The Seabrook Saga!

Where do we even begin this saga?

Seabrook were hired by us to get our precious possessions all the way from South Africa to Dublin, Ireland. I must say, from the get-go, they were slack with communication, but as they gave a very competitive price, we pushed on. The goods were packed with little or no problems in SA and off they went to the docks, leaving SA mid March. We were told they would be in Dublin before Easter, which they were. Enter the final stage, the amount we had paid on invoice issued, turned out to not be enough, as this did not match the original quote. Who questions an invoice sent and goes back to the quote?? They sent 'final' invoice, we paid it. Simple.

We were informed that as the container our goods was transported in, turned out to be solely for us, thus we owed extra funds. We were only told this once the goods had arrived at the port. Not on departure. Basically we were held to ransom and told that if we did not pay the funds, they would hold our stuff.

We paid.

Next, we were handed over to the sister company, SHARP in Spain to organise a removal company to get our possessions to us. This was weeks of annoyance and delayed responses on their part, not to mention plenty of Euros in phone calls to get our stuff! In short, they asked for even more money, WE PAID MORE, and hired the wrong people. A van arrived with about 8 items in it, nearly 3 weeks after our stuff docked. A 'man with a van' to move ALL our household goods!?! They were also given the wrong address that day by SHARP, the supposed sister company in Spain, resulting in them arriving after 7pm. Empty promises were made and more money was requested. We paid. Calls were eventually made back to Seabrook in SA with a threat of a theft claim against them if we did not receive our goods. More backwards and forwards with Spain and then eventually they hired the correct company to truck our precious belongings to us The point is, after all of this, Seabrook ended up being an exorbitant amount more than the cheapest quote we had acquired prior to leaving SA.

Lesson - Only use reputable companies.