“They hound you daily for payment but when they need to respond to a claim they disappear. Avoid this company! They are overpriced and unprofessional. Not only did the movers break a fixture in the house we were moving from but they put boxes in the wrong rooms despite being clearly marked, broke our bed and refused to put the furniture in the correct rooms. When one of their movers broke a fixture in our house, they told us their insurance would cover it. Actually the insurance won't and pickfords won't take responsibility for their own mistakes. We have been trying to get a response from Jade in Aylesford for over a month, she ignores emails and doesn't answer her phone, but she had no problem hounding me on a daily basis to make the overpriced payment. Look for other moving companies, we will never use pickfords again”
“We used Pickfords to move from the UK to Australia and our experience from start to finish was absolutely appalling. We wish we had never shipped anything. Every single box and item of furniture had damage to it ranging from water damage to large heavy items of furniture being smashed to pieces. Our furniture was missing for 8 months with virtually no real correspondence and no apology and the insurance company (Centry Services Ltd) are horrendous to deal with. Fiona Goulder at the company is indeed dragging her heels with our claim even with absolutely overwhelming evidence that all of our consignment is destroyed. Absolutely disgraceful customer service and still no apology to this day. AVOID AT ALL COSTS”
“We have used Pickfords,the removal company, to pack our items in April 2021 and to store them in their warehouse. Before our move we have asked to provide us with a crate to pack a very fragile antique vitrine. On the day of the move the crate has never materialised. We kept our belongings at Pickford warehouse for 13 months. In June 2021 Pickfords has moved our belongings back to our house. During the move the delivery of our grand piano turned out to be
a total disaster:the unprofessionalism of the team, the non-existent communication between the team and their managers had resulted in a very, very badly damaged piano. Most importantly the vital set of the screws, bolts and other important details to re-assemble the piano was lost by Pickfords. The managerial team of the company was late with apologies and is not accepting the responsibility for piano damage and lost of the screws . As a result of their unprofessionalism we no longer can use the piano as a musical instrument. We were offered by Pickfords £40 to get new screws. The Pickford's team of the day of the move included a female worker with very long acrylic nails.I felt very nervous seeing her carrying our items.
The whole experience with Pickford's was extremely unpleasant and I seriously question this company Pickford's to handle specialised or antique items .
If you have to pack and move antiques or other specialist items like musical instruments, please think twice before entrusting these items into the hands of Pickford's unprofessional movers and packers.”
“Our experience of using Pickfords for our move was absolutely appalling. They didn't send enough vans or people to move us and ended up having to leave some things behind while I had to ask our house buyer if they would please let us do this!! Even so they left many items behind and we'll never see them again.
The removals men damaged our bed base, a chest of drawers and a new metal work bench so badly that they will have to be sent to the tip. We even paid extra for them to carefully take our bed base apart and put it back together again and they massacred it!!
Worst of all is their transit Insurance - Centry services. We moved on the 23rd but so far our claim has elicited just two emails from them after the initial one - asking us to pay for a 'furniture restorer' to come and look at the bed base! it's foil coated chip board!! They dont seem to want to send anyone out to actually look at anything and haven't responded to any of my emails since last Wednesday.
Today I discovered that the removals company have left behind a load of large garden trays etc which will be next to impossible to replace. Our removals experience was a nightmare which doesn't seem to want to end. We have to live with the knackered items as we're not supposed to move them until they've decided they're going to pay - any guesses as to when or even IF? Because I haven't.
Appalling experience, appalling insensitive customer service and a total lack of interest in helping us in any way at all. They got their money and they seem to be quite happy to leave us like this.”
“I would provide zero stars for Pickfords if this were an option. Normally I do not leave negative reviews, but this company failed on way too many counts: poor communication if at all; instead of 6-10 weeks for service it took almost 8 months; an item was completely damaged and they refused to properly compensate despite my insurance calculation reflecting the actual cost; and finally terrible customer service. Do not trust this company and give your business elsewhere.”
“I have used them for a local move and they did great work. Packing was done with care and everything was delivered safely at my new place. I highly recommend these guys.”
“I used Pickfords my my move to Germany and I really wish now that I didn't. There were many problems but the key ones are:
It took one month longer than expected for my goods to arrive at their destination. During this time there were no guaranteed dates and no communication, I had to repeatedly follow up and keep pressing to try and get my things delivered. This made it impossible to plan if I needed to find new / extend my temporary accommodation in Germany.
