Yahoo Finance We paid £2,227 for our move to France … and it got us nowhere
My partner and I relocated to France last year and paid moving firm Doree Bonner £2,227 to handle things, which went wrong from the start. It badly underestimated the volume to be packed, so sent an inadequately equipped team, then charged us an extra £699.94 to cover the stuff they’d overlooked.
On arrival at our French address, they said they couldn’t find a convenient place to park and eventually declared they would be taking our things back to the UK. We were then billed £2,760 for a redelivery.
Since our possessions were put back in storage, we had to keep paying the fees. They were successfully delivered on a second attempt, although we had to make an insurance claim for a number of lost and damaged items.
We then opened a claim against Doree Bonner on 17 December, asking for the £2,760 cost of the second delivery back, as well as the cost of storage accrued since the failed delivery.
It ignored us for weeks so we contacted the British Association of Removers, which put pressure on. Eventually, Doree Bonner told us it bore no responsibility for what went wrong and offered us £1,000 as a gesture of goodwill.
We refused and contacted The Furniture Ombudsman, which took over nine weeks to rule in our favour and award us a payment of £2,657.93. It informed Doree Bonner of the ruling on 1 April but the company has ignored it – and us. We have chased the ombudsman, and it says it is waiting to hear back from Doree Bonner.
AG, Niort, France
Doree Bonner made the payment within hours of my contact. It blamed lockdown and furloughed staff for the “unacceptable delay” in receiving and implementing the ombudsman ruling, although it resumed operations in mid-May.
“It is disappointing and apparent that our communication and overall handling of the delivery service, in particular, fell short of the high standard of service that we normally provide,” says managing director Jason Herbert.
The Furniture Ombudsman – which receives a pasting on the review website Trustpilot, with 61% of customers rating its service as “bad” – did not respond to a request for a comment. Its phone lines are still closed following lockdown.
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