Pickfords

220 Reviews: Add Review

1. Terrible.

   First point, the delivery wasn't in Europe, I've only noted that as this website doesn't offer any other option, it was in Sri Lanka.
   The pickup was OK, but the packers moved so fast and with so little thought they packed my shoes with the socks in. They even had the hide, having miscalculated the volume, to try and charge me extra. The delivery process was a nightmare. The 'customs inspection' that was covered in the contract meant in effect nothing was covered beyond looking at forms, so their 'local partner' charged like wounded bulls for the privilege of some customs officials looking at my stuff for all of 8 minutes. The extra charges were in a second contract that Pickfords tried to get me to sign on behalf of their local partners, which I can only see as highly irregular. Why sign one contract with one party, when they will use the second contract as an excuse to not only waive liability but rip you off? The charges applied were not just excessive, but were demanded up front and with some menace involved, along the lines of repeatedly ringing and demanding the cash, with someone showing up then and slapping an invoice in front of me with a statement of 'you pay'. I'm not an ATM, I don't run around with hundreds of pounds or dollars in my pocket. This was compounded by the threat that if I didn't pay up pronto, I'd then be paying storage charges. Given I'm not an ATM, my boss who was paying had to sign off on the payment and had for most of the week been overseas, and international time zones mean making payments isn't instant, to say I am unimpressed with the choice of local partner, Trans World Movers, in Colombo, would be a massive understatement. As it was I ended up having my container open by customs, then left unlocked in the storage yard because the local partner hadn't thought to bring any locks. The promise that there was 'security' was no comfort, they are just as likely to steal things as anyone else. Don't go with Pickfords, their contracts mean nothing, you will be hit with manufactured delays and extra charges, and their local agents will make your move a misery, for which the company you have contracted will take no responsibility.

2. 11 broken items so far.

   I chose pickfords, and paid £200 more than local firms, as I wanted a reliable and conciencious service. I also paid for a fragile packing service
   half the 4 man team arrived early for a cig in my garage, no introductions were made. The other half turned up about half an hour later and promptly went away again for bacon sandwiches and tools to dismantle the beds as they hadn't bothered to bring any with them. I only found out their names by asking and I was called love until around 2pm when I told them my name.
   The  day went ok, I wasn't as impressed as I expected to be after watching the TV programme but it was all done by 5pm and we had beds to sleep in. 
   Over the next few days I discovered multiple breakages, scratched furniture, furniture which had been scrapped along walls and left with paint marks on them, items left at the old house (thankfully we still had keys), and dirty carpets. 
   No attempt was made to protect my floors at either house despite my asking. Items we're knocked against fittings and these now need securing. Fragile boxes had been packed with no packing materials and then other items had been thrown in on top, I'm bloody lucky I got away with only 11 items broken. Despite fragile items being all around the house they moved them all to the kitchen where they were packed and labelled "kitchen glasses" even if the contents were bedroom lamps. Boxes which I had packed and carefully labelled using their "house" diagram was ignored and I ended up shunting around 75 heavy boxes round a 3 story house myself to get them in the right place
   hopefully I won't ever be moving again but if I do I will be doing it by myself because if you CANT trust pickfords then who can you trust to move you.

3. Worker.

   I worked for pickfords for along time, and one day fell asleep in the services for an hour. All I had to do for the day was travel, and they terminated my employment for falsifying my hours over the hour I fell asleep. So what do you do fall asleep while driving or do you pull over so you don't cause an accident on the motorways, obviously according to Pickfords you carry on driving cause the accident so the don't pay you for an hours sleep. Just thought I would lease this message to see what you think and let you know what the company is like you are about to use.

4. Not doing what they said they would..

   I have a lot of expensive paintings. The salesman who quoted for the job promised they would all be wrapped carefully in tisuse paper and cardboard and I paid for wooden crates to be made for the 2 most expensive items On his request. on unpacking I found the following problems; 1 x bust of a horse had just be thrown in a box with no proper packaging and had broken. some of the paintings had been put down the side of boxes with no protective wrapping at all (including 1 which had been separately identified on the insurance schedule) Neither of the paintings that were supposed to be in crates actually were (despite the fact I paid for them) and the frames were damaged.

