Grace Removals Group

My family and I recently moved interstate, and after sourcing many quotes to move, Grace's smooth talking salesman convinced us to go with their more expensive but apparently far more reliable service. After that initial quote though, everything went downhill. The boxes were not delivered when they said they would be, and then boxes were missing. The disconnect between operations and the moving team was just astounding, with all my details being wrong, from time of pick-up, to floor and apartment location.
On the other end, when my things arrived six and a half hours late (a whole work day gone), lots of items were damaged. They kept pulling thing s off the truck and the movers kept telling me "yep, this is broken too. Not our fault, must have been how they packed it". To top it off, one of the movers also knocked a framed picture off my wall while coming into the new house. The picture frame was completely destroyed. All he said was "my bad, sorry". I asked the movers to get rid of the broken furniture but they told me they had been instructed by head office to leave it as a tradesman would be out soon to fix it. After a back and forth via email, as I expected, no tradesman came and I am now left to dispose of the broken items.
They did however offer me $350 compensation to attempt to make up for this $4000 nightmare.
I wouldn't normally write something like this, but I just want people to be aware that this company will promise you the world and deliver your items late and destroyed.
I will never recommend them to anyone, and am also going to lengths to make sure my company uses a different service from now on, as we quite often relocate staff.

Move size: 2 Bedroom Home Service cost: $4000

We engaged Grace Removalists to relocate our personal belongings and two motorbikes from Australia to Canada.

Our moving consultant came over and inspected our furniture and motorbikes, the advice we recieved was that the motorbikes had to be ‘freehold’ (no loan) if there was anything more we needed to do he would advise us.

So forward two months house sold, jobs finished, living in Canada and get an email from Grace Removalists third party shipping partner in Canada and our motorbikes are ‘inadmissible’ into Canada.

Now we live in another country and our vehicle are in Australia, Grace advice.

‘We can drop off them off to your work place’ free of charge.

How can I sell the motorbikes for a reasonable price when i’m in another country..?? They aren’t registered, insured or have a safety certificate..!!

Ask our Relocation Assistant to call us and get response.. my personal phone is broken and my work phone won’t call international ‘it has a block on it’

Grace Removalists definitely NOT RECOMMENDED.

Move size: 3 Bedroom Home Service cost: $14000

We chose Grace removalists for our move from Sydney to Christchurch (NZ) from three other removalists as they were comparative in cost and were the only company that did an onsite quote.

It required a two day move with items in storage and two motorbikes. Day 1 packing team decided to take it easy and knock off at 2.30pm which meant there was two much work for Day 2. One of the packers had bad attitude; would not collapse shelving that we were told would be collapsed, had to be reminded several times to go back and pack rooms and items that had not been put on the truck. We then discovered that items had been missed from the inventory or were put down as 'owner packed' because they couldn't be bothered repacking items we had put into boxes for storage. This was a nightmare when it came to The Ministry of Primary Industries inspection with us having to double guess what these 'owner packed' items were.

The Good: We received our goods in New Zealand within 5 weeks and the receiving team in New Zealand were awesome, transferring our contents into another storage container on a temporary property.

The Bad - Grace management did not acknowledgement any concerns I raised about the competency of the packing team. We paid for the full package that included full unpacking of our goods into a new premise and removal of all packaging materials. However, we moved our items into another storage container on a family's property, so we did not make use of this. I sent several emails to Grace management querying the cost we had paid for a full service that we did not use as well as our inability to check for damaged items and and any proceeding insurance claims. They did not respond to any of my emails.

All in all I got the feeling that once the company had got your service it was a matter of getting the job done with zero care factor.

Three bedroom house - cost $17, 0000 for full service of unpacking goods in new premise and removal of packaging materials.

Move size: 3 Bedroom Home Service cost: $17000

Engaged Grace for an interstate move (NSW to NT) in November / December 2020. Sales rep was great, took a detailed evaluation of the items and the move volume, which came up to 1.25 the size of a 20-foot container. This meant that the shipment would come in two parts, and he suggested that we ensure the important items were packed first so that they would arrive first as the other container would have to wait to be filled with the items from another customer before it would be shipped, which was fine with us. Plus, the extra services offered made the difference between them and their competitors. Price came back higher than the rest, but they were the only ones that claimed to be able to meet the short time frame of the move (2 weeks).

