British International Removals

5.4 (51‎)
i
What customers are saying
pro
Professional (11)
pro
Efficient (6)
pro
Packing of furniture (5)
con
Communication (5)
Services
International removals
Excess baggage
Car & Vehicle transport
Pet transport
Associations
PMA

About

British International Removals specialises exclusively in international recolations, with agents in 90 countries around the world. British International Removals provides a full door-to-door relocation service of household furniture, vehicles, motorcycles, boats, caravans and special care items.

British International Removals are members of: The Road Freight Association (RFA) Professional Movers Association (PMA) South African International Movers Association (SAIMA) Accredited Mover of South Africa (AMOSA)Read more

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Reviews

63% of the users recommend this moving company
 on Sirelo
I would recommend British International to anyone. From the packers that where extremely professional and made what was a very stressfull situation a pleasure to [Names removed by Sirelo] at the administration end, they were amazing and made sure that everything went smoothly. Best Company for moving Internationally. Price wise they are also very competitive .
Moved from Johannesburg (South Africa) to Tuscany (Italy)
 on Sirelo
If you are considering to make use of BIR please think again! We relocated from SA to the USA in January this year. Initially it started off great and we felt confident that we made the right choice. Unfortunately our confidence are now completely lost. We at least got our consignment at the beginning of March this year, however we incurred a lot of additional costs to which they agreed some of it should not have been for our account in writing. We however paid the additional cost due to lack of feedback from their offices and as we didn’t want to accumulate any further costs and in order for our consignment to be released by USA customs.
Till this date we have not received feedback as promised by the GM, even after numerous follow-ups.
Disappointing and frustrating to say the least!
con
Communication
Moved from Pretoria (South Africa) to Apex (United States)
 on Sirelo
Do yourselves a huge favour and use someone else. Anyone but these guys! This company not only forgot to ship my goods the first time causing me to wait and further 5 months on top of the 3 month initial delivery time. What was worse was they didn’t notify me of the fact that my goods were not shipped till I paid all delivery and storage charges on the receiving side 3 months later only to be told, ‘sorry your goods are still in Joburg!’ How do you forget to ship a palate, then not tell someone for 3 months! To make matters worse we specifically ask for a statue to be looked after (huge sentimental value). We had assurances from the boss of the company via email this would be taken care of. Needless to say the statue was destroyed. The rest of the goods were delivered in good condition but the most important piece was destroyed. So between incompetence, poor comms, and destroyed packages, not the best experience! To top it off I’m still waiting for a refund for the charges on the first delivery which never arrived! How do these guys still get business!Read more
pro
Stuff eventually arrived
con
Broke precious items
con
5 months delayed - no refund
Moved from Johannesburg (South Africa) to London (United Kingdom)
 on Sirelo
I am posting my experience because it has been 2 years and the company still has not contacted me with a resolution to my missing items. All the email addresses available to me has been emailed with no reply from any of the staff there.