5. Lost item.

   Pickfords lost a very precious item of mine. It wasn't worth anything to anyone else and I desperately regret ever sending it, but I was taken in by their Quality System claims. It appears to have gone missing in transit between their Milton Keynes depot and Dubai. Their inaction means I will probably never find it. It came as a surprise to them when the loss was discovered and their follow up action was sorely lacking. This was compounded by diabolical customer service which consisted of untruths and vague responses. I will not rest until they are stripped of their ISO 9001 accreditation. This has been going on since May! I cannot believe how relaxed they are at having lost an item and that they have no idea where it went. Ok, things do go missing, but failure to take acion and respond to reasonable questions is unforgivable and they need to be held to account. They do not seem to care about their individual customers and I am utterly appalled by their responses.

6. Unsatisfactory.

   Nice chaps who worked hard to pack all of our belongings. One younger chap seemed to spend more care properly wrapping things. I did have to request that a delicate table be properly wrapped/protected, but otherwise many items were taken unprotected - such as canvas paintings, mirrors, furniture etc. The same went for the banisters, I thought they were meant to be protected with blankets strapped, luckily they managed not to scrape it. Some empty boxes etc were left behind. The loading team also complained that the estimator had underestimated the load. There seemed to be lots of space in the truck, but transpired they wee collecting another shipment. At the price I paid and after the discussions I had I thought it was load our belongings and store overnight to then drive up to Manchester. Unfortunately the truck had to be driven around to other places and parked overnight somewhere else with an overworked driver. (and belongings being rattled about on journeys that I had not expected) For some reason the local delivery team was here at 8.00am, although a 1.00pm delivery was requested due to legal completion time of property. The same driver and two nice lads worked very hard to unload. they really could have done with another helper. The local unloading guys were casual hires and not full time Pickfords staff (unless on those zero hours schemes). Didn't bother me as obviously nice hard working guys who had been vetted.. but you would feel better if ti was full time staff you were paying for. Our double bed had it's screws and bolts lost. the driver gave us his number and said if we find them to call him and he's get over to assemble. really nice chap. We eventually found them days later after having bought new screws to assemble. (they had been put in a drawer, not taped to bed frame). As we continued to unpack, a few bedroom boxes had clothes scrumpled up and used as padding in boxes, including some of my wifes clothes that now need to be ironed/dry cleaned. Other items of furniture have slight scuffs and dinks that might otherwise not be there if properly padded/wrapped. One service we looked forward to was having all of our empty boxes collected. After about 6 attempts to arrange this over more than a few weeks, I never got a call back about this once. I talked to my account handler in London as well as the team in Manchester. My house is still full of boxes ready folded for collection as offered by Pickfords. Even today I phoned again (Manchester) and was told my request would be forwarded to operations.. I told the lady on the phone that this was my sixth attempt, so she apologised and put me on hold. She got back to me and said operations would definitely collect today and would phone me. Unsurprisingly, no call, no collection, complete customer failure. No idea what to do next. Have now messaged FB and Twitter, and review sites like this. Perhaps they will pay some attention now? If anyone from Pickfords is reading this , please forward to someone who has a bit of clout and gives a damn. I'll leave it to the people looking for reviews to make their own minds up on whether to employ Pickfords services or not. C.

7. London move - not very good.

   More expensive than most but we used it because of its good reputation. Also offered full packing and unpacking and storage options etc. Fairly complex move between houses and flats in London. Movers reasonably polite and fairly professional though nothing special. Punctual generally. Initially we were told our sofa could not be moved to the basement ("we'll never get it down there" etc.). Later this was done with little difficulty.  Furniture re-assembler was almost rude and very self-important; had limited tools and used ours. Worst part: no real offer or attempt to unpack (numerous boxes) despite this being part of the deal. Only after discussing with colleagues did I realise that this was not usual. Many small items were packaged in so much paper, indistinguishable from the "stuffing" paper in the boxes, that we almost lost them while unpacking; some disappeared completely. Several items were damaged but the company tried to deny responsibilty as they had not charged us for insurance for one leg of a multiple leg journey (essentially their error not ours). After numerous letters and the suggestion of a solicitor they agreed to pay for the damage though the amount was less than ideal. The only part of the process that happened quickly and very efficiently was the transfer of money from our bank account to theirs. I would not use them again - not transparent, poor communication, and really only interested in the fee.

