Minters of Deal

I have used Minters of Deal twice. I used them again as the remover I had booked was unable to accommodate my move date. Minters promised to match the other company's quotation.

3 men packed. The team leader was lovely, as was his no. 2. A 3rd man was brought in to help & was left unsupervised to pack up my study, tv area etc.

If you are young you get one week to report any problems. If you are a retired female with disabilities, with no help, you still only get one week.

*At one stage all three men left the side of the van open & disappeared out of sight to buy lunch. They denied this, saying one man stayed behind to look after the van, but I was watching from a window.

*The promised van with tail lift did not materialise & there was no H&S equipment to prevent injury.

*I have many “Really Useful Boxes” & had carried them to the ground floor to speed things up. I also slept on the floor so they didn't have to drive back to my house the next morning.

*I moved in the middle of a pandemic & under shielding restrictions myself. Yet much of the paper used to pack my items, which I had PAID for, had already been used (and paid for) by other customers.

*Masks were worn only about 10% of the time.

*They had few tools & used mine.

*They bodged a big whole in my landing wall and left me to fill it in and paint it. It took 3 layers of filler.

*My new Liebherr fridge freezer had a dent in both top & bottom doors & one back leg broken off & missing.

*My new Miele dishwasher was damaged on both sides.

*My new Miele tumble-drier was scraped on the front.

*My not so new Miele washing machine was scraped on the front.

*A stained-glass picture sustained multiple cracks.

*My LG DVD player 'went missing'.

*My Marshall Stockwell II Portable Bluetooth Speaker 'went missing'.

They packed badly - more 'stacked items on top of each other in boxes' & then put a bundle of someone else's previously-used brown paper on top.

*They charged me for the journey each way but strung out the unloading so that they could stay outside overnight, unpack the last very few items the next morning, then head off further north for the next job to take down to Kent. In other words they got paid TWICE for one leg of that journey.

There was other minor damage & there were other unsatisfactory goings-on.

I reported the 'vanished items' to the police, who interviewed the manager of Minters, and Man no. 3. Of course, involvement in the disappearance of items was denied. The police were very sympathetic but without CCTV footage of the 'disappearance' occurring, or without finding the 'vanished' items, they were unable to take things any further but will monitor further similar reports.

I also reported Minters of Deal to BAR.

Minters are a disgrace to the industry & BAR is going to monitor them to decide whether they deserve to keep their BAR membership. Minters' men work with no moving and handling equipment, they put themselves at great risk of injury with extremely bad Health & Safety practice & are basically a rough & ready 'man & a van' outfit. That said, the team leader was conscientious & did his very best with what he had. (He'd do well to move to a better company.)

I am making sure I tell everyone back in Kent to avoid them, having had this experience. A lifetime of constantly replacing white goods, I had finally managed, in the previous two years, to buy superior items to last me through my retirement for the rest of my life, & now they're all damaged by Minters. For the rest of my life, I will have to look at these dents & scrapes & be reminded of Minters.

In addition, Minters' administration is wholly unprofessional & disorganised. I noticed only the damage to my dishwasher in that first week. Therefore, my insurance pay-out amounted to only £40. And that took a year. I was initially asked to email details to Minters. They sat on this & ignored it for months, presumably hoping I'd forget. When I chased this via their insurance company, they had no record of a submission. Minters had failed to send me the proper form to complete. Minters then emailed me the form, but not in a format that could be completed electronically. So I printed it off, filled it in by hand, & posted it first class directly to the insurance company & not via Minters, to deliberately not give Minters the chance to waylay my claim again. I waited some weeks, then phoned the insurance company, which claimed to have not received my form. The insurance firm emailed the same form to me, this time in an electronic format, so I was able to complete it electronically this time & email it back. What a waste of my time & postage all this was.

Minters then reneged on their phone promise to match everything my first choice of removers had promised, & claimed I was not fully insured. (Be warned: do not take as given anything you are told over the phone by this company & get everything in writing.) Consequently, I got a mere £40 in damages.

Move size: 3 Bedroom Home Service cost: £2703