The Sydney crew came to pack up the items and while they did a pretty good job, two issues started to ring alarm bells. Firstly, the movers came to start the packing at 1330 H, after another house pack-up that morning. Apparently, they were not informed that they were packing up a 4-bedroom house with a full gym in the garage. That forced them to work until 2000 H to get everything packed up. Secondly, when the movers were almost finished packing up the first 20-foot container, we enquired as to where the other container was. We were told that they did not know and that it was late in the afternoon and they may have to send another crew to complete the move the next day. When we contacted the BDM, he stated that he did not know if another container was scheduled. Eventually, a medium-sized moving truck was dispatched and picked up the rest of the items.

Then the cleaning crew arrived the following day and were surprised to learn that they would have to clean the horizontal blinds, even though I had emailed the list of cleaning requirements to the sales rep a whole week before. We were then told that, in order to add this cleaning to their scope of work, we would be charged an extra $150, which was paid immediately.

Due to the speed of the move, ended up taking an apartment which could not fit all our items. When the sales rep was informed of the delivery address, we were again charged an extra $450 for “difficult access at delivery”. As before, this was paid immediately.

We took a storage unit for the remainder of the items and was told that we would have to pay an extra $990 to split the delivery. And again, this was paid immediately.

Originally, we were given a delivery date of December 2nd, which was perfect for us as it would be one week after pack-up. We were told that it arrived in Darwin on that date, however, it could not be delivered until December 7th because of congestion due to a lot of volume going through the Darwin facility. So, we asked that the delivery be reshuffled in the yard into what was coming to the apartment and what was going to the storage unit. We were told that this was no problem. A day before the delivery was to be made, however, we received a call that the delivery would have to be postponed to December 18th because of our request for the reshuffle. We called the sales rep who stated that there was nothing that he could do but give me the contact for the Darwin facility manager. One call to this guy and he had it all sorted to deliver on the initial date of December 7th.

When the delivery was made on December 7th , approximately a third of my items were missing. They stated that the second container had not arrived and when it did, it would be delivered ASAP. Found quite a few items damaged: bar stool broken, dining room chairs gouged, bed headboard / footboard / rails ripped and water cooler leaking, to name a few. We saw that a lot of items that were carefully wrapped at pickup were found unwrapped at delivery, which contributed to the damage. Since we had only insured the big-ticket items such as TVs, washer, dryer, and dishwasher, we were not reimbursed for any damaged items.

When the second delivery was made on December 18th , 10% of our items were still missing. When we enquired, the Darwin site manager gave us the full story; the shipment had been put into three containers in Sydney. No reason was given for this and we were not informed of this from the outset.

We had the final delivery on December 24th and still, a few items were missing; most likely from being missed when the other containers were sent to their customers. These were picked up at the Darwin facility by us early January.

To summarise my rating of Grace:

Pros:

• Speed of quote

• Range of services

• Hard-working and under-appreciated delivery personnel

Cons:

• Price and pricing adjustments

• Slow and inadequate progress updates

• Apparent coordination issues between departments / facilities

• Yard personnel appear to have much less duty-of-care than their delivery counterparts.

Move size: 4+ Bedroom Home Service cost: $16000

Very quick to provide a quote and lock you in and then the service stops , poor communication, no one takes responsibility, they showed up hours earlier than booked and were were expected to accomodate their schedule change and the list goes on - DO NOT TAKE THEIR INSURANCE - it was totally misrepresented to us as being in house and coverage of contents even if not packed by them, and then when you sign when you accept delivery ( when you have had no time to check all your furniture) that is considered acceptance of no issues. We are about to lodge formal complaints with ACCC, Insurance Ombudsman and Removal peak body as they are now not responding or addressing our issues. The cost of the insurance was significant compared to the move and we basically gave the money for nothing. Their lack of communication now says it all - they take the money and then are off to sell to the next sucker....

Move size: 2 Bedroom Home Service cost: $6000

Awful end result and the most hard-bitten and unethical management of claim for damaged household items. This may be common business practice among removal companies. I will tell you what happened and at the end give some advice to protect your interests.

Grace are lovely at first and the Canberra senior salesman is charming.