8. Extremely bad experience.

   Do not use this company!
   We had to make a house removal and chosen Pickfords for the services.
   Removal was from London to Moscow.
   According to weight estimations (800 cub feet) 5000 kg we had to pay 15 000 euros for import duties, beside 5700 GBP for service. When I asked the weight to be calculated not approximate but exact as there is no way to be 5 tones, they refused. 
   Later we decided to send just most importand things and through away the rest. I booked an appointment, paid 160 pounds!! for thisit. 
   
   I saw 4 containers from which 2 were half empty and 1 almost empty, used to store empty boxes!!
   I asked just 1 container (half empty) to be send to russia and took the other things.
   
   They done a recalculation and surprisingly new import taxes were calculated to 2700 euros. For 1300 pounds (again estimation)!
   There was literally 1 saofa, q table and 6 chairs with total weight of 500 pounds. 
   Once again they refused to weigh it and asking me to pay for estimates.
   I wish I read the others review befor.
   Thanks.

9. Very bad experience.

   Movers damaged my carpet by leaving nasty marks on it. When I spoke to the company they washed their hands off saying that I had not taken premises insurance. Their overall attitude was very unhelpful and disappointing. The movers did not take reasonable care to avoid damaging my property( for example by using covers or taking their shoes off) which has nothing to do with taking premises insurance or not. The whole experience caused me a lot of frustration and grief and I am not planning to use Pickfords again or recommend them to anyone.

10. Poor service and follow up.

    Having moved between different countries 6 times in the last 20 years this has to be the worst experience I have ever had. The initial contact with the Sales Person was positive and we were quoted for a service with full packing and unpacking to Mallorca (it says Barcelona below as the drop down menu does not offer the choice of Mallorca). I paid in full in advance by debit card - I had also requested an insurance for the goods, when I called to give my debit card they simply forgot to charge the insurance part. They did however not advise us of this until literally 24 hours prior to picking up the goods - telling my wife that the items would travel uninsured as there was still an outstanding balance! I had to call back to rectify their mistake, just in the nick of time. Pick up was the most positve experience, the staff was courteous and packed all items as specified in our contract. As this was a company relocation I required an invoice - it took at least 20 emails to be able to get an invoice and a correct one at that. Communication was awful - I had to constantly chase them up, asking for information about a delivery date etc. The worst part of the experience came when the goods were delivered. Pickfords appears to be subcontracting this service to another supplier who simply did not care about what had been agreed - they dumped most of the boxes and refused to unpack - and a call to Pickfords did no good either. In addition to that an expensive mountain bike was damaged. I have now repeatedly asked Pickfords to explain why part of the service that was contracted and paid for was not delivered - for the last 4 weeks I am being told that they are conducting an "investigation". Not sure what they need to investigate - the contract states they should have unpacked, photographs were provided that show that they simply left boxes behind - you don't need to be Inspector Morse to figure out that something went wrong. I have never experienced this level of poor service and downright incompetence. If you are organising a move abroad I would strongly recommend to look elsewhere.  .

11. Finland relocation.

    I read the reviews on this site and was stuck for who to choose for my relocation to Finland! I eventually chose PIckfords as they seemed the most polite and professional when I called. 
    Obviously I was still nervous as the reviews here were so poor. Yet they were fantastic! I could not say one thing to fault them! I was kept in the loop with all activity, the gentleman were polite, efficient and helpful. One of the employees had been with PIckfords for 24 years, a good sign right!?
    When in Finland, the delivery arrived, all in perfect condition and again with great service, despite them having a nightmare journey over, getting trapped in between cars etc. They remained helpful and polite. 
    I have given them 5 stars, couldn't ask for any more. Thanks Pickfords for making the move so easy and a pleasant experience. 
    
