Removal Group

I move from Amsterdam in the Netherlands to Manchester, UK in July 2011 with The Removal Group and had a horrible experience. The agreed price was GBP 1200 payable in advance. Before paying I specified clearly that some items of furniture would not fit down the narrow stair case and would need to be hoisted out of the 3rd floor window. This is a very common procedure in the Netherlands. The Removal Group promised categorically that the movers would have the block and tackle required in the van and would be able to do the hoist. I obviously also gave our address in Amsterdam. On the afternoon before the move, 2 men came from Pearson Home Moving. It turned out that The Removal Group is only a sales office and subcontracts all the actual moving.  The men from Pearson explained that they would not be able to do the hoist because they were not insured and never use the block and tackle method. They also announced that their enormous HGV would not be able to get closer than 2km from our house because it did not fit in the city streets. Finally they said that they always have problems with The Removal Group who always promise more than they can deliver. I frantically tried to get in touch with The Removal Group to no avail. Finally at 6pm on the night before the move I got an email announcing that they would charge an additional GBP 700 to hire a van to shuttle the goods from our house to the Pearson HGV and an additional GBP 600 to hire a mechanical lift to lower the large furniture items out of the window.  Obviously I was livid. In the end, after a great deal of stress, I hired a transit van myself for GBP 60 and the block and tackle for GBP 10 and the move was a success. I recovered these costs from The Removal Group after writing an email threatening to take them to the small claims court. I think that The Removal Group are profiteering cowboys who attempt to add extortionate last minute charges on purpose when the customer is already committed to the move and has little choice but to pay up. I was lucky that I was able to avoid their tactics this time. I have no complaints about Pearson. They did a professional job.

Service cost: £1200

I cannot comment on the actual performance of company movers, but can comment on the order process.

We were planning to move a part of our house from Switzerland to London last August (2010). I chose the medium priced offer from Removal Group. Their website looked professional and the reviews were good; only later I noticed that most of the reviews are hosted on their own website..

I was in contact with the sales representative (it looked like she was the only one who works there, noone else ever answered the phone) and even though she was a bit too pushy, I decided for this company, which was more than 3 weeks before we planned the moving.
She sent me several forms one day, I sent her one back but didn't even complete the residual orders neither sent the order form by fax as they request. The same day changed our mind about moving and rented a smaller place in Switzerland. I called to Removal Group to apologize that we won't be moving to the UK all the stuff any more.

To my shock, Leanne told me that she will charge me cancellation fee. Unfortunately, I gave her my card details a day before to pay a small deposit (around £150) to book the time slot. She told me that she would charge me 30% of the original cost, which was about £800 (against their terms and conditions say that when you cancel up to 14 days before the moving, they won't charge you a penny). They were so nice that they 'gave me a discount' - they charged me only £500, and never charged the deposit. I refused to pay any cancellation fee, I haven't even completed the order and told them explicitely NOT to charge my card with anything else than the initial deposit already a day before. Removal Group still charged my card with £500 and stopped communicating with us. Well, apart from several threatening emails that were refering us to their company lawyer, who probably didn't even exist. When I requested his/her contact details, they never came back to me.

Our company law department advised me to report this as a fraud to my bank, which I did and eventually recovered the full amount.

That's the story in short. Not very good, is it? I feel quite sad about it; the whole time I was happy to accept an apology and the money back from the company, but they left the bank to force them to return it. My learning experience: never give your card details before the order, even though they stress you that the time slot may not be available any more. It is not worth of the stress..

Good luck with moving!

Service cost: £2500

The quote was very competitive compared to others I had received. The removal group customer service was excellent, and Andrew and Kelly were very easy to get in contact with. I was arranging a move from the UK to Ireland with just over a week to go, and everything was arranged promptly.

This was the first time I had moved house using a real removal company, and the whole experience was relatively stress free, so thank you.

Removal team were great, stayed cheerful despite the immense heat!

E Powers.

