“Appalling service!
Numerous items have been damaged and no compensation or even an apology. Scratches on furniture, broken oak table, glass bowl, lights and more.
Attempted theft of items was made by hiding them in the van.
Do not use!”
“Moving a 4x2 household with children and pets to Australia is difficult and stressful enough. We got 4 quotes from removalists and chose Pickfords based on price a very nice rep called Lynda who we informed that our move from Australia to UK wasn't the best so we wanted to make sure the same didn't happen moving back to Australia (specially because of the very strict quarantine rules) and we wanted to reduce from a 40ft container to a 20ft container.
So after being reassured that we " would be looked after " we never saw the rep again. We had a few wooden, african artefacts and quite a lot of items that we weren't sure could all fit into 20ft container ( we aimed at bringing all that could fit into the container). Insurance is extra and it's calculated on a percentage scale, so when you list the items and their values, they are placed into 2 categories, once all value for items is added for 1st category, if it's higher than a certain amount, then the percentage goes up...so you could end up paying quite a lot for insurance...so we decided not to insure items of emotional value only, clothes, books, crockery which wasn't expensive but well liked, toys...as a result, when the boxes of damaged books and broken crockery got unpacked we couldn't do anything about it.
Our packing team on the first day of packing was good, all went well. On the second day however the packer in charge was not interested in asking what was going and what was staying, didn't supervise a very inexperienced packer who was sent to pack on his own and subsequently packed incorrectly books (on their sides or standing up in box!!). Didn't pack the crockery that had been put aside in plastic boxes with no or very little packing paper (all broken on arrival). Doors of an outroom (old and rickety) were open without consultation first, when a perfectly large main entrance was available, a sliding heavy glass main door was taken off it's rollers and we were not informed. When attempting to say to packer in charge that i should have been informed of this he raised his voice, denied knowing about it (though he transported the oversized wardrobes thru it, when a wider but longer route exit was available), he placed blame on us because ' the door track was hadn't been cleaned by us' ...worth stating that it was November, very wet and windy day....items were poorly packed on second day, with little padding/wrapping or none at all..( we had requested to have boxes so we could pre-pack, but were told no, because Pickford's has to pack everything!) Meanwhile the inexperienced, unsupervised packer spent 5 hours packing about 10 boxes (which actually arrived in Australia still in the original plastic containers we had used)..and when a cuppa tea was brought over, he was spotted looking through the boxed items, commenting on the collection, flicking through the books......unfortunately the day was stormy, wet, the packers in their very questionable wisdom packed the truck they had arrived in with wet boxes and furniture and lighter vacuum bags full of clean linen and clothing by throwing these on top of the furniture...when the container arrived they then moved all the stuff across to the container by now placing a lot of the lighter top items in the container first!.. Only to realise that the container had a leak...this was an usual bit of bad luck, which i guess luckily got picked up before it's soggy arrival in Australia. But this meant unpacking the container, back to the truck which then got unpacked at the depot into a wooden container whilst we waited for a new container to be delivered and all items re-packed into it again....so it's easy to imagine the damage this is doing to all items!!
The cargo arrived in Australia after 4 weeks and the tracking was fairly good...but it took quite a while for the office here to contact us on progress...we had to chase that up a few times...delivery was fantastic and efficient the packers here were polite, conscientious and hardworking...they unpacked only the items listed in the insurance...the rest we had to unpack ourselves. They did offer to collect packaging once we had unfinished...we had to do all undoing and putting together of furniture which would have cost a fair bit extra for Pickford's to do...which I think in hindsight was included in price of other removalists, therefore making Pickford's lower price maybe a false economy...this is something worth considering on your move. Finally the packaging was collected and the driver managed to drive too close to trees (NOT overgrown or unkept) on the front verge of our property though it's suburbia, wide streets and driveways, no cars in the way or parked on the verge...?!!?..We got left with loads of big broken branches and tree debris on the road and driveway to clear and a tree looking like a big bite had been taken out of! No apologies given and in fact driver blamed us for having a tree!...In conclusion...don't move your belongings with Pickford's! In fact consider selling all furniture, crockery, toys, clothing that you're not sentimental about, since all that is good quality, very affordable (specially when you look at costs of moving) and easy to replace in the UK...anything else, sentimental or of value...leave with your family, friends or in a rented lock up facility and travel light! Makes for a much more affordable and stress less move.”
“Appalling. We have used Pickfords on numerous occassions, and their teams are professional and polite and very customer service orientated. HOWEVER, the communication behind the scenes is shocking, you constantly have to chase the teams up for details and deadlines and anything really at all, they have you running around, and similar to the other person here, our goods arrived they hadn't been repacked (despite paying for that service), we had several breakages and the claims process is a COMPLETE sham!! Its taken us 3 months so far with me chasing them week after week for updates, and they are still not telling us anything, and asking us to do their job for them, NEVER, NEVER will I use them again. NEVER, don't waste your money, its a real shame, but clearly they have got too big and don't care anymore, or are too cheap and you get what you pay for. APPALLING. I am taking this matter further, and not happy about wasting my time over it, but this can't continue.”
“I am writing to you to express our absolute antipathy for Pickfords.
We hired Pickfords to ship our goods from the UK to Abu Dhabi in January 2017.
The goods arrived in Abu Dhabi on the 01 March 2017.
The goods arrived in what I can only describe as an appalling state. It seemed to us that the container must have been dropped, as the amount of damage was implausible.
The goods were packed totally inadequately. Valuable artwork covered in one thin film of bubble wrap. Silver leaf furniture, also in a single sheet of bubble wrap. Antique wooden furniture packed in a single cardboard box, with no additional packing materials. The list is long…
Our safe, containing valuable items did not arrive at all, neither did another number of valuable goods.
We have sent all the necessary photographic and written evidence through to Pickfords, and Centry Services on numerous occasions. We have even contacted the MD, Mr Start and Mr Taylor directly.
It is now the 4th July 2017, and we are still waiting for a suitable response.”
