A Moving Saga

(A sorry tale of choosing the wrong removal company)

 BY ANN LISNEY

When there is no one to give a recommendation, how do you choose between removers when you are upping sticks in the UK and moving to Crete?  Let me give you a few tips of how not to do it!

When we moved out here last year, we got quotes from two firms – one who had dropped a card through the letterbox at home, saying they were ‘a local and international removal company with thirty years’ experience’, and another we picked out of Yellow Pages, offering ‘an efficient service whether you are moving down the road or to another country’.  Both firms assured us they could get our worldly goods to us in ‘4 to 6 weeks’, and there was little to choose between them in price. We chose the ‘local’ firm – who immediately informed us that our removal would be dealt with by their branch 50 miles away. Not that local, then!

As we were not shipping all of our furniture, we decided to send it a week before we flew out to Crete. My partner Rob was working up to the bitter end and was not around the day the removers arrived. Being a borderline obsessive/compulsive organiser, I had instructed him to put all his work clothes for the week into the wardrobe we were leaving behind. Of course he forgot, meaning he had only one decent shirt for his last week at work.

The removal company was even doing the packing for us, so I just swanned around all day making cups of tea and trying not to get in the way. I was really pleased with myself – every other move I had done had been really hard work, and this was proving to be a breeze!  By 4.30pm it was all stacked in four wooden towers on the back of the removal lorry. I assumed these towers would just be loaded straight into the container – what a clever idea!

We arrived in our new home in Crete on 4th May – and calculated that we should be getting our delivery sometime between 24th May and 7th June. We already had a bed, and set about buying a couple of plastic chairs and a table and a few basic kitchen items.

We sent an email to the removal firm at the beginning of the week of 24th May, asking if they had a date for our delivery. They replied about a week later, saying it would not arrive until about 29th June. We sent another email, expressing our disappointment with the delay - which was not acknowledged. That meant it would be 9 weeks, not the 4-6 we had been promised.

So we got on with things, settling into our new life, and the weeks passed.  Towards the end of June, we emailed the removal firm again, asking if they could give us a date. They replied to the effect that our container had “been loaded onto the container ship Regina Maersk at Felixstowe and that responsibility for its onward transmission and delivery had been delegated to their agents in Athens”. No date. No apology. Not even the name of the agent in Athens.

We telephoned – but the very helpful man who had been dealing with our removal was never available.

Eventually we found a website on the Internet for the port of Felixstowe, with information about ships in and out. We tracked down the Regina Maersk – which is apparently the largest container ship in the world – which plies between Felixstowe and Holland. It’s only visit to Felixstowe in June had been on the 15th – which meant that our worldly goods had been hanging around in England, either at the removal company or on the dockside, for 7 weeks!

So where was all our stuff now? We were beginning to get a bit worried when at the beginning of July we had an email out of the blue from the ‘agent in Athens’.  This had two official documents attached – both in Greek, of course – and seemed to be indicating that we had to pay (a) about another 500 Euros for customs duty and (b) another 500 Euros as a ‘security deposit against delay’.  Now we had been under the very firm impression that the customs charge had been included in the hefty sum we had paid the English removal company, but as they were still not replying to our emails or telephone calls, we had little choice but to stump up the 500 Euros. The ‘security deposit against delay’ was apparently refundable, and was a guarantee so we would not delay the lorry and so make them miss their ferry back to Piraeus.

The two ‘official forms’ took some translating – but basically one was just like an affidavit, saying that we were who we said we were, and that we were the owners of the goods and were entitled to receive them. The second document was also a legal document, promising that the container did not contain ‘arms, ammunition, drugs or any illegal items’.  We were really annoyed by this. We could certainly swear that when it left us on 26th April there had been no arms, ammunition, drugs or any illegal items in the consignment – but what about all the time it had been hanging about in the UK? It apparently had all been taken out of the original wooden crates and repacked – so anything could have been added without our knowledge.

We wanted our furniture – we would have agreed to practically anything by this time. So we took the forms to the police station for authentication and stamping (another 20 Euros, thank you), returned them to Athens, arranged a transfer of 1000 Euros to the agent’s bank account, and waited for news.

On receipt of the money and the authenticated forms, the agent in Athens telephoned us to say our container would arrive on the morning of 12th July.

On the morning of 12th July, the shade temperature at 8 am was 34 degrees Celsius. It got hotter as the morning progressed until by 11.30 – when the lorry arrived – it was 37 degrees.

The delivery team was brilliant, very efficient and very helpful. By 2.30 pm they had unloaded everything in more-or-less the right place, and were on their way back to Athens.

At last! All we had to do now was unpack 146 boxes of belongings!

If we had to do it all over again, I would ask potential removal firms the following questions:

1. When you say you are an ‘international’ removal company, what exactly do you mean?
2. Have you any previous experience of removals to Crete?
3. Will you confirm in writing that your costs include any customs duty when the goods arrive in Greece?
4. Are you responsible for the contract from beginning to end, or will you be handing it over to others?
5. Can you guarantee delivery within the timescale you quote?  If there is a delay, do you pay a penalty?

I have not named the removal company for obvious reasons! If anyone reading this would like to know who to avoid, please contact Abbe and she will forward any emails to me for a personal reply.