An Utter ***** of a Company. Avoid at All Costs!

Below is an email that was sent to Mel Potgeiter over 48 hours ago. In terms of a response, the silence is deafening.

Good Morning Mel,

I hope you are well.

Apologies for reaching out to you directly, but I feel the experience I have had merits going to straight to the top. As a Director of a company myself, I also understand that you will probably want to know about it when your paying customers receive such an utterly terrible experience.

I found out a few months back that I needed to relocate from Johannesburg to Cape Town. Having asked around as to who the best company to use were, I was told Stuttafords by a number of people. Given I was travelling a lot at the time, I didn’t have the time to do as much due diligence as I would like. As such, I decided not to scrimp and save, and I spent the money on a recognised and trusted brand. And what a huge mistake I made.

My experience started badly when I asked for a quote. The system is ridiculous for starters. How I am meant to accurately portray the volume and value of my belongings in a 2 page questionnaire, I will never know. Regardless, myself and my partner filled out the forms and awaited the quote. To obtain my quote, I had to chase Tjarlyn Engelbrecht in your office on a couple of occasions before eventually receiving the quote a week later. I should have known at this point something wasn’t right and I’m kicking myself for not pulling the plug.

The experience got even worse from then on. With Tjarlyn losing the paperwork for my insurance and needing constant chasing at every stage throughout the process. We finally got our quote for the insurance the day before my move. It was ridiculously high, but by that point it was clearly too late to do anything but pay it. I have to say, Tjarlyn was extremely poor throughout the whole process. Unresponsive, unavailable, not proactive and absolutely zero attention to detail. I can only assume this was her first week and we were here first client, otherwise I can categorically say that she is totally in the wrong job. A move is a very stressful thing. Made more stressful when you need to make at least one phone call a day to chase an *********** person to do their job.

On the day of the move, things got even worse. The handy man was sent half an hour earlier than the time we had been told to be at the apartment. We were still busy dropping our pets off at a friend’s house. Then the removals guys arrived (an hour late) with a van too big to enter my complex. Obviously I called Tjarlyn, at which point I was asked why I never booked a shuttle. Well Mel, I never booked a shuttle cos nobody told me I needed one. You are the supposed experts in moving, not me.

Unbelievably, the experience continued to get worse from there. 4 removals guys were sent, and on arrival I explained to them that I have a number of 1 of a kind paintings in the apartment that were important to me and must be handled with care. I don’t know whether they didn’t understand what I meant, or just didn’t care but they promptly began man handling the 1st painting with their hands (clearly dirty from lifting things) all over the canvas. I was horrified and showed them the correct way to handle a painting. At this point, the guy who supposedly in charge told me to “have faith” as he’d handled expensive paintings many times before. He then began promptly stuffing wrapping down the front side of the packaging and putting pressure onto the canvas of one of my favourite paintings. I was livid and told him not to handle any more of my paintings without me to supervise.

Next came the argument over my wooden furniture, which again is expensive and very important to me. The supposed supervisor was ready to send it all out the door with 1 layer of bubble wrap. I pointed out to him that it was insufficient and the furniture would simply not make it unscathed if wrapped that way. An argument ensued and was only rectified with a number of calls to your offices. I honestly think that they hadn’t brought sufficient wrapping and the removals guys wanted to get home early rather than sending back to your offices for more supplies. It’s utterly ridiculous to want to send expensive wooden furniture on a long move with such poor protection. The guys attitude was also disgusting, he said “why am I getting the heat? I’m just doing as I’m told”. Awful customer service from a guy that you have appointed in a leadership position.

At this point your supervisor started to become difficult to deal with, at times rude, and quite frankly unprofessional. The whole time, him and his guys were speaking in Zulu. Obviously safe in the knowledge that I’m British (and probably not realising my girlfriend wasn’t), they were having a good old laugh about “these white people” and no doubt saying other unpleasant stuff that was beyond my partners comprehension. I’m sorry, but that’s ****** and there is no place for it. Especially when I’ve paid a significant cost for an apparent high-end service.

The next part is what upsets me the most. Having been told on at least 3 occasions of the importance of the artwork to me, and asking that I am there to supervise the wrapping of the 1 remaining piece of artwork (which is possibly my most prized possession), these guys went to lift the painting down when I wasn’t there, again putting their dirty hands all over the canvas. It upsets me to even write about it, and I’m still seething that they did this. I fully expect my 2 favourite, 1 of a kind paintings to be ruined when I unwrap them.

Just to leave you in no doubts of the calibre of people that you have employed. Having put me through one of the most traumatic days I have had in my life. At 5pm when they were finally leaving the property, the supposed supervisor asked me if I could hand him the refuse sack that I had been using throughout the day as he had seen me put some things in there that he would like to keep. I have no issue with charity or giving things I don’t need to those less fortunate. I just don’t expect it from somebody in a position of leadership for a company that advertises themselves as an industry leader.

This whole experience has left me pretty hurt. I have worked long and hard to surround myself with nice things. To see them man handled by guys that clearly had no comprehension of what it means to have, and look after nice possessions was extremely stressful, and not something I had expected, especially given the premium I have paid for this service.

Just to make this clear Mel, I am a career expat and have moved from London to Dubai to Johannesburg to Cape Town over the course of the last 10 years or so, with local moves in between. This is by such a long way, the worst experience I have ever had with a removals or logistics company. It is also probably the worst experience I have ever had as a consumer, full stop. For you guys to brand yourselves as some sort if industry leader is nothing short of **********, and you as a company Director should be ashamed for the blatant theft of your paying customers’ money.

In terms of rectifying this, I really hope for far better when my belongings are delivered in Cape Town on Tuesday. I also expect that at least 1 of the guys you send should a.) speak a decent level of English and b.) should know how to handle fragile and important things, and be able to articulate that to the rest of the group. I also expect absolutely no quibbles or push back from you or your insurers when I claim for the possessions that have inevitably been damaged. To be honest, I’d also like some answers as to why I’ve been put through such stress and poor treatment, as it is quite frankly utterly unacceptable.

Regards Grant