In 2019 we were moving to The Netherlands. I had 5 moving companies come to see me. Ben from British International Removers seemed very competent in how he described everything would go. When the day came I had to be in 6 places at once and missed asking the company to pack my wardrobe, the parts that wouldn't fit in my luggage. On the same day after the truck left, I contacted Nazia and Sharon immediately to organise these 5 boxes to be collected. Sharon said she would organise a collection for Friday. I was flying out on Thursday. My father and domestic worker were still living on the property and when the truck arrived gave the driver the boxes. Between the boxes leaving my property and arriving in The Netherlands, those 5 boxes disappeared. The driver never followed protocol and gave receipt of the boxes he took, even after my father asked him if that was it. When following up with Sharon she said they would check all the containers for 5 extra boxes and would get back to me. 3 months later and Sharon still couldn't give me feedback. It has been 2 years since and with at least 5 emails sent between now and then and still no feedback. They have shown no accountability from the driver to Sharon, to Ben who runs the operation, none of them has tried to contact me to give an explanation or solution to the 5 boxes being stolen out of the 85 boxes I moved with them.Read more
con
Boxes stolen
con
staff don't take ownership of their mistakes
Moved from Weltevreden (South Africa) to Utrecht (Netherlands)
 on Sirelo
Hello there
I just want to share a quick note with people wondering about a real experience with British Int. Removals
British just made our move so seamless, and without any worries.
Being in the travel industry I know very all too well how difficult things are at the moment, and that things go wrong, and for them to be so flexible and accommodate all our last minute changes: form one Continent to another!
Maybe we have become so used to being angry with this world gone mad that we don't accept that there are still good people willing to assist and be kind in today's world.
We can recommend them with ease to anyone - as they realise as much as everything is upside down in today's day and age, things go wrong sometimes but it is how it's handled and sorted out!
Nobody is perfect, and if they pretend to be, they are not being honest and transparent.
Use British any time, you wont regret it
MH
pro
Reliable
pro
Clear and kind
Moved from Sandton (South Africa) to London (United Kingdom)
 on Sirelo
People who run and work for this company (apart from having no clue how to tuna moving company) have no conscience, and I cannot understand how they run a business and get away with treating their customers the way they do over and over.
Our belongings went missing in the packing process. There were minimum 6 people all over the house without supervision or following any logical system.
BIR hid behind ' if it didn't make it to the container, it can't be claimed for' and they completely ignored the fact that they may have been some discipline issues with their employees.
The items that did reach destination, arrived damaged.
They refused to disclose who their company Insurance company is and never supplied us with a copy of the insurance policy, claiming that the contract we signed with them is the Insurance policy.
They cannot even produce proof that the container was sealed before it left my house.
The labeling of boxes was of poor quality and label descriptions didn't correspond to the content.
The discrepancy in number of boxes on the inventory list against the submission made to customs , caused our container to be chosen for inspection, which we incurred additional costs for.

They will send you on a wild goose chase, keep repeating irrelevant information in circles, make up a fake email address for a legal department that doesn't exist to try and intimidate you, and not give one thought to the amount of stress they cause.

DO NOT USE THEM.
Read more
con
Unprofessional
con
Deceitful
Moved from Johannesburg (South Africa) to London (United Kingdom)
Response of
Good day

Thank you for sharing your unhappiness about your service experience, as this enables B.I.R to clarify with some detail.

As is customary, a container is sealed in a customers presence, recorded and is signed for by the customer, as correct.
The Transporter verifies the Container number and the seal - which is unique, and supplied by the Shipping Line (MSC/Hapag Lloyd etc) and not by B.I.R.
Which is the Industry standard, and the only way to seal a container and record such detail. Our customers are always welcome to take pictures, and even video record this for their records.

In terms of a Valid Insurance claim: All Insurance companies require to have proof of a loss occurring, in order to have a valid claim. We are unable to enter a valid claim on "we don't know what is missing, but we know there are things' . Transit Cover covers your goods whilst in transit, meaning from the time it leaves your residence to when it's unpacked/offloaded at destination. Therefore all compromised packaging on packages, cartons/boxes and/or non-delivered items can be added to a valid claim - if you opted for Comprehensive cover and not Total loss only.

In our Industry there have been some instances where packers were blatantly accused of theft, and after Police investigations it was indeed revealed that the gardner and/or the cleaner were responsible for such losses.
Although we take these instances very seriously, we are also aware that anyone can take advantage of the situation whilst
having a company packing up a complete residence.

We will always investigate such events, but will under no circumstances make any false accusations of theft against any of our members - without proof of a crime being committed. As discussed with you at the time- any false accusations of theft is in itself, a crime.

For the protection f all parties involved, we document the request, to not have these items laying around or packed into a shipment. Which is why these are explicitly excluded in our contract, and therefore can not be covered by Transit Cover at all.

Your team consisted of 3 members for packing over the days, and additional staff were allocated on the day of loading the container, to enable them to finish - enabling you to make it to the airport in time.

As in your case, we require our customer's to send us proof of items that are given and donated to our Export Teams. It has happened that a customer forgets, once at the new destination, that these items were donated. This enables us to provide the paperwork of donated items, as we did with the gifts you donated to our team for their excellent work.

We wish there were more that could be done to assist, but unfortunately we are unable to assist further, as we have Industry rules and guidelines to follow.

Kind regards
B.I.R
Read more

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