Anyone used AnyVan?

[AwkwardPaws27]

Hopefully moving in a fortnight (selling & buying so no overlap). I got removals quotes from 5 local removal companies last month, ranging between £650-£720 (one bed flat plus loft & shed, to a house, less than a mile away, packing ourselves).
Tried AnyVan today & getting quotes between £270-£350, so quite a significant saving.
Has anyone used them for home removals? I've seen a couple of worrying reviews about last minute cancellations... Anyone had an amazing experience with them & can give me the courage to save £300? Anyone had a bad time & thinks that the peace of mind isn't worth the savings?

I tried to use Anyvan this week.I booked and paid a week in advance. Confirmed with the driver the night before and this morning .The driver cancelled the entire job within an hour of the scheduled pick up. Can't see the point of them? Why bother? They just refunded the money. said they couldn't get someone else to do the job.

We used them, asked for two people and a large van. One guy with a tiny van turned up. My husband had to do half the work. Loads of furniture got spoiled because it had to be crammed/ slid into place. Stay away IMO.

I booked them once to move. With less than 24 hrs notice they cancelled and asked if I could be flexible on day of moving. Err, no, not really! I phoned around local firms and managed to find a firm. I wouldn’t recommend but you might be lucky.

Anyvan, ugh, they just tried to charge me extra for something that's supposed to be included in the price. And the most patronising, unhelpful customer service.
Should have checked mumsnet for reviews first

I've used them twice before - once for our house move and one to deliver some wardrobes. The guys that we had were amazing and handled our stuff with care. I know not everyone has had the great service my family have had, but I would recommend!

I also have used AnyVan recently and I would strongly advise anyone against using them.

The drivers arrived to deliver our furniture at 00.15am. The journey from collection to delivery was over 100 miles, so we were told that they could arrive at the destination the same day as collection or the day after. It was only at 10pm on the day of collection that we received a call from out driver telling us he would not be there until midnight. We had no choice whatsoever in this. The driver arrived at 00.15am and didn’t live until 3.49am. We live in a second floor flat so this disturbed our neighbours considerably. Not to mention that this is just an unprofessional and unsociable time. If you do book with AnyVan make sure you specifically state a latest time for delivery. I would not have thought this necessary, but if you want to avoid being up in the middle of the night and disturbing your neighbours then I would recommend it.

We had to do a lot of the heavy lifting despite having paid for 2 men instead of just 1. We paid for 2 men to decrease the amount of lifting we were doing because we didn’t know the correct technique for lifting heavy items and so wanted to avoid injury. When the driver and his 17 year old son arrived, they had already been working 16 hours that day (they told us they started at 8am) and so were tired before they even stated lifting. I completely understand that they were tired after working a long day but surely it would have made more sense for them to arrive the following morning instead. On a number of occasions the driver said to my partner 'help me, I'm an old man'. Of course we were more than willing to help with some lifting but we had paid for 2 professional men for a reason. If you do not want to lift heavy items, state this on the special instructions of your booking. Again, I would not have thought this necessary.

The driver told us to destroy our sofa when it would not fit into the flat. One of my main concerns was the driver’s attitude when he realised that the sofa would not fit in the flat. At this point it was blocking the stair well so that tenants in the above flat could not get downstairs. Instead of now taking the sofa back downstairs, the driver insisted that the sofa could not be brought back down. He said he had to leave to be somewhere else and we would need to destroy the sofa. As you can imagine this was a very stressful and upsetting situation. After speaking to the driver and his son for at least 20 minutes we eventually managed to persuade them to bring it back down. This process was rushed, causing damage to the sofa and creating even more noise.

