John Mason groupage question

[adotie]

Hi all, I haven't posted before on the forum, but have been an avid reader throughout our 18 month process of moving to New Zealand!


We are now just 2 and a bit weeks away from leaving the UK, and I have a quick question re removals.


We are booked with John Mason, for our stuff to be transported groupage.


We were originally told by them that the quote agreed for this would stand and wouldn't need to be amended post move, and could therefore be paid up in full by us in advance.


However, since we returned the paperwork, they are now saying that the final cost will be tallied by them AFTER they have transported our stuff to their warehouse and the final invoice forwarded to us for payment.



I just wanted to check if anyone else had moved groupage with John Mason and did they pay in advance or after their move?


I am aware that other companies such as Anglo Pacific do it this way as we were advised as such by them when they did our quote, but John Mason differed.


Many thanks

[Wesnchez]

Hi, just wondering what happened with John Mason?

Were they good?

Is groupage cos you had a small amount? How much stuff and how much money if you don't mind me asking!

Thanks.

[adotie]

Hi, just wondering what happened with John Mason?

Were they good?

Is groupage cos you had a small amount? How much stuff and how much money if you don't mind me asking!

Thanks.

Hi Wesnchez, sorry I didn't reply to this, we were in transit when you posted, and then with the forum being down I have only just seen this.

We went groupage because we wouldn't have filled a container, but were slightly over half. I think we paid £1975 for about 600cu.ft. We also shipped my car groupage which cost £1245. John Mason were by far the cheapest quote we were given, and were actually the only company that didn't try to sell us a full container. Even with the car we wouldn't have filled it, and this frustratingly pushed their quotes up much higher.

Groupage can take longer for your things to arrive. This is because the company will seek to fill the remainder of the container with other items for shipping, so depending on whether you are first or last into the container this could delay things. In the end, our stuff actually left Liverpool 2-3 weeks after we did. Once arrived in Auckland, it took roughly a week to get cleared through MAF, and so all in it was roughly two months since they took it away from the house in UK. For us, this worked out fine as it gave us chance to find a decent rental in an area we like, and explore the city from a small serviced studio before moving.

In reference to my original question, and to be fair to John Mason, it's probably worth my noting here that they did re-jig the quote once they had taken our stuff away, and it came in about £40 lower than originally stated.

I think they did an excellent job in all, and it wasn't until I started to unpack all of our boxes that I realised how good. Not a single box or parcel went missing, and we didn't have a single breakage. Everything had been carefully wrapped and packaged, which considering just how quickly they did this, was very impressive. Even very delicate glassware survived intact!

The NZ agents for JM are The Moving Company, and they did a good, very quick job of delivering our stuff. I can't comment on the unwrapping service as I opted to forgo this from the Moving Company, I would just prefer to do this myself, and having asked them to unwrap just the sofa as it was too large for us to manage ourselves I was slightly alarmed at the gusto with which they attached the package with stanley knives. Since this, I have spotted one small nick in the fabric that I don't think was there before, and whilst I can mend this fairly easily, this is a little frustrating, and so I am glad that we opted out of the full unwrap.