Browns Removals

Browns were storing my furniture as I had been decanted from my housing executive home to get renovations done. The day they brought my furniture back they said a wee bit of bad news we put your stuff in the van last night and the rain has leaked in and wet your mattress a bit. My material bed and mattress were soaked through and stained with rusted water. My fridge freezer was covered in mould and the removal man told me to just give it a wipe and when I said how am I meant to clean that? He said with cleaning products. They did send someone out to try and clean my bed and mattress but the stains wouldn’t come out and the professional cleaner said that the furniture would need to of been left a long time to be that wet and that badly stained. As for my fridge freezer they said I must of sent it to them like that. Or not cleaned it. I would think the problem would lie with it being stored with the door closed. Rule 1 of storing a fridge that isn’t switched on is leaving the door open and I was assured this would happen the day they came to get my furniture. They never answered any of my emails and have told the contractor they don’t replace old for new. Surely it’s their duty of care as a storage company to store the items in their care properly and return it the way it was given to them. If I could give them no stars I would. Terrible company and customer service.

Move size: 3 Bedroom Home Service cost: £500

This company’s interpretation of customer service is as far removed from we have come expect as standard, a new term is required purely for them.  The removal men were late as they had to collect a rental van from Mallusk, posing the question, ‘where were the big yellow trucks pictured on the website?’  When the men finally arrived, they didn’t have the house number on their docket, meaning they sat outside on the street, until a call was placed by us to determine their whereabouts.  It was clear this was bad management on the part of the company, and not the movers themselves.  After a call was placed to the office the bill was produced and paid, and we were just thankful to get it over with.  Not so.  The ‘moving manager’ called, not as you would expect to enquire was the job done to satisfaction, but to demand immediate payment of a shortfall of the bill..  Unsure of why a bill produced by the company‘s removal men would be incorrect, we drove across town to speak to the ‘moving manager’ in person.  We were confronted with aggression, accusations and insults, which resulted in having to leave the premises in a state of disbelief and without resolution.  The next day after a further trip across town to meet with the owner, to clear up price misunderstanding and as hoped, to receive an apology, we were once again met with hostility, and an antagonistic attitude, bordering on threatening.  A request to see the contract was met with us being told ‘I’m not wasting any more time on you’, accompanied by him aggressively banging the keys of his computer.  The shortfall was handed over with no explanation as to the mixup, and after a rude and very personal remark was made regarding an extremely ill family member, we once again left the premises in a state of complete shock, and again without the requested paperwork.  Dealings with this company go far and beyond poor service or management, were it appears abuse of the paying customer looks to be the norm.

Service cost: £200

I booked Brown's to move me from Belfast to England. Between booking and my moving date I heard nothing from them. When I called I was told it should be Ok. I called the Friday before the Monday I moved and was told the same thing. I had a ferry booked and no idea whether they would turn up or not. My stuff was supposed to be on the overnight ferry to arrive Tuesday. I called at 9am to find out what time it would be delivered to be told it wasn't put on the ferry it'll be there Wednesday. Turns out they got another job in and decided to load it all together and delay my delivery without telling me. When they did turn up and said they'd finished unloading, I asked where three of my pictures were and they 'found' them at the front of the van. Once they had left I noticed I had a box missing and two days later I noticed there was another box missing. What followed was 9 months of me phoning them twice a week to find out what they were doing about locating them. I never got them back. They couldn't have cared less. I have no evidence my things were stolen but I was assurred they were not still at the depot and they had not mistakenly been delivered to someone else. Do not use this company. They might be the cheapest quote you get but there's a reason for that.

Service cost: £1200

We had to place out furniture in storage after it was removed from the house we just sold as the new house was not ready to complete.
We paid for 4 crates even though we only had 3 sealed crates and the remainder was just loosely placed in a second van so not in a crate.
When we received our furniture and boxes back to the house it was returned as 3 crates and the other stuff loose in the van.
After the guys left we realised that some of the items not in the crate had been returned with damp and mould. So a large picture and 2 mirrors all damaged with damp.
I raised this 2 days after we received our goods back and then waited for a response which never came. I had to make a further call and again wait for a response which never came. In speaking to a member of staff he suggested what I thought would be reasonable to cover the damage caused which he then went to the owner with. Yet again I did not get a response and eventually they just said here have a claim form and fill that in!!
To be honest I would never use Browns again as a number of pieces of furniture came back with damage and also there was a lump of wood taken out of the bannister which I did not raise as this was discovered after the removers had left the property.
My main concern is the state the property that was not in a crate came back as the facilities must have an issue with damp and this is something that the employee I spoke to also mentioned as it had happened to another customer.

Service cost: £1500

Moving trans-continent we had booked a removal company and not a container at substantially higher costs to have our furniture delivered within a specific time frame co-ordinated with flights and ferry arrival. All was arranged via email and phone with Browns that they would pick up the furniture in Ireland on Monday, 15th of August and deliver either Thursday 18th evening or Friday morning in Germany.
On Friday 12th we had to pay the full fee for the move, and right after having done so, a few hours later all of a sudden, there was a problem, they wouldn't be able to deliver at the agreed time only the week after. Robbie from Brown's just said if we didn't like it we could still quit, yes sure, 3 days before the scheduled move with flights/ferry booked, work and school starting.

As it turned out, "the problem" was simply the fact that they had no load for the return journey and therefore decided to pass our stuff on to another company in London who would deliver it to Germany. There was nothing we could do, Robbie refused to give us a contact number for the boss, it was weekend anyway and we were afraid, if we made a fuss we might lose the money with no truck showing up at all. Just to be on the safe side we did contact a solicitor in case things were to get worse but the truck arrived as scheduled and the workers themselves were nice and efficient.

In London our furniture and belongings were dumped in heaps on pallets in a state that the other company's, White, removal technicians were almost refusing to load it for fear of liability as one cabinet was completely broken apart and plastic bags ripped.

When these guys arrived on Wednesday 24th, full 5 days after the dates agreed upon with Brown's, the first thing they did was showing us photos of the state they found our stuff in before they loaded it to make sure we wouldn't hold them responsible.

With 10 days delivery time we could have easily booked a container, packed it ourselves and our belongings wouldn't have been unloaded, dumped and loaded again without supervision (we are still not sure we got everything back).

Never again. Do not move with this company.

Service cost: £3500