There was extensive damage to our furniture and our property. The damage to our furniture was unacceptable. The wooden dining table (which was previously is excellent condition) arrived with a large scrape down the centre and the seat of one of our leather dining chairs was ripped. Again previously in excellent condition, our sofa now has multiple tares in the fabric, the wooden frame is very weak meaning the sofa now rocks side to side and the metal bars of the sofa bed are twisted. This £899 sofa bed was no longer in an acceptable state for use meaning that we had to get rid of it. In addition, whilst trying to get the sofa upstairs, the walls of the stairwell were scratched and damaged so that there are now obvious holes, cracks and marks which will need to be repaired. The driver and his son were not careful with our furniture, on many occasions even standing on the arm of the sofa.

We were not covered for damage. When I informed AnyVan about this damage they explained that because I did not pay for comprehensive insurance that they could not accept responsibility for the damage. Maybe I was naive in thinking that a professional moving company would take responsibility for any damaged caused to your items in transit. This is not the case. The basic insurance included in the price only covers for fire, lighting, aircraft, explosion and theft. If you book with AnyVan make sure you pay for comprehensive insurance. This is not cheap, but worth it if trusting them with your furniture.

The customer service was extremely disappointing. I first asked to make a damage claim as well as a formal complaint about the service on the day of delivery over a month ago in August. The damage claim was dropped, without any kind of compensation or acceptance of wrong doing. Then, only last week after many, many emails was my formal complaint about the service on the night of delivery addressed. During this correspondence, the member of the AnyVan team I was speaking to kept changing and so I had to continuously repeat my reason for complaint. This is unacceptable customer service - it felt like they were doing everything they could so I would get fed up and drop the complaint. Despite everything mentioned above, I was only originally only offered £20 due to the late arrival. After further emails, I was offered another £25 as a 'gesture of goodwill'. To get to this stage with AnyVan has taken me 6 weeks of continuous emails and phone calls and they are still yet to have responded to all of my concerns or accept any kind of responsibility.

I will finish by saying that my brother has also recently used AnyVan. He was allocated a different driver and had nothing bad to say about the experience. It is a luck of the draw with AnyVan. You cannot be sure of the standard and quality of driver you will be allocated. So if you are in need of ‘a-man-with-a-van’ I would strongly advise you to use someone local and recommended rather than take a chance. That is certainly what I will do in the future.

I am absolutely appalled by the service I received, and would strongly urge anyone against using AnyVan in the future.

I've used them 4 x no problem great communication and I love them!

Wow got a house move coming and I think I will be giving these a wide berth! I’ve moved loads of times and know that sinking feeling when less people turn up than expected, moan about how heavy things are etc. And as for cancelling with little notice that’s just outrageous (crosses AnyVan off list!)

SAY AWAY FROM ANYVAN!

I guess they may be fine if you want a single item moving, but they appear to know absolutely nothing about house moves. I booked a 'premium' packing and moving service for a 4+ bed house, costing me £2100.00, which as any removals firm will tell you is a 2 day job.

Indeed AnyVan did initially tell me it would be. Except 2 days before they changed their minds to say it was actually a 1 day job for 2 people, to carefully pack (in a 'Premium' way) all of my belongings, dismantle large furniture items, and remove everything from my house. Which, having moved multiple times in last few years, and having had multiple quotes from actual house movers (who we only didn't use because they had no availability due to short notice in our chain) I knew to be physically impossible, which I told AnyVan.

My wife, father in law and I, then had to take 2 days off work to pack the house ourselves, and hire a LWB van to take a large amount of it elsewhere for storage. Again I explained to AnyVan that we were having to do this, because they had set their movers an impossible task.

The poor movers, when they turned up, immediately realised they had no hope of getting the job done in a day, because, only AnyVan believe that is possible.

Fortunately for them, we had already cleared a lot of it out, which they were very thankful for (the movers, who are subcontracted to AnyVan were actually great and I felt very sorry for them). My wife, father in law and I began another frenzied round of packing, whilst the movers attempted to dismantle and remove all of our furniture before our sale completed and we had to hand over the keys to our buyer. FYI the customer service at AnyVan had no idea this is how house sales work - 'cant you just make multiple trips - it's only a few miles to your new place' they said. Because, yeah, legally that's not a thing you can do...

