# Container shipping costs - too good to be true



## Sundaygirl211 (Jul 11, 2012)

A few weeks ago I had four companies out to quote for moving our things from Wales to Hamilton ON. All the companies agreed that we needed sole use of a 20 foot container. 

All the quotes are in now and three were between £4200 and £4500 but one was for £2800. I have read all the quotes thoroughly and I cannot see any differences in the service they are providing. 

On the face of it the choice is a no-brainer but I can't help thinking that it is too good to be true and I'm concerned that additional charges may appear suddenly. The company are a local firm who originally came out to quote on behalf of one of the big companies so I asked if they wanted to quote too. We never did receive the quote from the company they were supposed to be acting on behalf of.

They seem a legitimate company that specialise in local removals and have good reviews on their website for local work but I cannot find any mention of them on the forums for international moving. 

Should I be thinking that if it appears to be too good to be true then it probably is?

Many thanks


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## EVHB (Feb 11, 2008)

Send them an e-mail with the total cost they have offered to you, and ask them that they can confirm that their will be no extra charges/fees whatsover to get your things from your house to the house in Hamilton. That this price includes putting all your furniture in the designates rooms in your Canadian house. (and that they will cover any additional charge). Ask if insurance is included.
And ask one of the competing companies to have a look at the other offer, and ask them why there's such an price difference. If they want to earn your business, they will be able to point you to the shortcommings in the other quote.
Do you know what company they are working with here in Canada?


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## G-Mo (Aug 17, 2011)

I'm going to guess the cheaper one covers only the UK side and shipping, once it gets to Canada it's your responsibility.

@EVHB No quote can guarantee to cover all costs as there are potential customs costs here, including rent if they ask for info and you delay in getting it to them, and any associated customs charges. Outside of these reasonably un-quotable costs, everything door to door should be included.


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## EVHB (Feb 11, 2008)

G-Mo, that's why I suggested to ask if extra charges were possible. A person that recently immigrated to Ontario was very surprised to find out that they had to pay extra charges because their container was checked bij Customs. Their shipping company had said that the price on the quote was all included, no extra charges whatsoever would appear... Obvious they were not very knowledgeable about international shipping, but you as the owner will have to pay that nasty surprise. (they were also the cheapest, and the company on the Canadian side also charged them with extra costs because it seemed, like you already pointed out, that only the shipping to the Canadian port was covered. Don't know yet how this story ended. The immigrant paid the bill -otherwhise he didn't get his household belongings- but is now fighting over that bill with the European shipping company.


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## sarahella (Mar 9, 2013)

*shipping*

Which one did you go for? I am looking at if it is worth shipping at all or just buying out there. Can you make any recomendations? thanks Sarah


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## Caz n Neil (Oct 6, 2010)

I would suggest too the price is just to the port, When we got quotes all came in around £4-5000, accept if you just wanted it delivering to port which came in around 2500.. No customs clearance this side, no delivery. Word of warning we were assured we didn't have to be present to do customs paperwork, so we decided to have a holiday while waiting for goods to arrive. When they arrived we were told rules had changed and one of us had to be present. Long round trip by my husband to get it sorted followed. Equally beware that the time they say to ship is only a guesstimate. We were told 4-8 weeks, in reality it took 2 so we decided to have our things delivered to a storage unit near where we were going to be living as we could not move into our rental for another 2 weeks. The removal company this side wanted a ridiculous amount of money to store in there warehouse. The price included unloading from container on to pallet and reloading into truck, a process we pointed out they would have to do anyway! As everything was boxed it was cheaper to have a storage unit and hire a local firm for three hours to move it to our house when we were ready. We really didn't want to pay the removal company any more, when they had been useless at communicating this side. The Canadian half of the company kept sending alarming emails, and seemed to completely ignore the specific instructions of the British side, so the Canadian side kept trying to deliver only within 30 km of port of entry despite the fact we had already paid a premium for delivery outside 30km, no matter how many times we told them they resent the claim just worded differently. Needless to say it was highly stressful. Sorry got a bit off track, point is read everything carefully, word all of what you expect included and get the company to confirm and confirm again what you have paid for. It was only our paper trail that we were able to ague with the Canadian side.


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