    *This site does not have the right area or location for me to review, hence me selcting Austria. Removal reviews I think you need to improve this.

12. Bad experience.

    This removal was coordinated by Pickfords Edinburgh who after receiving my comments told me their Operations Manager had read my comments and she had issued new training guidelines and handbooks to the people involved in ABERDEEN. Not sure this is the problem but it is obviously meant to show the problems have been addressed. Others can judge.
     
    It is now 2 months since we moved home from Aberdeen to Stirlingshire. The experience was so poor I decided to wait some time before submitting a review of the service.   The removal team were late on the first day due to snow and heavy traffic, but when they arrived the foreman (the only Pickfords employee!!) introduced himself. He was very polite and very cooperative.   It was after the packing had commenced that one of the men told my wife they were subcontracted by Pickfords and only the foreman was a Pickfords employee. We had used Pickfords for our previous move from London to Aberdeen 28 years before and they were excellent, but then all staff worked for Pickfords. I was surprised to hear that this was no longer the case, the salesman did not point this out.   Maybe Aberdeen and North Scotland is different in not having permanent removal staff. The crew was supplemented by 2 men from the Pickfords Glasgow depot, and they were very professional, careful and worked very hard.   I had left Aberdeen on the morning of the second day ito pick up the house keys ready for the delivery on the third day, so my wife remained in Aberdeen to close up the house when the removal was completed.   She told me things became very frantic in the afternoon of the second day and the packing was rushed. They did not work beyond 3:30pm on the first day and they were short of time to complete the packing on the secod day.   They arrived early on the delivery date and started to unpack. They worked steadily and it was difficult to keep track of what was being unloaded. The Aberdeen crew took a break but the Glasgow men kept working and tried to get the Aberdeen crew to do likewise.   The crystal and crockery were unpacked by them (we took the packing and unpacking option) but the bulk of the boxes were distributed between the rooms of the house for us to unpack later. Later we found some porcelain items were missing from the boxes they had unpacked. They were small  and perhaps had been discarded with the wrapping paper which was removed by them. However they were of great sentimental value.   They departed just around 1pm and we started to unpack, however it took 4 men 2 days to pack and it would be well over w week for us to get the bulk of the unpacking done.   We found some items missing and were advised by Pickfords that we had 7 days to make a claim for any loss of damaged items. We reported what we found missing but many boxes were still untouched so it seems impossible to make any realistic assessment within the allotted time.   I had specifically asked the salesman about moving greenhouse items including a number of fuchsias and pelargoniums I had grown over 3 to 4 years into mature show plants. He assured me they would be carefully packed in the bottom of their deep removal boxes (which by my reckoning would be around 9 or ten boxes), and they were experienced in handling plants.   When I came to unpack the boxes stored outside the house, I discovered they had miraculously managed to pack all the plants in to 2 and a half boxes. This amazing feat was achieved by piling the plants on top of each other until they filled each of 2 boxes.    The half box of plants was similarly packed in the lower half of the box, and heavy items from the greenhouse piled in on top!!, I guess to prevent the plants from jumping out of the box as they were transported by road? ONLY A VERY EXPERIENCED PACKER WOULD THINK OF TAKING SUCH A PRECAUTION.    When I called the coordinator the first response was that my plants were not covered by the insurance. My concern is that they do not see anything wrong with how they packed the items.   I had woodworking machinery broken and damaged but this was not discovered till a couple of weeks after the move due to our focus on the household effects and getting the livinig area sorted out. The damage would have been obvious to the men loading the machinery but they said nothing.   I feel like I have been an unwilling participant in a sketch from Monty Python. I should have guessed Pickfords were disorganised when a week before the move, the coordinator phoned to advise me that the Friday scheduled for the delivery was a public holiday and could we move the date forward by one day.    At this stage the exchange process was concluded by the solicitors so changing at this late stage was not possible, so the original dates stood. As one of the removal men commented, they must have syuddenly realised they would have to pay extra for working on a holiday.   Also when we had unpacked the boxes we called the same coordinator to organise pick-up of the empty cartons. It took  more than 3 weeks before this finally happened despite several calls to the coordinator. She had been calling the Aberdeen crew to pick-up, and when I discovered this I asked politely if she was aware we moved FROM Aberdeen not TO Aberdeen. She apologised and finally got the message to the Glasgow depot to arrange pick-up.   One of the other companies from whom we had received a quotation made a point of explaining they provide exclusively their own employees who had been through their own training programme. I did not pick up on this at the time, but understand he was telling me indirectly that others such as Pickfords did not follow the same principles.   We are very disappointed at the decline of Pickfords service, but our previous experience was over 28 years ago, how things have changed. I could not recommend them for any removal work north of Glasgow, however the men I met from  Glasgow on two separate occassions were very polite, helpful and very professional in their work.   The comments cover only a few of the more memorable things which occurred, which is why I decided to wait a reasonable period of time before submitting this review, but I hope it serves to help people thinking of moving make up their minds on what to look out for.            .

