Seven seas does look good - a good clear website is a new thing to me !

I only brought 4 suitcases in 2 trips and threw everything except photos

I worked on starting a new life with new stuff - it's amazing all that keeping stuff that I didn't need to do

Stuff in the US is dirt cheap anyway (It's embarrassingly cheap ) so now I have all new

I am working on returning for a week every 4 months as my sis/mother are 'in care' and I will just take 1.5 empty suitcases each time and bring the photos back slowly..

Wish I had digitized them and thrown them away ! Think I will digitize them when i get here so my mrs doesn't see em !

£125 for a tea chest door to door is good and struggling with extra suitcases in airports is awful - and renting a bigger car to get boxes in (and hoping they fit) just adds to the trauma

Yeah, Seven Seas have been pretty decent so far. Apparently, my guff is floating somewhere in the Atlantic at the moment, due for delivery in approx 3 weeks or less.

If I had to be pedantic, I'd moan about the insurance they offer, or, more specifically, how you set it up. When it said "list all the items" in the box for the full coverage (at 5% value of the box), I figured saying "dvds 50 quid, books 50 quid" etc would be sufficient. No, you need to itemise every dvd and book individually. Good grief. Couldn't be bothered, went with the cheaper insurance which lets you say "dvds, 50 quid".

Just in case anyone is still looking for shippers. DO NOT USE UPAKWESHIP! Our things are here in the States. Have been cleared out of customs for 2.5 weeks and nothing yet. We have received 1 phone call from Euro-USA...the actual registered name of upak...all other contact I have initiated. I have written back to the UK asking for help....no reply. We have been told to expect a phone call this morning(Tuesday)...it is now 7pm and nothing. We are still using the internet at the library as our pc is in South Carolina sitting in a truck. I cannot describe how angry I am. I just started my new job today and had to go and spend quite a bit of money as most of my "work" clothes have not yet arrived.
I am very unhappy as is Glyn. It is now about 11 weeks since our things shipped. I don't know who to turn to with this. Is there some place in the EU that handles these things? Do I have to suffer now as I am here even though the contract is from there? I am to the point that I am going to go out and purchase a laptop...I need a pc at home...this is ridiculous.
Sorry for the rant. I just really wanted to warn people away.

Thats awful and you have my sympathy - i used to take my desktop pc and screen in my hold luggage on the plane - poor mans laptop !

You dont realise how much you need a computer til you dont have one...

I have found an ace company for internal US moves - united van lines - absolutely wonderful --but I have no experience on international shipping

Oh that sounds dreadful Mine has taken about seven weeks or something so far - I did e-mail them to ask if they had the ship details but nothing - I figured that I have up to another month to wait anyway That was with Pickfords

Was that a part container Jeraly? they always seem to be 2 or 3 weeks longer than having the sole use of the container. Our container with Pickfords made it in 45 days.

Pretty certain it was part container as I didn't have very much

Just thought I would share that despite not informing me at the time it was needed, I have *just* got an e-mail asking me for a copy of Jeremy's passport and my employment information (even though I am not employed and wasn't employed when filling out the documentation) from Pickfords. Not very happy

Seven Seas delivered my stuff today. Having picked them up on 23rd July, I think that's 47 days until delivery today. Slightly annoying in that UPS (which Seven Seas use locally) seem to have split the consignment up, and my last box is still in Illinois, although still penciled in for delivery today. I suppose in fairness to Seven Seas, this is a UPS thing, not their fault.

For anyone interested in the particulars, I shipped 6 boxes in total. 4 of the big tea chest size (60x50x40cm ish), 2 of the smaller book ones (50x40x30ish), with each one weighing just shy of the 30kg limit. Cost about 450 quid in total.


Stu

I'm going to pick up my boxes today, i'll let you guys know how it goes. I'm clearing customs myself, so I hope it won't be too... interesting.

hi,

I used http://www.wedelivertheworld.co.uk/index.php sent 4 boxes total weight 88kg cost me 352.00 they collected day before my flight and my packages got here before i did but no one was home so they delivered the next day on 21 August 2008. There was some slight damage to one of the boxes - but all in all wasnt too bad.






