Anyone else experienced huge delay in receiving shipped belongings?

[howcomes]

Writing on behalf of my ILs who moved from a small town in Ontario, Canada to Inverness, Scotland this spring. They paid $9000 for their furniture and belongings to be shipped door to door back in May with Tippet Richardson. They understood that it only made up a half load in a container so there would be a bit of delay.

Their shipment arrived in Liverpool early July and has gone as far as Wolverhampton. They've now been told they will have to wait indefinitely for their belongings as it's not a full container worth or pay a further 1000 pounds to get them delivered earlier.

They've moved overseas several times, as have I, and we've never experienced this, despite never having a full container worth of shipping. Any delay in the past has been due to waiting to fill the container for the boat crossing, not the final truck delivery to the new address.

They really feel they are being held to ransom and are pretty despondent as they moved into their new house 3 weeks ago and have absolutely no furniture or anything other than a suitcase of clothes each.

Just wondering if anyone else ever experienced this or could offer any advice on what to do next as the shipping company won't budge at all other than to apologise for the delay.

There must be terms and conditions that they signed up to when organising the shipping. What does that say? It sounds like your ILs didn’t read or understand what the service was that they bought.

I had a considerable delay. I went rural West Aus to Brighton, UK. The contract stated after notification of arrival I had 3 days or something to arrange delivery destination (which was going to be a storage unit). After that the storage charges were going to be extortionate.

Didn't hear for weeks after expected due date. Very new DH started getting tetchy but I kept saying each week we didn't hear was a weeks storage cost saved. Eventually I received a phone call asking for details, as per contract. Then they wanted to charge me for two months storage (or whatever it was) which I refused to pay as it was not as per contract. The paperwork had sat on someone's desk who had left the job and only now was someone else getting around to clearing the backlog so it really wasn't my problem.

We had a discussion over the phone, I refused to pay, citing contract, she refused to arrange delivery so I rang the agent in WA who I actually signed the contract with. He was most put out and I had resolution within about 36 hours (time zones etc).

Have your inlaws check their contract and perhaps contact the signatory to the contract in Canada. IMO, it's his problem to sort out.

I have had a similar experience. Moving from the UK to the west coast of the USA in 2016. I didn’t use a moving company like Pickfords or similar because I didn’t (at the time) see the need. I had read online about sending stuff through a shipping company and how much cheaper it was. I contacted one in the UK and explained I’d never done this before and I just wanted to move personal belongings to my new home. I moved here to be with my American husband so no point in bringing furniture and housewares, he had stuff like that and we wanted to buy new things for our new life together anyway. But I wanted to bring several hundred books, my baking things and some mementos. I brought two suitcases on the plane with me and was told my boxes of things would take around 6 weeks to get here. All went smoothly in the UK. The company sent the labels for my boxes and a man came to pick them all up. Once they left the UK I heard nothing. I contacted the company and they told me they no longer had anything to do with it and gave me the contact details of the American agent who would be doing everything here.

I tried repeatedly to get a date from them as to when I could pick up my things. I live on the coast so I paid for the boxes to go as far as the port as the cost they quoted to bring the boxes a few miles to our home from the port was extortionate. We said we would rent a van and pick them up ourselves, just give us the date and we will be there. Whenever I emailed them they would reply back with lots of jargon that I didn’t understand. I called them one day and explained that I had no clue what they were talking about and to please use simple, everyday terms. I explained that I work for an airline and I have to speak to passengers using different words than I do if I’m speaking to someone in the industry. Passengers wouldn’t have a clue what I was talking about if I used the terminology I use every day in the office. Still the jargon. They said they were waiting for form xzy to be released and so on but it made no sense to me. I had no idea I was supposed to complete these forms. When I got the forms they may as well have been written in Japanese - I couldn’t understand a word.

I then got a call telling me my shipment had been at the port here for the maximum amount of time, was now being treated as unclaimed goods and going to auction. I told my boss I had to leave work immediately to get my things. She was very supportive and also concerned that it had come to this. DH and I dashed to a rental place and rented the only van they had and sped to the port. We were told that the boxes were still there but waiting to go to the auctioneer. I said “I’m here now. I’ll take them” but they wanted storage money. Handed over my credit card and then they said I needed to go to customs to get a release. Went to customs and they said I needed a list of everything in every box, over 30 boxes. I asked if they needed a list as detailed as every spoon, the title of every book, etc and he said “ideally”. But he would accept “30 boxes of used books”, “2 boxes of kitchen utensils” etc. I scribbled that down and paid another fee to customs and went back to the storage place at the port to be told I was 20 minutes too late. They were off to auction. We raced to the auctioneer and got there to see my boxes (my name was on the pallet) sitting in a loading bay waiting to be taken in. DH said we should just start grabbing them and putting them in the van but I went into the office to at least tell someone that they were my things and I was taking them. I was told I had to pay another fee. Reluctantly I did. She said the paperwork from customs wasn’t in order so I told her to call the customs office because I brought everything they gave me. She called and it turned out the customs officer had left one of the pages of the forms on the photocopier. He faxed it to her while I was there and she poured herself a coffee before she looked at it and said “yeah, I think you can have your boxes now”. Ran out of the office before she could change her mind and DH and I loaded them into the van as quickly as possible and sped away feeling like we’d just robbed a bank.

5 months after I moved here I finally got my boxes. Was supposed to take 6 weeks and I sent them 2 weeks before I left.

If we ever move overseas again, I’m using a moving company.

Thanks for the replies, it seems their original contact agent has since left the company and the replacement blames the UK agent. The terms of the contract don't actually give a specific timescale but at least they won't be charged for all this additional (although unwanted) storage time.

They have used this company over a dozen times in the last 30 years without any issue so it's a total surprise to have this problem now. It's not like they only have a few boxes to move, it's all the furniture from a 3 bed house, it must be taking up a lot of unpaid storage space, and would surely fill a smaller truck. Inverness is not a complete backwater either, I could understand if they were in rural highlands.

Britwife, if you ever move again I can recommend GBliners as a good shipping company!