13. Disgusting.

    After a survey of my belongings I was given a quote. After they took my stuff they contacted me and said it didn't fit and wanted another £2k. I argued for a week until I said bring my stuff back at which point they said forget it l, they would pack it better!!   For the next month I couldn't get in touch with anyone to discuss shipping dates. When I did I was told their phone system was broken.   I had to intervene TWICE as they tried to send my stuff to the wrong city. Once was a mistake, twice is incompetence.
      When it arrived most of my belongings were damaged. Insurance would pay to fix or replace, they would only pay 25% of value of damaged goods. Something we were not made aware of.   They paid £1600 for damage that cost us £4500 to repair. Btw insurance cost is £700 extra!!   Given the extent of the damage I can only assume it was deliberate. One or two things broken/dropped.. Ok accidents happen but everything??   Guys who unloaded the stuff complained endlessly about the company, the hours they have to work, the lack off training etc how they hated being out of the yard.   I'm the end, I wanted them to leave so I could do the work myself without complaining.    
     
    Do not use this company. They are the most unprofessional, disorganised bunch I've ever experienced.

14. Do not use These cowboys.

    We decided to book Pickfords after their salesman convinced us that they were the most experienced and professional and that we wouldn't have to lift a finger. They were twice the price of other local firms.
    What a nightmare, they turned up late and had totally misjudged the amount of stuff we had. Even though they did a home visit to assess it all !! They did not have enough staff and the van wasn't big enough. We complained on the day and i'm still waiting 6 weeks later for the manager of the York branch to call me back as promised.
    We had to help them load and unload all day, after paying twice as much not to lift a finger !!
    I put in an official complaint 4 weeks ago and they are so arrogant and rude they have not even got back to us yet.
    I owuld never ever recomend thses cowboys to anybody. .

15. London move.

    Never again. The salesman was helpful and friendly and the packers generally worked well. We needed to store items for three months as the new flat was not ready for occupation, and some items were going to a second address. The initial quote was for the move from one address to another, plus storage. When we were ready to accept delivery we asked for the furniture to be delivered and were faced with a major extra charge for delivery. We complained that the original quote was misleading, and although a rep admitted that it was unclear, we eventually paid up because we wanted the furniture and did not want to pay another month's storage charges. We did think that Pickfords had us over a barrel. Prior to delivery we were asked to arrange parking for the truck, and this was done. However Pickfords did not mention that they would be using two delivery trucks and subsequently sent us a bill for parking fines incurred by the second truck. At the time of delivery we could have arranged for parking facilities for the second truck but the (surly) delivery man did not mention that there was a problem.  Delivery and unpacking was much worse than packing had been and was unsatisfactory and not completed properly. One of the staff (an East European) was so embarrassed by the conduct of his colleagues that he offered to return out of hours to complete the unpacking on his own. We declined this offer. Some items were damaged. The hassle to get anything repaired was too much. In the course of this dispute a Pickfords rep said that it was normal to pack suits into boxes containing china!