Hope it goes nice and easy for you and they dont keep you waiting too long

Slight update, seems it definitely was a UPS problem and not Seven Seas:



Perhaps some crafty bugger took longer than expected to copy all my DVDs or something

Speaking of which, although everything in my boxes seems to be intact, worth noting that a few of the dvd cases for my console games have been squeezed, probably with the weight of other boxes on top of mine. It's caused quite a few of them to break. I guess DVD cases need particular care when packing.


Stu

Hello and thanks for this thread. Geez this is a hard process. How much are you moving? No clue til I fill the boxes.

My fiance has decided on 1st Move International which seems to be ShipIt.co. uk and MoveMe.co.uk

We settled on them because the others seemed to go to the east coast and west coast, then transfer by truck or van to the destination. I was hoping to find one that shipped to Houston, TX (in the middle on the Gulf Coast.) Two told me the goods would go to Philadelphia. Well that's like the distance from London to Romania. The 1st Move (ShipIt?) people said they can put it on a ship bound for Houston and would be cheaper for us that way.

Their minimum is 2 cubic metres. Nick calculated that to be about 30 Dell computer boxes which he's gathering from work. He likes the fact that they advertise everything gets put on a pallet and wrapped in several layers of plastic and secured together. So the plan is that we will collect it ourselves at the Port of Houston because it's a short drive. I have several friends with pick-up trucks we will enlist. I asked the guy if I needed to bring a forklift to load the pallet on the pickup LOL but he said they will break it down for us at the port. So we shall see how this all works out.

Maybe you can give us some tips Poiteen about clearing customs yourself.

I am still really annoyed with Pickfords - I sent them an e-mail on Monday to clarify the information they wanted and how they suggested I send it to them without delaying things and I have had NO response from them at all. Not impressed.

Wow, seems like a few of us are having difficulties. We finally got our things on Saturday the 6th. I left a rather irate phone call on Saturday morning with UPAKWESHIP in the UK. I was so angry that the driver STILL had not called us. I no sooner hung up the phone and the driver called...of course I had already called him and left a very cold message on his voice mail. He finally showed up at 11 on Saturday morning and pulled the boxes off the truck and let Glyn carry them up the drive and into the house....and then put his hand out for a tip... Needless to say he left a very disappointed man. I have received an email from the UK side of things apologising and saying that they have been in contact with the higher ups, because I told them straight out that I would never refer them to anyone because of how bad things were done on this side of things. All of our things arrived in one peice with no damage...but 12 weeks after pick up.
Good luck to all of you still waiting.

Ugh Kathy - I can relate. I *finally* got an e-mail back earlier asking if I could fax the things they need across to them - we have no scanner so this is the only way it can be done short of sending everything snail mail. So Jeremy has to send an international fax from his work - luckily he is the manager so he can get away with it but still - I think it is a real cheek when they are the "experts" and should have told me before I even left. If nothing else I should have heard *something* in the two months since they have picked up my belongings - I know that as I don't have a lot of stuff it might take a little longer to get here, but I should at least have been notified of the extra information they needed

We used U Pak We Ship also and are still waiting for Barry's things that were picked up on July 7th. He's emailed them and they sent a CC of an e-mail they sent to EURO something or other here in the US advising that the ship docked in Charleston on Aug 8th and to please advise to the location of the client's belongings...still haven't received a response to that...

Barry's things finally arrived yesterday....everything intact except the glass on one picture......the driver was polite, friendly and helpful...

As an interesting aside, about a month after Seven Seas delivered all my boxes to me, via UPS, I received an email from Seven Seas advising me that I could be entitled to an income tax refund if I'd not worked a full year up to April 5. Apparently, they'll contact HM R&C on your behalf and sort it all out, presumably taking a small slice of your refund as payment.

From their email:



Absolute cobblers, don't use Seven Seas or any other middle man. Either ring HM R&C before you leave the UK and ask for a P85 form, or download and print it from their website. It's a straight forward form, and I had my £650 ish refund in a cheque (to my sister, as my nominee) about a month after I arrived in the US and sent off the form.

I've been meaning to, and I think I've started a wiki about it, but if you don't see it before you need the info, just PM me and I will give you the rundown.

Just got an e-mail to say that my things should be arriving in port around 17th October!! Looks like we need to get a bookshelf or something!! I can't even remember half of what I sent!!!

