New Zealand Van Lines

So! If you want your pots and pans bashed, your crockery smashed or your brand new $7000 mountain bike scratched then go ahead and book these guys, they excel at all the above. Despite offering excellent pre service advice the packers themselves couldn’t be bothered. No bike boxes provided despite being promised, glass bowls inside glass bowls then wrapped around the outside of both (smashed to smitherines), some items not wrapped at all and then when you try to follow up with the office they don’t answer your queries or respond to your calls.

Use at your peril, I do not recommend.

Our move was from NZ to Spain and having moved countries 4 times now these are by far the worst packers we have ever experienced.

Move size: Partial Move Service cost: $11000

We moved from Tauranga NZ to Melbourne Australia back in 2011. We were unable to unpack all our belongings as we moved into rental accomodation.
NZ van lines had broken our new Maytag washing machine, they had broken a concrete statue. We had clothes and blankets ruined because they had suggested we place items in the washing machine to save room. What little water that was left in the washing machine damaged all of the items in the washing machine. A lot of our stuff was keep in boxes until we purchased our first home here in Australia in 2015.
When we did our finial unpack, a couple of key boxes had been opened and some of our valuable ( replaceable items had been removed.
A silver ingot was one of our main possessions.
I would say that there is an element of dishonest people working for NZ van lines. Plus the damage to our gear was extremely disappointing. I realise that some damage can occur but as for the theiving picks that handled and pinched our personal gear I would not recommend NZ van lines to move your gear.
I urge NZ van lines to properly investigate their staff and their history before employing them. Plus have a built in system that continues a close evaluation of their staff during their employment with this company.

Service cost: $3600

I would NOT use Vanlines again. There were so many damaged items. I paid insurance but I had to pay more to get property fixed. Their insurance didn't cover it. I had a large handmade vase smashed, I had a painting broken and that cost a fortune to repair. I had a beautiful marble table and have only recently got it out of storage only to discover its been scraped along the side scratching it, it has a chop at the end. They arrived 2 weeks later than the date given. I discovered my marble table had been left behind and wasn't told and only found out when I asked someone to check. It arrived only after I complained

Overall poor service. Won't use them again

Move size: Partial Move Service cost: $2000

The company was to pick up , store then deliver our house contents from Waikato to Otago. They stored it for 6 weeks (aprox) when our contents arrived at our new home in Otago they were damaged, wet, mouldy and even some were missing. It was devastating!

A very long story short. We spent the next 2 n insurance company for replacement cost of our goods that where damaged,"missing" mouldy and wet. They treated us appallingly with zero integrity constantly making it difficult to even communicate. They really showed no remorse and in the end wore us down so much we settled for over $10,000 less than our original claim. With our damaged goods returned where we spend endless hours cleaning and "trying" to de-mould and dry out our furniture, clothing and linen. Our advice DO NOT USE this company for anything. They are incompetent and untrustworthy!!

Move size: 3 Bedroom Home Service cost: $14000

The WORST relocation in HISTORY! Under quoted the move by around $14,000 ($25,000 in total)

Disgusting emails where they DEMANDED PAYMENT AFTER WE HAD PAID THEM WITH NO CLEAR INFORMATION AS TO THE DELAY/REASON WHY OR EXPLANATION

ECONOTRANS CAPE TOWN THE COMPANY NZ VANLINES HANDED OVER TO ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTING ? UNHELPFUL & WATCHING THE CUSTOMERS LOAD TRAILERS & BUSES WE HAVE ONE MORE LOAD TO DO TODAY IN THE MIDDLE OF STORMY RAINY WEATHER!!!!

DO NOT USE THESE COMPANIES!!!

Move size: 4+ Bedroom Home Service cost: $25000

This was 2 years ago, almost to the day, but it still smarts enormously. There was not a single piece of furniture undamaged, there were appliance breakages, glass broken and items stolen. The process then of dealing with them was horrendous. Obfuscating and at times threatening. At the Claims tribunal they were represented by their insurance company principal who danced around why HE represented NZ Van Lines.

If you value your belongings and your sanity don't use this company.

Move size: 3 Bedroom Home Service cost: $9700

We have had an unfortunate experience as NZ Van Lines have not upheld their contractual obligations. We’ve moved from the US to NZ. Nearly all our belongings were already packed from a previous move and we were told numerous times all would be repacked by the movers with their own boxes and packing materials and a detailed list of belongings would be made for customs. Those costs were included in our quote. We had very polite and courteous packers but they repacked very little and used all the boxes we had packed ourselves from our previous move. We were promised professional, boxed packaging of three expensive bikes. (The bikes arrived with only torn, shredded brown packing paper around them.) The day after our things were picked up we received an email saying we needed a detailed list of belongings. Very confusing as we were told they would make that list. When our belongings arrived in NZ we were then told we had to pay $1800 over the agreed upon contractual price in order to receive our things as they had incorrectly assessed the volume. They did two separate video surveys with our belongings already boxed and all together so am unsure how their estimation was so far off. Our belongings arrived about three weeks after our target date- not a problem as I believe it must be very difficult to time things when shipping internationally. When our things arrived at our new home, again we had friendly, courteous movers. But they just dropped our belongings off. The contract states they will unpack items and remove packing materials the day of delivery. That did not happen. I was told to do the unpacking myself and to contact NZ Van Lines when we were done unpacking to have the material and boxes removed. So alright, we unpacked everything ourselves that evening and let them know the packing materials were ready to be removed. That was over a week ago. The garage is unusable due to the massive amounts of packing debris. And they keep telling me they are “working” on getting it removed. It was supposed to be removed the day of delivery per the contract. There is also an entire box of our items that has gone missing and my requests for information on that have not garnered anything past the fact that they agree it is missing. There were several irreparably broken items (all from the few things they boxed up) and I’ve asked several times about how to file a claim but it’s apparent I’m being left to my own devices on that. Please do your homework on this company. If you simply google “NZ Van Lines reviews”, you will get so much more than the Trust Pilot reviews they steer you toward. Heck, someone was so dismayed they bought the domain https://www.newzealandvanlines.com (as opposed to the actual website of the company https://nzvanlines.co.nz) to warn people off using them. We certainly wish we had been more careful and we regret having used them.

Move size: Partial Move Service cost: $19800