Reply from Compare Cargo Rates Ltd
[REPLY]
- Reviews (2)
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- Muhammad Imran Rafiq
- Newbury, GB
- 2 Reviews
Do not trust the cheap online quotes; Prices will significantly increase after they have your stuff
Used comparecargorates.com to send my personal effects to Bahrain. Appeared very friendly till they had picked up my luggage.
First, i was asked to pay £75 advance for the boxes they provided (advertised as free on their website), which was to be taken out of final amount; fair enough, i gave this and boxes arrived on time.
Once their driver took my stuff, it was bulk packed free of cost using shrink wrap and on pallets (as a favour to me) without my consent, and i was told that the volume has increased from 3.7 to 5m3 due to this packing so now i should pay in excess of £630, when their online quotation using accurate assessment was about £350 + £50 (insurance) = £400 in total. I even had their system generated online quote of about £500 (inc. Insurance) for just under 6m3 volume. After wasting time on emails, and many many phone calls to reach their manager, i was favoured again by offering a discount on billed price and their manager reduced the bill to £525 and since i paid £75 earlier so the manager confirmed that i need to pay a balance of £450, which is still significantly higher than their system generated accurate quotations.
Not happy with this but i was in Bahrain by then and had no option and decided to pay. Then i received the invoice of £525 from the person handling the case and not £450 as mentioned by their manager, and was asked to pay immediately otherwise the discount will be taken away. I paid in protest to avoid further delays to my stuff and asked them to explain this but since then neither the person handling the case, nor their manager have responded to my many emails on this.
I have even sent them a recording of their managers message to me confirming the payment of £450 yet they keep ignoring my emails. I even asked them on their online chat system to tell me the formal complaint method but as soon as i asked this question, no replies..
This is the most poor service i have ever seen so avoid at all costs if you can..
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- Pat Hynes McCleland
- Cape Town, GB
- 2 Reviews
My goods to Cape Town
Very poor service. I wanted to send a box of 18kg to Cape Town - the quote was £135. The box was collected on a Monday, and repacked into one of their boxes, I was finally told on the Thursday that the box weighed 18.9 kgs and the quote was now £210. I paid £35 to get the box returned to me. The whole thing was just a comedy of errors. Worst of all was their cavalier, take it or leave it attitude. Many quotes were similar, I went to these guys as they looked quite upbeat - they has emailed me after I browsed their site
If you are going to use this company as a small time user, make sure you read all the small print and quotation specifics. I won't be using them again.
Reply from comparecargorates.com
As you are aware you booked 18kg of mixed personal effects which we collected on Monday. When we collected your shipment, you had actually "overpacked" into a large "Walkers Crisps" box, the type of box that stores have multiple bags of crisps delivered to them in prior to them stacking on the shelves. These boxes are made up of very thin cardboard and in this case had already started to split. It is 5979 miles from London to Cape Town... thats a long way for an overpacked crisp box to travel :)
With your agreement we re-packed it "FOR FREE" into a fresh box. Our boxes are "twin-wall" cardboard with dimensions of 50x50x50cm and even though your declared weight is 18kg, the original box was so overfilled that you needed to pay for 25kg of space.
In common with DHL, UPS, Fedex etc you pay on either weight or the space you take up. On the front of our website in "very large letters" not the small print you refer to we have a button marked "about volume" that leads you to a whole page on this subject, with the last line asking you to call us if in doubt.
To sum it up.
I am the chap that actually got in his own private car last night ( through the rush traffic to your home ), carried it up three flights of stairs to your front door, and even declined your help to carry the box. ( being an old fashioned sort of chap, it was too bulky & heavy to just let you struggle with it ) I even called you on your mobile when I got stuck in the traffic trying to find you.
Sorry to go on, but a bad review is one thing, other readers need to have the whole story.. so I hope what was written by you is not taken on face value.
Kind regards and have a safe trip. Ian West. General Manager.