The end result is:

• My solid oak extendable dining table was packed on its end in the container. It arrived with the corner smashed. A couple of chairs now have loose joins. A $20,000 dining suit is now rubbish.

• A leather cushion from the lounge suit is missing. Impossible to replace. Lounge is no longer made. Now the whole lounge suit has no value.

• Boxes were broken and the items re-packed in those blue and red striped packing bags. Items are missing, and two very nice small items meaning 22 ct gold chain.

• 3 boxes are missing and not ticked off on the inventory. Lots of our kitchen items and stereo are gone.

• Paid extra for large and fragile artworks to be packed in wooden crates. Did not notice not written in contract. Also not done.

• Paid $000’s to send over car and have registered. No item written on the inventory/contract. We did not notice. Arrived here to find out Grace do not have a service to register cars.

• In reply to the emails with pictures of the damage there has been silence. More emails and no reply.

• They have a double-act going with their insurance company. Insurance responded that as we do not have a policy with them the claim is rejected.

o This is wrong of them. The liability is with Grace and if they choose to insure or bear the cost is up to Grace.

In my opinion and my experience:

• Grace will not support you getting all aspects of the job written down.

• They will rely on only complying with the written words in the inventory and contract regardless of the discussions and general expectations of the service.

* Grace will not acknowledge the claim by either replying in writing or eMail, or provide explanations for the damage.

• Grace will delay discussion and avoid the claim in the knowledge most people will give up.

In my opinion some actions to reduce your risks can include:

• Write down dot point notes as you discuss your job. Photocopy and staple to the contract and write on contract “attachment included.” I doubt you will have time for neatly type-written and printed notes.

• Use two people with different ways of thinking in collaboration when discussing the job. One person with the objective and sounding out the company representative and another with an eye for logic and detail are good. If you married to one or the other you are in luck.

• I think men can find this just as stressful as women but respond in a different way.

• Shop around for insurance for the ship transport and in port. In my opinion Grace has a far too close relationship with their insurer to look after the consumer. For such an expensive purchase, 25% of the move, you might have luck and find a different attitude from a different company.

• Industry-wide practices of buddying-up with the insurer and dodging claims is for our political leaders to become involved with.

Move size: 4+ Bedroom Home Service cost: $17000

I have been in contact with Jason Narin and Nikhil Ramrakha for an international removal.

Jason said that our goods will leave Australia on 9/6/22 and MSC is the only one considering the route at that time. According to that we were charged double the actual cost. After that, Grace kept holding our goods in Sydney until September and never informed us that they did not ship our furniture on 9/6/22. We figured that out months later.

Our goods were not shipped through MSC as we were advised by Jason and later on I knew from one of their staff (Reanne) that there was not even a booking made for 9/6/22. We were deceived and never provided with the service that we paid for.

Move size: 3 Bedroom Home Service cost: $40012

Grace were very professional up until the moment we signed the contract, then they couldn’t care less about us. Our contact with our removalist stopped overnight and we could barely get any information out of them, and when we did they were rude and snarky. We were told our container would likely be shipped within a week to a month but it took 4 months just to be put on a ship and we are still awaiting its arrival. We have had to chase and chase to get this information and we received a one line email in response which was incredibly rude. We are so disappointed.

The comments Grace add to these reviews are all for show - as they do not follow up. They simply don’t care about you.

There are so many better companies to use. This one doesn’t care at all so use someone else! I regret using them and won’t use them again.

Move size: 3 Bedroom Home Service cost: $4500

Didn't take much on a move from QLD to Ireland having had bad experiences with removalists in the past but this was by far the worst experience. Delivery took 6 months which is much longer than anticipated. They managed to lose the one box that contained all my photographs, many sentimental items and an item my partner has treasured for many years. Their response after 4 weeks of chasing and few responses, sorry we can't find it, here's the link to the claim line. Devastated.

Update 02/08/23: still no satisfactory update as to where my belongings are.

Update 15/08/23 Box was apparently delivered to the wrong party who returned it but Grace have managed to lose it again.

Had they acted when they were initially informed it was missing and contacted the other customers using the same container it may have been located. Beyond devastating, these items are precious and irreplaceable.

Move size: Partial Move Service cost: $3210