time for Pickfords to wake up to the fact they are not as perfect as they think.

  ... more

Take care before you move home

Today is Christmas Day 2004 and it should have been a special day in our new home but thanks to Pickfords it is the worst ever hence the fact I am sitting here typing this page at 1.30pm instead of enjoying our day.

On 12th November 2004 we moved just 2 miles using Pickfords.

When we last moved home back in 1990 we used a cheap local firm, incidentally their service was great and faultless.

But 14 years later having collected a lot of valuables we decided to use the best movers in the country.

I had already begun to have my doubts when it took several weeks to get a quote for storage despite numerous requests. Our new place needed a complete rewire so we needed to look at this option. I had also asked for Pickfords brochure which also took 3 requests and only turned up on the day of the move.

Well the day didn't start too well with the van being clearly too small for the job and making it clear that 2 trips would be needed when it was supposed to have been done in one. Also it was clear that Pickfords image of neatly dressed uniformed staff is not one that in practice that is delivered, at least not in our case.

Nor did they cover your appliances or sofas in the special covers they advertise in their brochures - no you are lucky if a blanket covers any such item.

As a result of such a small van being provided boxes of fragile items which I had clearly marked DO NOT STACK ANYTHING ON TOP were just buried under everything else. As a result for the first trip the van was packed from floor to ceiling, front to back. Not a single square inch of space remained. We had a brand new £1300 sofa which has a scratch near the bottom as a direct result of just being crammed in with everything else precariously balanced.

Don't get me wrong the crew of 3 seemed friendly enough and my wife and I did keep them constantly supplied in food and drink but already this was not the image given by the number 1 UK removal firm.

Well because it doubled the removal cost we decided not to have the belongings put in storage but instead we have a very large, extremely secure, padlocked, summerhouse in our new garden. This is secure not only from neighbours but also there is no access to it from the front of the house because of an additional padlocked front gate. The crew agreed to put our belongings here as they would be extremely secure.

The last things to be loaded were our doormats - as the van was locked these went in the cab of the van.

The first load was taken to the new address and as the unload took a long time once they had unloaded about 2/3 of the belongings they asked if they could have the keys to the shed to go back and collect the garden tools etc which had had to remain at the old property due to lack of space.

I was unhappy with them going back with 1/3 of our belongings still loaded without me so I drove there sperately. However despite the fact it's about a 5 minute drive only I got there long before them even though they left ahead of me. They have since said they went a different route - I have doubts about this.

Anyway they did arrive and the contents of the shed were ALL loaded onto the BACK of the vehicle.

Back at the new property the remainder of the load went into the Summerhouse and as soon as they said the unload was complete this was padlocked. Not just with a small padlock but a large high security padlock.

Because they had unloaded very quickly we did tip the crew very well. In addition to a limitless supply of food and drink they received a crate of beer each and £10 each also.

Why I was not given an opportunity to check the vehicle was empty either in the back or the cab I don't know.

Now the crew were fully aware that our belongings were going into the summerhouse because the full rewire of the house was needed and that I would not be able to inspect our belongings for weeks.

Because of the chaos with the house rewiring taking place the only thing we missed initially were the doormats. As mentioned these went in the cab. I did look in the summerhouse the day after the move but there was no sign of them and relocked it. At this stage we were understandably unable to inspect or unpack our belongings and for the sake of just 2 doormats it did not seem worth chasing pickfords at this stage.

However 3 weeks later when the electricians left our home we were able to unlock the summerhouse and to bring our belongings up to the house.

Only then did we start to find out the true scale of our loss of belongings and as it will take several months to be truly organized in this house which needs plenty of renovation I suspect there may be more bad surprises to come.

The doormats I have already mentioned. But the first thing we noticed was a massive box of food which had vanished into thin air. This was quite obvious as it had been too large to shut on the day of the move. A massive box full of breakfast cereals and other food tinned and boxed. Contents blatantly obvious.

