Bishops Move

A very stressful business from start to finish with Bishops.

I was given bad advice regarding the completion of the Tor, resulting in the failure to secure the necessary paperwork from Customs and Excise twice.

Bishops allowed two days to load 33m2. In actual fact the crew of three loaded all my goods (I had not opted for their packing service) in just 3.5 hours.

Whereas I was led to believe I had a direct move from A to B, my goods were unloaded twice, once in Holland and the second time in the UK, before being delivered to me.

When I checked the labels on my goods after delivery, the destination was Woudenburg, Holland - not my home in Oxfordshire.

From there my goods were shipped to the UK.

My move had been subcontracted to Easy Shipping and also Schmidt.

The crews that both collected and delivered my goods were excellent, I should have gone to Easy Shipping or Schmidt in the first place and probably saved a fortune.

I was told by Bishops my shipment was delayed due to the van having broken down in Holland, whereas Holland was the destination on the paperwork.

When I contacted Grant Bishop, allowing him time to explain why I had been so badly misled, before I posted a review, he became quite defensive and responded by saying ‘Sharon, (my contact at Bishops) has been doing the job for over 25 years and is incredibly experienced. He failed to adequately explain why I had been misinformed or apologise for the unnecessary stress I had been put under.

All in all this was the worst move I've had in 30 years of expat life in Eastern Europe.

This should have been the most straightforward of all my moves but sadly it wasn't.

I most definitely wouldn't recommend Bishops for an international move.

Carol Crowther

Move size: 2 Bedroom Home Service cost: £15921

We used Bishops Move, we were moving from UK to Spain. What a complete living nightmare from start to finish. We was told it would be no longer than 3 weeks door to door. However weeks later we were still waiting, the office in Crawley failed to respond to any of our emails and phone calls. Finally it arrived so many items damaged, it looked like everything had been thrown into their lorries, when we contacted them to try to claim on insurance and after countless emails and phone calls we got nowhere!!

Please do not use this company!! moving house is stressful! But moving countries is even more so especially with this bunch of cowboys.

DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY!

Move size: 3 Bedroom Home Service cost: £16000

Awful experience : additional costs and 600£ coffee machine broken

I had the worst experience we could imagine. First the added additional costs because they planned to bring a 15 meters long truck to do a removals inside Paris ! Any professional company in the removals business should check before bringing such a big truck inside a big city. So they couldn't take in my furnitures because they couldn't park and I had to pay some extra fees so another van could come (I gave them the address and some google view pictures of the place). He came with just one man to remove a bed among other things, so my brother in law had to help him ! Moreover it added a 10 days delay even if it was taken the same day.
It is not yet finished, during the removals there was some shock so my coffee machine ( a Jura ) costing £600 was broken. The removals guys told me I could check and signal if anything is broken in the 7 following days. But in fact I had to signal that some packs were open and some others deformed because of some shocks.
When I asked to be reimbursed , even partially, they told me I had no insurance since they didn't packed it by themselves and because I didn't signal that some packs were damaged. They proposed me £40 as a "gesture of good will"
A nightmare ..
My advice : choose an other company, ask them to pack your stuff and check your packages when they bring it to your home and signal any little damage in the boxes !

Service cost: £1390

We used Bishops move back in June!, we were moving from Spain to Cyprus. What a complete living nightmare from start to finish. We was told it would be no longer than 3 weeks door to door. However 13 weeks later we were still waiting, the office in Gibraltar failed to respond to any of our emails and phone calls. My wife was stressed more than when we had our first child! For 13 weeks we had no furniture ( bed sofa etc) and ended up renting an apartment which cost us over €4000. Finally it arrived and we had damage to furniture a €3,700 Tempur mattress and legs missing to the bed.

We paid over €600 in insurance but after countless emails and phone calls we got nowhere!!

Please do not use this company!! moving house is stressful! But moving countries is even more so especially with this bunch of cowboys. A special shout out to Kim and Steve who were absolutely useless!!

Steve never answered your calls and Kim was just very Rude! It’s taken me a long time to write this review purely because they wound us both up so much!.

DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY!

Move size: 4 Bedroom Home Service cost: €6500

Staff left my living room items on the pavement while they sat in the van to have their lunch. Needless to say, some of my things went missing. I wish I'd mentioned it at the time, but assumed they were keeping a regular check on the items. My complaint fell on deaf ears, and I was told that, since I hadn't taken out an insurance policy there was no compensation. My feeling was that this was a training issue, not an accident. (There were also breakages.) Communications were either curt and abrupt or my calls were ignored entirely. Very reluctantly, weeks later, £20 was coughed up.
DO NOT USE THIS FIRM.

Service cost: £700

We used Bishop’s to move some antique furniture (Piano, stool and desk). They gave us the best quote. Their managers were really helpful when working out dates and times of moves. When it came to moving day they turned up on time (not my experience of every removal firm!). They carefully extracted the items and upon delivery were equally professional. Friendly fellas in the team - I’d definitely use Bishops again. (Also quite nice knowing you are using a long a establish family company. I know it shouldn’t actually make a difference to how a desk is lifted but, you know..!).

Service cost: £200

We used this company to relocate our belongings from storage in Liverpool to storage in Exeter. There were a number of communication issues leading to us having to utilise more storage space than was necessary. We were completely unaware that the storage would not be available at weekends or bank holidays until we tried to access our belongings. Despite giving the pre-requisite notice on our first visit we had to stand around waiting for the containers to be made available.

When we finally decided to end our storage we were presented with a final invoice which, on the day of emptying, was paid by direct bank transfer. On arrival we were presented with a second invoice (not mentioned in the 'final' invoice) and then told that, whilst they could see the funds I had transferred, I would need to pay again and they would refund. As I had no choice, I did this and then had to navigate a badly parked lorry to enter the storage. As we were unpacking we were told that, at some point, our container would be moved as they had another customer wanting to unpack which happened during our first run. We finally emptied our storage and went home. As of this morning I still don't have the promised refund and have had to chase a number of times to even get a response and a confirmation that it will be paid. Basically expensive, unhelpful and inaccessible storage.

Service cost: £800

We obtained several quotes for our move with Bishops being very competitive. Their experience in international moves was proven when they were the only company to advise that we needed an EU declaration form.

On the administration side, Sharon was exceptionally helpful and recommended then coordinated with a clearing agent in Greece.

We filled a half container with the estimator who visited the house getting the volumetric spot on.

Packing took two days with the team, led by Graham, working efficiently and expertly.

During the move and up to delivery at destination, Sharon kept us fully informed of progress.

All of our furniture and personal effects arrived safely and undamaged.

We were really pleased to have found Bishops Move and thoroughly recommend them.

Service cost: £4000