It quickly became clear that there was no where near enough space for our belongings, despite us already clearing a load out. Why? Because for some reason, despite estimating our job to be at minimum 39 cubic metres in volume, they had arrived with 2 Luton vans, which will take on average about 18 cubic metres of volume - if that volume is water and fills every last cm. You would think that AnyVan would err on the side of caution and allow enough space for the top end of their volume estimation, especially considering that furniture does leave wasted space, but no, it appears they actually aim lower and just hope that's OK. 54 cubic metres of stuff into 36 cubic metres of space - no problem according to AnyVan.

One of the movers said to me that they had been told if space was an issue, then just to pack the furniture items I had listed when booking the job and leave the rest. Not sure how that accounts for removing any of the boxes of stuff they were supposed to be packing for me in a 'premium' fashion, but hey, that's AnyVan for you.

And this lack of space is despite me having already filled my hired LWB van again on the morning of the move. I then had to hire a 2nd LWB van, and fortunately got one at short notice, so I now have £200+ worth of extra cost on van hire.

Even with these 2 extra vans, we still had to leave behind garden dining furniture, bbq etc, unsecured on our driveway to come back and collect later.

So essentially, I paid £1000 for a packing service that I did not receive, 3 people had to take 3 days of work to pack and remove items in order to make the move happen, and I had to spend another £200 hiring extra vans.

I was in touch with AnyVan prior to the moving day, made it very clear I thought they could not do the job they claimed they could, informed them that we were taking time off to pack ourselves, and having to hire a van. They did not care in the slightest.

Once having completed the move, which only happened because of our hard work and despite AnyVans attempts to derail it, I then complained directly to customer services and was promised an investigation and some resolution.

In the end, after waiting 4 days, they called me back to offer me a £200 refund, which they made very clear was for the £1000 packing service I had not received (great maths that) - but in order to get it, I had to produce receipts for the van hire. I clearly stated that was not enough, but was told it was their final offer - so I told them to do one. Thankfully I paid on my credit card, and having explained what happened, they are now opening up a payment dispute, and I am taking every available opportunity to tell everyone my experience.

DO NOT USE!

well I have just recieved a quote from them. And deleted it!! We`ll go with a local reputable firm methinks...

This is exactly our experience. Anyvan contracted a third party transport provider to move a piano for us. Piano got significantly damaged during the move and the best anyvan would do was to offer us £50 initially, then £100 as a ‘good will gesture’ and consider the matter closed. We had a couple of piano professionals to come in and one firm provided us with an expert witness report to detail the damages caused during the move. Both companies shook their head as they had never seen anything like this before in such a new piano and that clearly the piano took a significant hit. Ended up taking anyvan to a small claims court.

DO NOT USE ANYVAN

For the sake of (possibly) saving a few quid, find a PROFESSIONAL company. One that cares about their customers and is able to communicate properly.

My personal experience leads me to believe they don't care who they employ to do the work, and they certainly don't care about the customer.

Having complained on several occasions and left a poor review, after much to-ing and fro-ing I realised they were just going through the motions of making it look as though my issues had been addressed. There was never any intention of resolution and they made it quite clear they didn't care.

I would strongly advise that you do not use AnyVan

I read a lot of the bad reviews on here after booking, which made me super worried, but my move honestly could not have gone any smoother! I moved from Sheffield to London (most companies tried to charge me over 500 quid) for only 150, and was genuinely really surprised and happy with how smooth it all went. I could track the driver throughout the journey, he even showed up early, was really nice and careful with my things and kept me updated via text. Would actually really recommend this service!

Couldn't comment on Anyvan, but when I last moved a 2 bed flat's worth of stuff I found a man + van off Gumtree and it cost me £110 for about 3/4 hours of time (that was including congestion charge for Central London).