At one point my customs documentation / proof was lost by Pickfords (computer problem I think) and I had to gather it all again and re-fill out some forms etc.
Many Items were carelessly packed and several items badly damaged including a TV (which arrived with a knock and was bent) and some wooden furniture which had been dropped or bashed by Pickfords.
I have tried to raise an insurance claim, so far, 1 week after initiating the claim I have heard nothing back other than that my claim has been forwarded to the processing company.
For the last month I have been attempting to raise a complaint and not once have I had a call back, only after calling multiple people did I finally manage to get an email back from someone but they just said they will look into my complaint and it's been a week since I heard anything from them, and now I can't get through to anyone on the phone.
Think twice before you move with Pickfords, the sales part is super smooth, it's only once your at their mercy that you start to have problems and it feels like no-one cares”
“Rude and useless on the phone, astronomical prices for the smallest container, how companies can use this method to transport their goods across the world's and still sell them at a reasonable price I have no idea...”
“I would say the initial engagement was satisfactory, they made attempts at good customer service, however, communication was still sporadic at times. However, as the process went on and especially at the end when you had signed all the disclaimers and they had your money - your satisfaction with the service seemed very low on their list of priorities. Our belongings were packed very badly, some had no extra packing on from Pickfords at all, we had some large heavy items resting on fragile, glass items. We had an expensive PC which was wrapped only in a thin wrap, no extra packing, padding, no box and surprisingly it arrived and no longer works. The insurance company Centry which Pickfords encouraged and are affiliated with are a joke. You can only engage with them via email, which they very rarely respond to and still after months they are accepting no responsibility. A real poor service all round, and I would not use the services of Pickfords or Centry again, nor would I recommend them.”
“Hi nobody from Pickfords will ring me back
My name is mr N Sheppard
Contact. Adam wilding. Pickfords
Charlotte Doull Pickfords
1st. Step
Ps21013187
PS21013187”
“Disgusting and unprofessional service! Damaged multiple items of furniture and they haven’t even been bothered to apologise. We have asked for details of who to escalate to and received nothing from Tracey Mccombe.
The insurance company Century services (Fiona Goulder) that they seem to be affiliated with pickfords and are just as bad, no customer service, bad attitude and are dragging their feet to pay out. The photos only show a small part of the damage DO NOT USE PICKFORDS!!”
“The sales guy was great, from there, Terrible experience. Quote doesn't include insurance (and doubles your 'true costs'), what is included is £40 a box (?!), which isn't covered if the incident happens whilst packing, if you want to make a claim, you have 7 days to do so (unrealistic!), be ready to be forced to sign multiple 'waiver' forms whilst in the midst of packing, the packing team were not briefed of contents prior to pack, only a team of 3 to pack and load, extra costs for secured 'crates' but this actually happens off site so you have no security if they properly do this until your furniture arrives, no extra padding on the corner / legs of furniture so they arrived nicked/bashed/scratched... the list goes on. Oh and you MUST read the T&C's … they constantly refer you to the T&C's (30 pages of small font of T&C's).”
“Appalling service!
Numerous items have been damaged and no compensation or even an apology. Scratches on furniture, broken oak table, glass bowl, lights and more.
Attempted theft of items was made by hiding them in the van.
Do not use!”
“Moving a 4x2 household with children and pets to Australia is difficult and stressful enough. We got 4 quotes from removalists and chose Pickfords based on price a very nice rep called Lynda who we informed that our move from Australia to UK wasn't the best so we wanted to make sure the same didn't happen moving back to Australia (specially because of the very strict quarantine rules) and we wanted to reduce from a 40ft container to a 20ft container.
So after being reassured that we " would be looked after " we never saw the rep again. We had a few wooden, african artefacts and quite a lot of items that we weren't sure could all fit into 20ft container ( we aimed at bringing all that could fit into the container). Insurance is extra and it's calculated on a percentage scale, so when you list the items and their values, they are placed into 2 categories, once all value for items is added for 1st category, if it's higher than a certain amount, then the percentage goes up...so you could end up paying quite a lot for insurance...so we decided not to insure items of emotional value only, clothes, books, crockery which wasn't expensive but well liked, toys...as a result, when the boxes of damaged books and broken crockery got unpacked we couldn't do anything about it.
