Frustrated with Crown!!!!!!!!!!

[vionz]

Container shipped! Another frustrated customer!!!

We chose Crown in NZ, to ship our belongings. They in turn contracted
Mitchell Moving & Storage, a WA state moving company, for the U.S.
part of the move.

Before the shipment, Mitchell did a walk-through and said that our
things will fit in a 20 foot container. Crown quoted us based on their
estimate, we said yes and signed an acceptance form for the quoted
amount.

They packed the house on Thursday and loaded the container the next day.
There was a problem though: NOT EVERYTHING FIT INSIDE! About 15-20
boxes were left out.
They told us everything that was left aside will be shipped in a
separate crate and that both the container and the crate will leave at
the same time.

On Monday, Mitchell Moving & Storage sent all the paperwork to Crown.
On Tuesday, they also sent the pricing for the crate. We assumed that
if there was going to be a change in the terms of our agreement due to
the 'overflow' situation, Crown was going to contact us immediately
and discuss the options. Wrong assumption!

On Thursday of the following week we sent an email to Crown asking
about the next steps. They replied, and we almost fell off the chair:
they wanted an additional $NZ 4,300 to ship the crate, a 33% increase
in their quoted number.

We then realized why Crown didn't respond until then: they wanted the
container shipped already, so they have leverage in dealing with us
on this price increase!!!

We found the nonchalant attitude in their reply email about such a
huge increase in price especially appalling. This whole situation has
bait-and-switch written all over it! The more appalling thing is that
this is coming from supposedly the most prestigious moving company in
NZ!!! This weighed heavily in our decision to move forward with them,
even though their quoted price was not exactly the cheapest!

Did this happen to anybody else? I would like to know how you handled
the situation!!
I am so frustrated right now … This is a complete surprise especially
since we chose Crown based on their reputation to make the moving
experience as smooth as possible and avoid such scenarios.

Please comment.

Thank you

[4togo]

I feel sorry for you. I can imagine that this must be very stressful. That would be one of the last things you need in a relocating venture. It looks like they failed to properly estimate your volume, so why should you have to pick up the tab?

We have moved from Europe to North America before arranging for the container, packing/loading, insurance and documentation ourselves. Although allot of work, in hindsight, it was a breeze and way, way cheaper than the outrageous quotes we got from reputable moving companies.

After seeing more and more negative posts on using moving companies (especially NZ movers) hostage situations, we seriously consider arranging for the move of our goods ourselves again.

The only thing to prevent situations like these is to carefully review and customize contracts to include conditions to rule out any opportunity for the shipper to work you over.

Good luck!

[catt]

Surely the company who did the measuring up has some responsibility in this? They are the ones at fault, i would suggest you try to get Crown to put the blame on them and get them to pay the extra! You signed in good faith on their say so. Worth a try anyway.

[ColeyNZ]

My husband would call them up and remind them that bullets are only about $2 each and accidents happen everyday. Unfortunately in real life things don't work like this. I would contact an attorney and find what your rights are.

[Dave in NZ]

I am sorry to hear this.
I can only give you our experiences of Crown in the UK. Maybe it makes a difference that Crown are well established in the UK and we had Crowns own crews and estimators. The person who estimated at our house was extremely thorough then when we accepted the quote they sent another person around to finalise things and to check we had not added anything. We were told the price would only change if we added anything which we did not. Maybe America works different to Crown UK but we were very impressed but I would say you have a case as you did not add anything and the estimator should have got it right in the first place.
Check your contract, was this a guaranteed price.

[Kanga]

You're a bit screwed unless you're prepared to roll your sleeves up and fight because they will no doubt hold your stuff hostage at this end and charge you daily for doing so until you pay. I really feel for you- shippers pull all manner of tricks and scams and I bet if you'd packed yourself it WOULD have fitted. We were told there was no way our stuff from Oz-NZ would fit, we packed it ourselves and had almost a 1/4 the space going spare. NZ-Oz we were told the same and just told then they'd make it work on the day, which they did.

Without having given you a quote in advance I suspect you've got a very good case for having been mislead, but you may need some grit and patience to get there. I wish you heaps of luck.

[Janey]

Crown NZ are just as bad we shipped stuff back to the Uk and they left half of it behind, like the sofa and dinning table, stuff was scratched and lost and literally thrown on the van I think ike you their estimator had well underestimated we would never use them again

[anthony]

Awful, awful situation!! Sorry to hear that ((((())))).
I'm also in the process and I can't begin to think about a situation like this.
I think you should face the US movers: maybe they didn't announced the situation to Crown!

[ralf-nz]

How strange the world is - again.

I used Crown Dunedin twice for shipments from NZ to Europe. They were reliable, friendly, good value for money, etc. Absolutely no issues - I would always recommend them.

[vionz]

Thank you all for your comments!

This is really helpful, as it reinforces my decision to not just let this go by. They (moving companies) seem to think they always have the upper hand, as their T&C's are formulated to make their customers liable for any possible scenario.

Fortunately, Crown didn't get around to ship our "overflow" items, so we told them no, we'll take care of that and found another shipper who will crate and ship the overflow items for a third of what Crown quoted us. So we'll take that avenue. Still, this is money that we shouldn't have had to pay so we'll look into what makes sense to recover our extra costs after we land in NZ.

Well, the lesson learned is that no matter how hard you plan and how much you try to avoid such scenarios, even if you go with - supposedly - the best, you still need to be prepared for surprises. So, plan ahead for such situations as there are no guaranties in the moving business.