Then we tried to organise the bathroom. A box crammed full of bathroom items, bubble baths, hand soaps, wet wipes, aftershaves, perfumes, toilet rolls, bathroom ornaments some very sentimental - gone.

A box containing ALL of my wife's decent shoes - gone

Finally our Christmas presents to each other were gone. 2 labelled boxes nowhere to be seen. We had tried to be organized and because of the chaos of the rewire we had put or presents to each other in boxes where we could clearly locate them. We have gone through every single box - nothing - gone without trace. Somebody is having a great Christmas today. It is not us.
Total value in these 2 boxes alone was around £1000 (£500 each). So much for us trying to be organised at Christmas!

Now what do all these missing items and boxes have in common?

Only one thing really they were all blatantly obvious what they were. The huge food box, the box marked shoes, the box marked bathroom goods, the labels on the Christmas boxes weren't too hard to decipher - and we have lost the lot! All boxes we knew we needed to locate quickly after the rewiring was finished

The bulk of the remainder of our boxes only had the eventual room name on them where they were going to end up - Front Room, Main Bedroom etc.

I immediately reported it to Pickfords. But to be honest we found our customer liason officer rude, unhelpful and overall unsympathetic. She told us to report it to the Police - we did they said it was a civil matter. She told us any insurance claim (we had taken out the insurance) should have been submitted in 14 days. After 3 weeks a claim could not be accepted.

However Pickfords fully knew at the outset it would not be practical for us to unpack our goods in this timescale as the house would be in a state from the rewiring. Besides, it seems Pickfords insurance was sold to me despite it being no good to me whatsoever anyway. The reason the insurance was not valid at all? Because we were totally self-pack. Looking at the insurance small print it appears the insurance doesn't cover self-pack anyway.

At first I was prepared to believe that being near a secondary school whilst unloading at end of school time these boxes could have been "lifted" at end of school time whilst the vehicle was unmanned.

However I no longer think this is the case following a stream of lies that have come from Pickfords. For nearly 2 weeks our liason officer insisted Pickfords had no goods of ours whatsoever. Day after day she repeated this story. Then eventually she sent the Rep who had originally arranged our move.

He agreed we were not mad or devious people and that the summerhouse was a perfectly secure place. He also asked if we had been told that the Doormats had just been found (after 5 weeks !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) as had a broom and a bucket of tools in the cab? We had been told nothing of the sort. He claimed they had tried to deliver them but they had found nobody in.

This is another lie as at no time whilst the electricians were here did we leave the house unattended either my wife or myself were always in.

It's not only laughable that it took 5 weeks to find doormats in the cab. But all my tools went in the back of the van. I know I went back and witnessed the whole second load so that's a lie they could not have been found in the cab.

Well those "belongings" were brought round the other day. The broom wasn't ours so that was given back. The tools were mine (but had not yet been missed as they were gardening tools) but the red bucket they are in is not ours so it is 100% impossible they were found in the van in that bucket ! So where were those tools for those 5 weeks? Good question! Also proved the liason officer to be a continuous liar for insisting the Crew knew nothing of missing belongings.

Lie after lie after lie.

At the end of the day although Pickfords illegally sold me a totally worthless insurance policy they do have a duty of care towards the customer. All UK companies have Public Indemnity Insurance for such a genuine occurence and we're not the ones spinning continuous lies here.

Pickfords head office are equally unsympathetic - hard luck is basically what all their letters say.

The way it stands you just give the removal company a licence to take your goods away and to deliver whatever they feel like at the other end. If you self pack you have no valid insurance. Even if you don't self pack you must unpack in double-quick time or tough.

The police can't get involved because you could never prove anything so it's a civil matter and the removal company protect their staff whatever the circumstances. The customer cannot win.

So beware folks before you move home. This was, allegedly, the best removal company in the country.

We have ended up losing at least 3 times more in property value than we paid for the original move. We would have been better off using a cheap local firm.

I have read the previous review on Allied Pickfords. Seems a couple of lost boxes seems to be not such a rare occurence after all.

Perhaps its time for Pickfords to wake up to the fact they are not as perfect as they think.

 

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