Service cost: £5225

I had a horrible experience with the Removal Group.
They did not come for a survey. After the pickup they wanted an additional 1250 GBP (total cost agreed was 1025 for move and storage) since they claimed unreasonable extra costs. Their terms and conditions leave a lot of room for that. I refused to pay. They charged my bank account without authorization. I got my money back (after months) through my bank (it was treated by my bank as a non authorized transaction). They threatened to abandon my goods in the street. I had a lawyer send them a letter, they kept my goods in storage. However when I wanted to have my goods back, it took them more than two months to deliver them. I had to call them many times, they never returned any call. Only once I threatened again to go to a lawyer I finally got my stuff back. Strangely enough, I even had offered to pay 600 GBP to settle, but finally they did not want this. Possibly they realized that had I gone to a lawyer it would have become expensive for them (they do not seem to have a good legal protection).
The people I dealt with are called Lisa Cook. She seems nice on the phone but is unable to add two plus two correctly, she really did an infinite number of mistakes, adding VAT twice and things like that. To any direct, important question she answers: "I have to talk to my agents" or "I have to talk to my manager". Typically she does not get back to you (of course, before we agreed on the move it was all a different story.. ).
The manager, he was really the worst ever, is called Stuart Hall. He is the one who threatened to abandon my goods. Essentially, he told me just so many lies (lots of excuses when they were refusing to release my goods).

I can only advice: DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY. I moved many times and never had any no problem (that's why I was maybe too relaxed with this move and did the big mistake to take a quote from a company that did not bother to do a survey).

In any case, it was the worst move ever.

Service cost: £1025

My name is Mark Scott and Iused your service for my removals and storage to France. I would like to express my disappointment with the company you used for the said service. Firstly I used the calculator to estimate how much space my furniture would take up then booked the service with full packing. When the luton van turned up it already had goods onboard. The removal men then said they had not been told that they needed to pack so after discussion it was agreed that they would repack once they reached their depot. At this point I had no choice but to agree as the new buyers were waiting to move in. The two guys then proceded to pack the van. 2.5 hours (not a long time to pack a van as they said to yourselves that they parked 200 meters away for which I was billed) later the furniture was on the van with space left. A day or two later I recived an email informing me that the goods I had had filled the van and was almost twice as much as the estimate( not true but again I had no option but to pay for more space) then I was informed that after packing, my goods filled extra containers (to which I would need to pay extra). Again no option but to accept and pay as you had my goods. After late delivery and lost goods then another late delivery of the lost goods(to which I needed to pay for someone to be there as I work abroad) the goods were delivered in damaged boxes. I arrived in France at the end of June to find that the house stank of mould and mildew. Upon opening the boxes I found most of the goods were in a very damaged condition. the boxes had at sometime gotten wet.(which I question why when I had paid for containers). So the next day I started unpacking the boxes. I was disgusted to find that 11 out of my 22 boxes(which were packed by Town and Country) had very little inside. 4 of the boxes had 2 soft toys inside each box. My leather sofa had cuts and scuffs along the seats (something sharp had been put ontop)and was covered in mildew. Upon pluging the washer drier in I found this to be broken and upon inspection by a Zanussi engineer found the wiring loom had rusted through and could not be fixed. His suggestion was that the machine had been left outside for an extended period. To finish the total of your service including costs incured was around £3500. This was a total waste of money as I threw 90% of the furniture away. I do understand that I have no come back as it was over a week until I inspected the delivery which I knew was the case which was why I did not take out the extra insurance. I feel that Town and Country engineered the extra costs by not bringing the packing boxes so the could charge extra. As you can tell by the tone of the email I would not use or recommend your service again. Further to this I would question the use of Town and country. To reiterate it's not the money that matters, more the lack of trust I placed in a national company. I do not really expect any outcome which will be a continuation of the level of service I have received so far but I do think you need to be informed. yours Mark Scott.

Service cost: £3500