Armishaws Removals

PLEASE DON'T EVER DEAL WITH ARMISHAWS. Armishaws do not deserve to be in business. I could write longer reviews than all the other ones on this site and it would never do justice to what a bad company they are. I hope for the sake of anyone moving house they read this and take their business elsewhere. No one deserves to be treated the way armishaws treated us. The sales manager was the worst of them all, to the point of using bad language to me on the phone and putting the phone down on me.He is an awful person. If you so much as try to explain your predicament to him on the phone, he simply talks over you. And he calls himself the sales manager! They took our belongings into storage, and told us they need 14 days notice to release them. We gave them more notice than that, and they told us they were too busy to deliver the goods to us. So we were to move into our house with no contents! They simply dismissed the fact they had said they needed 14 day lead time. I tried literally everything - including sending another company in to collect the goods which they would not allow. In the end, the best they would agree to was that I would go and collect half the goods, at a cost of £600 for them to get 3 crates out of their warehouse to their yard for me to put into my own truck. £600!! Then, the balance, no they couldn't let me collect those, couldn't make time. Best they could do, was bring them on the following Saturday, and because this was the only day they could do, charged me 50% on top of the normal rate. I tried to reason and ask for them to take a view on the costs, but no way. Not interested. Their attitude to customers makes you sick. When their guys turned up on Saturday, I told them I had paid 50% extra for their overtime, and suprise suprise, they told me they were not paid extra for it! So they treat their own staff as poorly as their customers! When you see the other reviews on here, you'll see they are all the same. PLEASE DON'T EVER DEAL WITH ARMISHAWS.

I warned them several times I would put an honest review on here to give them a chance to straighten things out. I gave them so many opportunities just to accept the way they had been and be reasonable. But they don't want to know. I honestly hope they lose business as a result of this review. Not out of spite, but because no-one should ever have to experience their terrible service. Giving 1 star rating is far to much credit. They simply have earned none. They are the most arrogant company I have ever dealt with.

Service cost: £3500

Shocking treatment today from Armishaws Removals (they acquired Rainbow Removals). Unlike Rainbow they do not appear to be at all customer focused and treat customers with complete and utter contempt. All online forum reviews are extremely negative.

Unreasonable, rude, inflexible, expensive, aggressive.

Refuse to release storage items within reasonable period. BAR of no help whatsoever. Forced to take legal action.

Highly recommend Green Brothers Ascot.

Service cost: £1000

I have a young family and a full time job and wanted to make moving as easy as possible for my family. A surveyor came who quoted me what I thought was a good price, I advised we would be needing smaller vehicles as access was restricted (we had been specifically warned this by our seller so I wanted to be clear), he said he was already aware of this in the location we were going to and ticked the 'restricted access' box on the form. He also made a note '7.5tonnes', I now understand that even these are unable to reach the property and 3.5tonnes were required, however, I did not know this. I signed the quote and paid my deposit. On the day of exchange I telephoned to check availability before exchange and then called back after to say that exchange had taken place and to please book us in. That evening I got back from work to find an EMail stating that there was going to be an additional £600 charge for the use of small vehicles and that I was to sign a new quote for them to be able to book me in! I telephoned the next morning the woman who had sent the EMail wouldn't even talk to me and apparently I wouldn't be able to speak to the 'Sales Manager' until 2.30pm! I asked to speak to his manager who basically said that I could not challenge the quote and would have to pay the additional charge but he would 'look into it'. A man from the transport department telephoned at around 4.30pm to ask where exactly I was moving to (I have no idea why he couldn't find out from the information I had already provided - and surely they had checked when they gave me the quote?), I have to say he was very nice but he said he was 85% sure they could do the move with 7.5tonne vehicles. At lunchtime the next day a received an EMail from the Sales manager saying that it had been left to him to inform me that they were unable to use the 7.5tonne vehicles and now their 3.5tonne vehicles were booked up and they would not be able to move me! Again they had not even bothered to telephone me to tell me. I understand that a mistake had been made with the quote but they had not checked (and I was told they cannot check access to each house); given that I had told them about the access from the outset I would think this would be the first thing any professional firm would do! The way the EMails were written were extremely dismissive I was made to feel like a nuisance. There was no customer service evident at all, I was just dismissed because my move didn't fit into the 'standard' bracket. I am left wondering why they have a contract to move military families especially when I see all the other reviews here. I am thankful they did not end up moving us and I only wish I had looked online first. I add my own experience to hope that others do not have to experience similar.

Service cost: £2400

Moving house is stressful enough without having to deal with this team of amateurs.
I was quoted for a move from the south east to the north which included a drop in Manchester and two in Barnsley. I'd accepted the quoted price and paid the required deposit. No confirmation of payment or removal dates was received from them. After chasing for this confirmation, I eventually received an e-mail saying they were going to increase the quoted price by 28% as it hadn't been costed correctly.
Unprofessional and underhand. This company are not to be trusted.
I wish I'd read everyone else's reviews before contacting them..

Service cost: £2500

My experience with Armishaws was initially very good. Hence the one solitary star. We were impressed and comfortable with the representative providing the quote. However in spite of paying a deposit,as we were informedto hold a booking,and keeping in regular contact with them, when the time came to confirm they turned around and told us that it probably was not possible anymore. I was now faced with the prospect of not being able to move on our completion date and therefore had no option other than to contact other companies to see if they could move us. In the end a second company was able to move us on the required date. When I then contacted Armishaws to cancel their booking I was met with verbal abuse, refusal to refund my deposit and threatened with being taken to court. When I then tried to speak with head office, I was subjected to the same verbal abuse, prevented from speaking and told "We will see you in court!!".
In my view this is nothing short of a business that was unable to meet its obligations and therefore reverted to bullying customers who had no option but to secure business elsewhere.
In my view, their behaviour is unprofessional and contradicts all good business codes of ethics.

