Terrible service, poor communication - would not recommend them, nor use them again!

We relocated from CT to Sydney, Australia on the 18 Jan 2020. Initially, an agent, Sharon was very accommodating and willing to assist and even agreed to come out and do a walk through on the 24th December. She was willing to answer all questions and in the early days was very accommodating and helpful. But that was where the good experience stops.

Out first clue should have been when the packers and removalists pitched up on 11 Jan, without an itinerary to pack up our place. I must stress that these gentleman were not the problem. However, they kept telling us that we had more space and to add additional items - our mistake was to listen. We then left the country - and without any warning, call or email, were hit with an additional invoice, the value of which was almost half the initial fee. This was for additional items. When we called the office, our agent was nowhere to be found and did not return any of the 10 or so calls we left for her. In addition, no one else could really assist. Stephan then took over and tried to get some answers and we agreed to remove some items - this was done in the first or second week of Feb. We were assured that our items would be shipped by end Feb or mid March for the latest. But it was not. Keep in mind, this was before Covid - so at this stage that was not an excuse. Again, there was no communication and we tried to get some answers several times, in terms of when we could expect our goods to be dispatched. There were a number of promises, and excuses when eventually tracked someone down who would take our call. Then Covid struck and our goods were still stuck in SA. Even after the borders opened , we had to make numerous calls and chase our tails before we finally managed to talk to someone who indicated that out items would leave in Our items only arrived in Sydney beginning of Oct. Add to that we got issued ANOTHER invoice, this time for rate change - which would not have been so bad had our goods been dispatched in March as promised! It took 10 months to receive our items and as a result we had to buy items like winter clothes, and some small appliances as we were not sure when ours would arrive.

To put it into perspective: colleagues of ours who relocated at a similar time, went with an alternate company had their items packed in Feb and it arrived in May - this was also during Covid - so I do not believe that this was much of an excuse

The counterpart company managing the move in Australia, were the complete opposite and the minute they took control, we had up-to-date notifications of where our items where and what steps in the process we were at, and what additional steps were expected.

The only saving grace, was that none of our items were damaged or broken.

My suggestion is for SA Relocation to really work on their communication and client service experience. Most people would be understanding if they knew what was going on and can plan better. Moving is really stressful, moving across the globe more so - and we could really have done without the added stress of wondering whether our items would make it at all!