I received three separate quotes from Excess Baggage, two of which seemed to be from their various sub/sister-companies. I went with the cheapest as I have nothing terribly urgent or valuable to care about.

I was quoted £356 for door-to-door delivery for 24 sq ft (or 12 x 2 sq ft book boxes) by London Baggage. I sent off for a quote Sunday, received the quote Monday morning, and Monday lunchtime a very lovely-sounding lady rang up to arrange delivery of the boxes today. I'll be packed this afternoon and then ring for the boxes to come and be collected. They say 8-10 weeks for delivery, so we'll see how that goes!

did anyone here have a vast quantity of cds/dvds/books that they shipped?

Yes, quite a few. 156 CDs (17 Kg). 65 vinyl albums, 32 cassettes, 21 DVDs, 140 books, 80 software CDs.

He has already rigged my DVD player to play his DVDs. And he shipped a UK DVD recorder with a hard drive and has it working here too.

ah nice, maybe you can answer a question for me.
i have quite a lot more vinyl (about 150) and dvd's than that. i'm just wondering if i'm going to encounter any problems with customs with that much stuff. the vinyls are all old and look that way but the cds/dvds/books mostly look new, as i like to take care of my stuff. i read that you need to have owned your items for more than a year for customs purposes... you didn't run into any problems with that?

Well....

The husband moved here over three years ago. If we are lucky, there are still a couple of rather large boxes of graphic novels/comic books in his brothers attic.

We literally cannot afford to spend a thousand bucks on shipping them over here. But we are going home for a visit in March. We are going to try a little experiment whilst there. We are going to box up some of the favorites and take them over to the post office and see what it might cost to post them slow-boat. If it's not too pricey, we'll probably go for it.

Three years ago we shipped a box of DVDs/CDs and it was like 60 quid.

We cleared customs ourselves in person at a CPB office in Houston, TX rather than using a broker to do it for us. (Houston was the port where the goods arrived.) The officer that clears household goods shipments in Houston was so easy. I had called to find out the process and ask what forms to fill out and bring. He said just bring the bill of lading (a scan the shippers emailed to us), an arrival notice from the ships agent (also emailed to us) and a list of the contents. I said what about all those custom forms? He said, "I like to keep it simple---no forms." So it took us about a minute. Showed him what he said to bring and he went off and brought back the arrival notice with a pattern of holes punched in it that said something like US Customs Houston TX. That release was required in order to pick up the stuff. I don't think they are too strict about a load of personal household items because it's pretty normal to send those things (music and dvds) when you move.

Now for the hard part of getting Nick's stuff, which was 2.5 cubic meters and 650 pounds. This is the stuff they don't tell you in the UK...the cost on the US end. Every ship has a shipping agent that handles arrival, unloading, port charges, dock fee, custom clearance for the container to leave the port, etc. So they charge you a fee. You don't shop around, it's the ship that picks their agent for the whole load. So when Nick's stuff arrived, we were emailed a bill for $465 to cover all I mentioned. No credit cards, no personal checks. $90 of that was for customs clearance of the container, nothing to do with you clearing your personal items for pick up, just general customs because they x-ray the container.

So we paid and waited for that to clear and be taken to a warehouse and the container emptied out. Well it seems that sometimes they want a more intense inspection where the container is opened up and the pallets with boxes are cut into and the boxes opened. So, yep, that's what our luck was. And another bill from the agent for $125 because the container had to be transported to a Customs secure warehouse and the intense inspection. So it was finally cleared and we went to the customs warehouse. That warehouse said we owed them $25 for their services. Such a rip-off. It's like your stuff is held hostage and you just have to pay whatever they say. Then we drove the pick-up truck to the back and gave our punched customs clearance paper to a forklift guy and he brought out the pallet. It hadn't been inspected at all...still wrapped and sealed by 1st Move International in the UK. That doesnt' mean that something else in the container wasn't inspected, but you have to pay anyway. So in all we paid $615 on the US end. I don't know how often this happens or if people who get door to door service encounter additional fees in the US. Maybe somebody will comment. We had partial container, door to port. It was efficient and arrived quickly in perfect order, but the "hostage" situation was annoying.

Hey, but not everybody gets to go to cool warehouse places like this
Click to view attachment

thanks to both of you nich-nick and rebeccajo for the information.