Warning: Our experience with Grace Removals

We arrived in New Zealand from Perth over 6 weeks ago and have had no end of problems getting our container here through Grace Removals.

The initial stages were smooth as with no problems but soon after we arrived we found that the person looking after our shipment had left (got sacked?) and that there was a delay in getting our container onto a ship. Which wasn't a biggy as we had allowed ourselves plenty of time for problems like these.

Anyway, on the 1st of June we were told our container had arrived in Nelson Port and will be put into storage until we need it. Well last week I contacted them to tell them we needed it and could you arrange delivery. Grace offer a door-to-door service which we opted for. Anyway Grace NZ told us their agent in Nelson will contact us with arrangements to make the delivery to us on the 16th June. So we wait a couple of days and nothing, so we call the agent and they tell us they can't make our original date and we might be able to get it booked by Friday the 18th.

Anyway today I first get an email saying the agent can deliver our container this Friday the 18th, but then, Grace call me saying the container hadn't actually arrived on the 1st of June like they thought and is still on a ship and will arrive this weekend! To say the least I am a bit peeved and I can't believe how incompetent Grace are! to say they have a container and the contents are in storage and then turn around to say they don't have a container is amazing. Plus they charged us for MAF and storage fees when the container supposedly arrived in NZ, which in my mind is fraud as they charged for a service they didn't do.

Needless to say I am trying to get Grace to resolve this and I am considering taking legal action against Grace for their incompetence and atrocious handling of the matter to date! :wah

No we have to try and arrange accomodation until we can get our container, we have a rental but nothing to put in it!

We had similar, but not quite so bad, incompetence from Grace in Auckland a few years ago. Then again, all the inward freight handling companies we've used in NZ have been almost laughably bad. Usually the guys that actually come to the house to deliver the stuff are fine, but the rest is shocking.

I just checked back in here.

Sorry to hear that your Grace experience wasn't good. So they did outsource their NZ end stuff to a local agent in the end? I think everyone does that (Chess did).

Also, the MAF fees are a bit of a known rip off on the forum. We told them we would handle it and paid MAF directly, it was like 50% cheaper.

Hope everything has arrived and is unpacked now...

I am so sorry for the problems that you are having, thank you for the warning. I didn't realise that you could pay MAF yourself............all the UK companies say that they have an office over there but I am wondering who to book - obviously not Grace.