Essex Removal Company ,A J Stephenson Removals & Storage, finds more evidence of the "Cowboy Element" of the Removals Industry.

I had an email from a customer of mine today and she copied in the quote from "another company" regarding her local move within Billericay. It is quite usual to have competition, thats healthy but this is another thing altogether.

The move in question is a 1050 cu ft move (7.5 ton lory required)  within Billericay, with awkward access (accross a green) into a house where the vendor is moving next door, so there could be delays in him vacating, furthermore it is a completion day move, in other words there is no guarantee that the keys will be made available until later in the afternoon. This is all part and parcel of a removal mans life, However you can imagine my suprise when I saw the email. See below-

Dear xxxxxxxxx

Thank you for the enquiry I am very pleased to outline the quote of £295.00 plus vat you have received  as follows:

This provides 2 men, truck (1000 cubic feet very high volume luton) and insurance in transit with AXA asusming parking at both ends to which a 4 hour period from start with you is provided.

Excess hours are charged at £50.00 plus vat thereafter if applicable or £30.00 plus vat per 30 minutes.

The guys are very fast, careful and efficient and we genuinely provide a first class service which can be seen by reading the five star reviews and excellent feedback at xxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx which at 100 is the most on that site.

We can accommodate all of your packing needs both in terms of materials or indeed a full packing service.

To discuss please email or call us on xxx-xxxx-xxxx. 

Thank you

xxxxx

xxxxxx xxxxxx xx xxxxxxx

There has obviously been no survey carried out, they are basing their price and info on an online form or by obtaining the cubic feet from a rival- Me!.  I know that this type of firm cannot compete with the professional removers listed on this site, but how does the unsuspecting customer know? In reallity what will happen is that they will send a transit type luton van which will not accomodate any more that 400-600 cubic feet (By the way it will be overweight) they will not fit it all in will have to wait for the money to go through so wont be able to unload, this will anoy the people moving into the house they have part vacated and may result in waiting time charges being passed on. They will be working at breakneck speed when they do get keys so they can get back for the bits they missed.

All this for £295 + VAT plus they are charging £50 per hour over 4 hours !

I have an example of this type of schenario happening to me a couple of years ago, ive written the account below-

"We moved a customer a couple of years ago, our crew had loaded up by 11.30am and went to the delivery address knowing that the money had been transferred and they should be finished reasonably early. Only problem was that when they got there, there was a small van on the drive with a couple of rough and fed up looking men sitting in the cab. Our crew thought they had the wrong house but soon realised that one of our major annoyances was about to unfold. The money hadn’t quite gone through and although the people moving out were only moving to the next road they couldn’t get the keys yet. Now the small van had been loaded for well over 2 hours and there were at least 3 more trips required before the house would be cleared. So why only one small van? Well after our crew spoke to the other customer they were told that their removers had expected to unload straight away and was only told there would be enough for 2 van loads and now they were really angry and demanding more money. Our crew felt really sorry for these people and tried to help by moving items to one side of the rooms so they could start to unload. The only problem was that they needed the garage and it was full up and it was starting to rain.

As it transpired the move was delayed a couple of hours and it wasn’t the end of the world but for our customer and theirs for that matter it wasn’t the experience it should have been. The ironic thing is that the other customer ended up paying £100 more than our customer, when in reality they should have been getting compensation. Unfortunately they weren’t backed by the Ombudsman Scheme!"

Thats the good thing about this site, hopefully it will educate the moving population that there are real differences between removers and unless they move with a regulated remover they could be causing themself a major problem.

Dont get caught out, Move with a Guild or Bar company!

Essex Removal Company A J Stephenson Removals and Storage are founding members of the National Guild of Removers and Storers.

Top quality removals and storage- Guaranteed!

A J Stephenson Removals
r/o 17,Radford way
Billericay
Essex
CM12 0AA
www.ajstephensonremovals.co.uk
01277 653268