Service cost: £4200

I wondered if I had the same company as other reviewers as my experience of Armishaws was completely different. Everyone I have dealt with there has been friendly, polite and helpful. Berni in the office was helpful and cheerful, especially given that we were moving in the middle of the Coronavirus pandemic. I think we managed to get moved the day before the government clamped down and stopped removals going ahead. The 3 guys that moved us were courteous and helpful and couldn't do enough for us, that may have been down to the bacon rolls and tea and biscuits I plied them with :-). I really could not fault them or the service they provide and would happily recommend them to anyone.

Move size: 3 Bedroom Home Service cost: £800

Initial contact was OK, mid range price, packed up my stuff and stored it for me. Now some months later I want it delivered to new house but they wont give a date and I've been asking since April. Yes, we've all been in lockdown but they've had 7 weeks to plan for re-opening .. and they havent. They're disgustingly rude on the phone, clueless and aggressive, wont give me a date, wont let me collect my stuff. So I'm paying rent from June for a house I can't move into and they'll continue to expect me to pay for storage even though I don't want it stored. They'll blame CoronaVirus but during 7 weeks of not working you'd imagine, like other businesses, they'd have used that time to work out how to come back and look after their customers. DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY especially if you're about to move house now, they can't cope with the business they have and must have an enormous backlog.

Move size: 4 Bedroom Home Service cost: £3000

We would strongly NOT recommend using Armishaws Removals after our move in June 2020 as they made a mistake and refused to acknowledge it, being unhelpful to the point of rudeness and arrogance when we asked them to rectify their mistake and compensate us for extra expense and stress. It turned out to be the worst move experience of our lives. We recommend you read this review, as it might help you avoid the same bad attitude and rudeness.

Their estimator spent an hour or so at our house, being shown everything we wanted Armishaws to move. The pre-Covid-19 quote was reasonable and we accepted it. We were locked down before we could move and had to change dates, but all was fine.

Because of Covid-19, they told us we would have to pack everything except china and glass. They delivered some boxes but no refund was made or even offered on the price of a normal full packing service. Later, we got a call saying Armishaws didn't know that our access was via a single track road….despite their estimator having driven down it and spending around an hour there! Then we had the same conversation about the delivery address, which is also down a narrow lane, but one, which is frequently traversed by large tractors. Despite us giving them measurements and clear pictures of the access, they wouldn't confirm they could deliver, and said if they arrived and couldn't deliver because of the access, then we would have to pay for the van to return to base and repack everything into smaller vans. This would have cost us a fortune. What sort of company doesn't know if it can get to where it is delivering and instead leave it to chance? If they had concerns despite our pictures and measurements (which proved their van COULD access the house, as it did easily on the day), they should have checked it beforehand.

On moving day, the 2 crew guys packing the van told us the estimator had got the estimate wrong and the van wasn’t big enough. They called the office and the estimator turned up at our house and actually told us we must have added things because his estimate couldn't possibly be wrong. We were gobsmacked! It was all our fault, apparently, despite there actually being LESS at the house because we had already hired a Luton van and taken 2 vanloads to the new house ourselves. But he refused to accept this and his visit left a bad taste in the mouth. He didn't suggest a solution or help in any way, leaving us worried and extremely unimpressed.

The van reached our new house easily and parked in our drive. The unloading went well except that we couldn’t unpack all the boxes before the crew had to leave. Once we finally unpacked everything a couple of weeks later we found several broken items in boxes they had packed. NOTE….read the contract small print carefully, as any breakages have to be notified within 7 days of the move. Not easy when we had over 100+ boxes. So that was another few hundred pounds they cost us due to their poor packing or unloading and, of course, they “wouldn't be paying any compensation as we hadn’t notified them within 7 days.”

Due to the estimator’s error, we were forced to hire another van to collect the many items left behind, which cost another several hundred pounds and required considerable physical effort on our part. One of us is over 70, the other over 60. The final straw was that they then charged us even more for loading things into their van that they said were not on their original estimate!

When challenged about all of the above over several emails and letters, they resorted to threatening us with legal action if we didn't pay, and refused all polite requests to resolve the situation amicably. Not nice people.

So, do yourself a favour and use someone else. These folks have no idea of customer service, are unhelpful, arrogant and simply won’t believe what you say….nothing is their fault…it’s all yours. Buyer beware.

Move size: 3 Bedroom Home Service cost: £3596

They are the very worst company I have dealt with in 70 years. As other customers have recorded, they are ignorant, arrogant, beyond belief. They operate under a T&Cs system that is designed to ensure they are never in the wrong! If you challenge anything, as I have (which included stealing some items from my shipment), they will be delighted to see you in Court, because their plan is to be able to charge costs. Perhaps that is the aim. I am a Qualified Quality Management Assessor. and this company Letterhead indicates they are ISO9000 Certified. They have not a clue what standards that Certification requires them to operate, and how they must treat customers. They can be described as fraudulent in attitude. So far as my Court Case is concerned, they actually refuse to provide necessary Data. I am now trying to find out whether they actually are Certified and by whom.

Move size: 3 Bedroom Home Service cost: £2720