Pickfords

Head office and customer service are crooks. Beware of hidden costs and don't expect them to stick to their invoices.

Removal staff were professional but keen to get it over and done with.

Their high costs compared to other providers gives a false sense of a premium service which I can guarantee this is not.

The evening before our move we were told they had made a mistake and required an extra £300 to deliver our possessions or they would cancel. Having already pre-paid as per their requirement there is actually no option at that point for the consumer to pull out and I suspect that they knew exactly what they were doing. This is call a racket.

After emailing the CEO a week ago I still haven't heard back so I simply presume that they don't care about their customers in the slightest.

Service cost: £3000

They say you only find out how good a company is when something goes wrong. Based on that my opinion is that Pickfords is an awful company, and I would never deal with them again.

I moved house in April. On delivery, the Bristol branch of Pickfords broke the base of a wardrobe, tore all four corners of a mattress, and damaged a wall and ceiling.

I had paid extra for their insurance to cover just such an eventuality, so I immediately contacted them to claim for the damaded furniture and property.

That was back in April. It is now nearly September and my claim has still not been dealt with.

They took until July to send a man to repair the damaged wall (now fixed). He also took down and reassembled the broken wardrobe - this made it far worse and I can't even close the doors properly on it. Despite emailing and phoning them, I have had no further information from them since then and am living with a torn mattress (worth £400), a knackered wardrobe (worth £600) and a marked ceiling.

It is the worst customer service I have ever encountered and I can't advise people enough not to use them.

Service cost: £3500

I moved from Melbourne Australia to UK and Spain

communications were terrible, everything was super slow, I had to chase everything, and still have not received information I requested months ago.

Up until I paid for the move everything was different, they drove the communications, and were super helpful. After payment everything slowed down. I had to ask repeatedly for estimates of arrivals, I got different advice on the cubic feet measurements and still haven't worked that one out, I asked for dates of delivery (to two locations) and was told that I would be informed in time for me to organise to be at home and yet despite arranging a day with my Pickford's contact, the goods arrived a day early, one item was damaged and it took 4 months to sort that out even though I was completely covered by their own insurance. After I had made payment, I had to send several emails to get any information at all.

Really awful experience.

Service cost: £3200

I am extremely happy with the service I received from Pickfords to relocate to Dubai. I had a few challenges which meant possible need to change plans part way through the move and Alison was extremely helpful to make sure it would all work out fine, which it did. Also on both sides, the people collecting and delivering have been very professional and efficient. I would definitely recommend pickfords to other people I know relocating and would use Pickfords again in the future should I need their services.

Please note - my move was to Dubai, but that is not on the list of places to move to!

Service cost: £855

After undertaking on online quote of £938 ex vat (£1,125) we had a visit from a very nice lady whom subsequently quoted £2,887.20 that did NOT include any insurance. Only my wife and I live in this 2-bedroom flat and are not moving fridge, freezer, washing machine, etc. Only one bed, etc. However, I have circa 20 art works/prints, perhaps a few more than a normal flat of this size, half of which are valuable and require extra packaging.

Those few pictures/prints required an additional and frankly mindboggling additional charge of £1,762.

So, there are some serious questions to be asked about the online pricing methods which appear untoward to say the least.

I am shocked by this behaviour from what I thought was a reputable household name and shall be talking to the Trading Standards Office about their business practices.

Service cost: £2887

We used the Pickfords full packing service to move to our new home. As we were moving a few days before Christmas and were very busy, my wife talked me into using the packing service. I was not at all comfortable with people packing our possessions, but my wife assured me everything was insured and the packing service had good reviews, so I reluctantly agreed.

The day before the move three Pickfords staff turned up at 8AM and began packing our possessions. The staff seemed friendly and professional, but they soon dropped my grandfather's antique blacket box down the stairs, which went through the wall! Other than that the rest of the day went smoothly.

On the day of the move an additional staff member turned up, with the three staff from the day before. After a couple of hours everything was packed and the lorry left ahead of me whilst I finished cleaning the house and thoroughly checked nothing had been left behind.

When I got to our new house, my wife was already there and the Pickfords staff were busy unpacking everything. They finished quite quickly and again seemed friendly and professional. Before they left my wife and I gave them a £40 tip between them as we trusted they were honest and had done a good job. The staff left very pleased with themselves.

But that is where the problems began, I immediately began to unpack and within a few hours could not find my wifes new £300 Dyson hairdryer. The insurance policy stated that any claims had to be made within seven days. But the move was a few days before Christmas and we had a six month old baby, so I unpacked as much I could, but could not get everything unpacked. It was just before the new year when I had everything unpacked and was sure the Dyson hairdryer was actually missing. Also several pieces of furniture had been damaged.

We got in touch with Pickfords and reported the missing Dyson hairdryer and damage, we then had a fairly abrupt reply informing us that any claims had to be made within seven days of the move, so we could not claim on the insurance. I of course hit the roof and several strongly worded letters to Pickfords later, pointing out the fact that several days were lost due to Christmas and as far as I was concerned the Dyson hairdryer had been stolen by one of their staff. Pickfords then did reverse their decision and said we would be able to make a claim.

It was horrible and distressing thinking we had allowed these people into our house, paid for a very expensive service and they had betrayed our trust and stole from us! Also we were then thinking what else had they stolen. I then spent many hours checking all expensive items were accounted for. Fortunately I had taken lots of pictures of items the night before the Pickfords staff arrived. From the pictures of my spirits collection I noticed I had four identical bottles of unopened expensive Gin in the pictures I took. I now only had three, I expect the thief thought I would not notice if one went missing. The missing Dyson hairdryer and Gin were packed on the Thursday, everything was supposed to go into sealed boxes with just the room name indicated on the box, so it was very unlikely to have been the forth person who turned up on the day of the move, who stole the items.

I spent many hours dealing with Pickfords and spoke to the staffs manager, who told me the truck had been searched but nothing had been found. Their manager also told me all the staff had been interviewed and as the culprit(s) were not identified all of them had the missing items recorded against their records. Although I was extremely annoyed and upset about the missing items it really was not fair on the staff who were not responsible for this.

I then reported the missing items to the Police, there was nothing much the Police could do, other than speak to Pickfords and record it in case it happened again.

It took many months before we were reimbursed for the stolen hairdryer and damages. The insurance refused to reimburse us for the expensive bottle of Gin as apparently alcohol was not covered! I eventually got Pickfords to reimburse me for this, but they refused to compensate me for all the time I spent dealing with this matter, which was appalling when we spent the best part of £2,000 with them, for their staff to steal from us. Moving house is a stressful time as it is. So please save yourselves a lot of further distress and hassle and do not to use Pickfords, their staff cannot be trusted.

Service cost: £1900