Our packing team on the first day of packing was good, all went well. On the second day however the packer in charge was not interested in asking what was going and what was staying, didn't supervise a very inexperienced packer who was sent to pack on his own and subsequently packed incorrectly books (on their sides or standing up in box!!). Didn't pack the crockery that had been put aside in plastic boxes with no or very little packing paper (all broken on arrival). Doors of an outroom (old and rickety) were open without consultation first, when a perfectly large main entrance was available, a sliding heavy glass main door was taken off it's rollers and we were not informed. When attempting to say to packer in charge that i should have been informed of this he raised his voice, denied knowing about it (though he transported the oversized wardrobes thru it, when a wider but longer route exit was available), he placed blame on us because ' the door track was hadn't been cleaned by us' ...worth stating that it was November, very wet and windy day....items were poorly packed on second day, with little padding/wrapping or none at all..( we had requested to have boxes so we could pre-pack, but were told no, because Pickford's has to pack everything!) Meanwhile the inexperienced, unsupervised packer spent 5 hours packing about 10 boxes (which actually arrived in Australia still in the original plastic containers we had used)..and when a cuppa tea was brought over, he was spotted looking through the boxed items, commenting on the collection, flicking through the books......unfortunately the day was stormy, wet, the packers in their very questionable wisdom packed the truck they had arrived in with wet boxes and furniture and lighter vacuum bags full of clean linen and clothing by throwing these on top of the furniture...when the container arrived they then moved all the stuff across to the container by now placing a lot of the lighter top items in the container first!.. Only to realise that the container had a leak...this was an usual bit of bad luck, which i guess luckily got picked up before it's soggy arrival in Australia. But this meant unpacking the container, back to the truck which then got unpacked at the depot into a wooden container whilst we waited for a new container to be delivered and all items re-packed into it again....so it's easy to imagine the damage this is doing to all items!!
The cargo arrived in Australia after 4 weeks and the tracking was fairly good...but it took quite a while for the office here to contact us on progress...we had to chase that up a few times...delivery was fantastic and efficient the packers here were polite, conscientious and hardworking...they unpacked only the items listed in the insurance...the rest we had to unpack ourselves. They did offer to collect packaging once we had unfinished...we had to do all undoing and putting together of furniture which would have cost a fair bit extra for Pickford's to do...which I think in hindsight was included in price of other removalists, therefore making Pickford's lower price maybe a false economy...this is something worth considering on your move. Finally the packaging was collected and the driver managed to drive too close to trees (NOT overgrown or unkept) on the front verge of our property though it's suburbia, wide streets and driveways, no cars in the way or parked on the verge...?!!?..We got left with loads of big broken branches and tree debris on the road and driveway to clear and a tree looking like a big bite had been taken out of! No apologies given and in fact driver blamed us for having a tree!...In conclusion...don't move your belongings with Pickford's! In fact consider selling all furniture, crockery, toys, clothing that you're not sentimental about, since all that is good quality, very affordable (specially when you look at costs of moving) and easy to replace in the UK...anything else, sentimental or of value...leave with your family, friends or in a rented lock up facility and travel light! Makes for a much more affordable and stress less move.”
“Appalling. We have used Pickfords on numerous occassions, and their teams are professional and polite and very customer service orientated. HOWEVER, the communication behind the scenes is shocking, you constantly have to chase the teams up for details and deadlines and anything really at all, they have you running around, and similar to the other person here, our goods arrived they hadn't been repacked (despite paying for that service), we had several breakages and the claims process is a COMPLETE sham!! Its taken us 3 months so far with me chasing them week after week for updates, and they are still not telling us anything, and asking us to do their job for them, NEVER, NEVER will I use them again. NEVER, don't waste your money, its a real shame, but clearly they have got too big and don't care anymore, or are too cheap and you get what you pay for. APPALLING. I am taking this matter further, and not happy about wasting my time over it, but this can't continue.”
“I am writing to you to express our absolute antipathy for Pickfords.
We hired Pickfords to ship our goods from the UK to Abu Dhabi in January 2017.
The goods arrived in Abu Dhabi on the 01 March 2017.
The goods arrived in what I can only describe as an appalling state. It seemed to us that the container must have been dropped, as the amount of damage was implausible.
The goods were packed totally inadequately. Valuable artwork covered in one thin film of bubble wrap. Silver leaf furniture, also in a single sheet of bubble wrap. Antique wooden furniture packed in a single cardboard box, with no additional packing materials. The list is long…
Our safe, containing valuable items did not arrive at all, neither did another number of valuable goods.
We have sent all the necessary photographic and written evidence through to Pickfords, and Centry Services on numerous occasions. We have even contacted the MD, Mr Start and Mr Taylor directly.
It is now the 4th July 2017, and we are still waiting for a suitable response.”