I suppose the risk is you have no recourse if they just don't turn up though!

I used them, they were shockingly dishonest.

The service described by the telephone sales person was so different to the service provided that it can only be explained by wanton dishonesty on the part of the sales person. Complaint handling was hardened and utterly dismissive. I lost my money.

I would avoid.

I booked them to move a fridge. We were going to hire a van/big car and do it ourselves until I happened to google 'how to move a fridge' and Anyvan's website comes up with a long article stating FRIDGES MUST BE MOVED UPRIGHT otherwise the fridge could be damaged. The article said that we should book Anyvan to ensure this happens and take the worry away.

We booked and paid extra for a specific timeslot. The van arrived something like three hours early, when my sister wasn't there, but her babysitter helped move the van in and then called my sister who called me so then there was a lot of ringing around to try and work out where the fridge was! My husband rushed home from work to receive the fridge but it didn't actually arrive until a few hours later. And low and behold, when the fridge arrives, it is ON ITS SIDE!

I called Anyvan to complain and they just said we had to leave the fridge turned off for 48 hours - basically 'wait and see' whether they had broken our fridge. If it didn't work when we turned it on, we'd then need to apply to their insurers for compensation.

So this meant we had no working fridge for 48 hours. Anyvan refused any kind of refund, saying they do not guarantee how goods are transported (despite the advice on their website) and that, as the fridge had been delivered to us, their contract had been fulfilled. Surely the point is to deliver things in working order, not just deliver them!

Also, we kept getting rather frantic calls from the delivery guy. Obviously they do not have very good working conditions and he was worried. We did not blame him - it was Anyvan's fault for advertising a service and then not doing anything to ensure their drivers perform that service. But getting calls from the driver to my husband's personal number begging us not to complain ... well, that didn't do anything to improve our impression of the company (also, the guy did have our home address of course so - all in all, not a great situation).

Book a company who will take responsibility for their service - not Anyvan.

Probably the worst case of being ripped off I have ever experienced. The service described was nothing like the service provided. They took my money and I ended up having to book someone else. The complaints procedure was non existent.

I can a only assume that pay to have the good reviews added.

Hi all, Anyvan does not vouch for the character of their drivers and the insurance these driver parade are not checked. Also if any of your items breaks or go missing you are on your own.

A driver called Conrad Meades did a job for me on August 17th, 2020 after which a suitcase and some items in it went missing. Over two months I have tried dealing with the driver and Anyvan with both not wanting to responsibility.

Don’t ever use anyvan. Once you contact them you’re on the way to a catalogue of disasters .
Damage goods, late arriving, insolent staff, and just plain inefficient

We have used any van for the collection and delivery of a piano over 100 miles- after contacting local removal firms who didnt seem to really want to do the work we used anyvan and two very strong Lithuanian men worked very hard transporting it. I was impressed with the service. But we were under no pressure to move it on a particular day.

I would have thought for a small local move you are better off hiring a local man (or men) with van - my mother did this recently moving a two bed flat contents a distance of around 2 miles - it took three or four trips in a Luton sized van and cost us £60 an hour for van + two men with a five hour minimum booking so all in £300 for the day.

I would try and go local with a company that has branded vans - they have an incentive to do a good job

Please beware of using this company. I had arranged and paid for my son to be moved from his old accommodation to his new one. They were aware he was a vulnerable student and assured me all would be fine. There failed to collect him, leaving him stranded hundreds of miles from home. He has called and was told the van was on its way. I missed a call at 13 29 pick up was fir 12.00 when I tried to call no response. We had to get a local taxi firm to help us. Contact them today, 3 days later was told they had a problem with the van. No email from then or call to my son. Disgusting service

Edit

We must have been very lucky. Used them last year several times to move a van full of furniture 100 miles.Turned up on time, all guys were really nice. No damage. Changed details (added items) using chat line and found them very helpful. Would use them again.