On this page you will find reviews on the company Pickfords from real customers. We have filtered custom reviews so that you can really evaluate whether it is worth contacting this company or it is better to contact other movers.
Company average rating Pickfords – 2.8 (calculated based on 220 reviews).
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Newcastle move.
Pickfords were very good from start to finish. Booking and paying was simple and flexible. Actual removal team were fast, efficient and friendly. We did not have a complicated move - just a few miles down the road. Nonetheless they did everything well - rebuilt beds and tables, and put all furniture where we wanted. Not unpacked everything yet but so far so good.
Professional, competitively priced, excellent service.
We only moved just under 2 miles, but had a high volume move which would take 3 days, and we wanted a company to do the fragile packaging too. Pickfords came in competitive on price, and we trusted the sales person the most, and also the name. Nicole, the move manager, was excellent and ensured that she secured availability at the last minute whilst always remaining calm and unflappable (even if I was not at some points!). I first met the team in person when I picked up boxes on the day before packing started: everything was out waiting for me, and I was greeted by name too which was a nice touch. The team of Steve, Chris and Matt turned up exactly when said on the Tuesday to start the fragile packing and preload of van, and went above and beyond to empty the majority of the house that day, working like absolute troopers. Move day came, the rest was loaded, and we were then sitting around waiting for solicitor phonecalls, however these things happen and the team was great to get us in on the day with everything we needed despite the late finish. Returning the next day to unload the final lot, and the team were once again professional, cheerful, fun to be around, and made the experience as stress free as possible. Nothing was damaged, and the creativity they displayed in getting a solid oak table through a small door still confuses me: it looks physically impossible, but they did it. I would (and indeed have) recommended Pickfords to a friend without hesitation: hard working, professional, careful, stress free and cheerful.
Do NOT use this terrible company.
I am going to echo all negative points of other reviews left by customers of Pickfords. For my move from Boston to Barcelona, Pickfords at first seemed like they were professional and trustworthy, but this is a testament to their sales team.
I paid over 2500 British pounds for a 1-bedroom + small amount of antique pieces move. It was overpriced in my opinion, but I was starting a new job quickly and needed to pack my things quickly. Lesson learned. Never rush this or you could get stuck with a company like Pickfords.
My belongings arrived 18 weeks (a full 6 months) after they were picked up. While the local movers both in Boston and Barcelona were a joy to welcome and took care of my things, Pickfords did not. I had to chase up my agent every week for an update, she never initiated the conversation. Also, I was told by them repeatedly that it was the the delay was the fault of their US carrier for placing my belongings on a container set for the UK when I was moving to Barcelona. They never took ownership for this error that caused the delay. I flew to Barcelona and waited a full 6 weeks without my belongings.
The customer "manager" also had the audacity to say she did not think my opinion and complaint were sincere. When, in fact, all my complaints were objective (email trails, and delay as a result of their business partner).
Contacts at Pickfords I worked with:
Ashley Tegerdine - agent who did not keep track of my belongings
Alexandru Andronic - Took weeks to transfer my complaint to the customer service department
Samantha McKeon - the customer service "manager" who accused me of being insincere with my complaint
My hope is that either there is an entire change in personnel or that enough of these bad reviews surface on the internet so no one uses Pickfords and the company is forced to either improve or shut down.
Poor service.
Move manager - Charles Graham
Sadly, our experience with Pickfords has been sub standard. This was our first time moving house, we contacted several companies, got quotes and decided to go with Pickfords. They were the most expensive, but we were confident in their abilities.
We paid for extra insurance to cover our belongings in transit and requested the Pickfords ‘concierge’ service to save time on setting up bills etc at the other end.
The day of the move was fine, problems arose when we started to unpack our belongings. In total Pickfords caused £1000 worth of damage. Several picture frames chipped, snapped and damaged, broken crystal, a wet box with everything in the bottom damaged, a statue smashed into 3 pieces, furniture chipped, antique writing box chipped.
We contacted Charles Graham and informed him of some damaged items and he told us we were outside the 7 day period in which we could claim (please note this isn’t working days, which we believed) But he told us we could claim anyway, he asked us to send a list of the damaged items, when we sent a full list, with photos, and receipts, we were told that the extra items would not be accepted, only the items in the first email could we claim for. In total we have been offered £125 compensation. The insurance premium was £300.
Sadly, in the end, Pickfords turned out to be cowboys for us, at first they are all smiles and charm, but when something actually goes wrong, they don’t answer calls, take up to 10 days to respond and everything else you could expect. We never received any of the complimentary concierge service, when asking for the invoice they send it to the wrong people. All in all a total shambles.
And Charles Graham our move manger was nothing but ineffective and inept.
Please use another company, one that’s half the price and will do a better job, like Britannia.
Do not trust Pickfords staff with your valuables.
We used the Pickfords full packing service to move to our new home. As we were moving a few days before Christmas and were very busy, my wife talked me into using the packing service. I was not at all comfortable with people packing our possessions, but my wife assured me everything was insured and the packing service had good reviews, so I reluctantly agreed.
The day before the move three Pickfords staff turned up at 8AM and began packing our possessions. The staff seemed friendly and professional, but they soon dropped my grandfather's antique blacket box down the stairs, which went through the wall! Other than that the rest of the day went smoothly.
On the day of the move an additional staff member turned up, with the three staff from the day before. After a couple of hours everything was packed and the lorry left ahead of me whilst I finished cleaning the house and thoroughly checked nothing had been left behind.
When I got to our new house, my wife was already there and the Pickfords staff were busy unpacking everything. They finished quite quickly and again seemed friendly and professional. Before they left my wife and I gave them a £40 tip between them as we trusted they were honest and had done a good job. The staff left very pleased with themselves.
But that is where the problems began, I immediately began to unpack and within a few hours could not find my wifes new £300 Dyson hairdryer. The insurance policy stated that any claims had to be made within seven days. But the move was a few days before Christmas and we had a six month old baby, so I unpacked as much I could, but could not get everything unpacked. It was just before the new year when I had everything unpacked and was sure the Dyson hairdryer was actually missing. Also several pieces of furniture had been damaged.
We got in touch with Pickfords and reported the missing Dyson hairdryer and damage, we then had a fairly abrupt reply informing us that any claims had to be made within seven days of the move, so we could not claim on the insurance. I of course hit the roof and several strongly worded letters to Pickfords later, pointing out the fact that several days were lost due to Christmas and as far as I was concerned the Dyson hairdryer had been stolen by one of their staff. Pickfords then did reverse their decision and said we would be able to make a claim.
It was horrible and distressing thinking we had allowed these people into our house, paid for a very expensive service and they had betrayed our trust and stole from us! Also we were then thinking what else had they stolen. I then spent many hours checking all expensive items were accounted for. Fortunately I had taken lots of pictures of items the night before the Pickfords staff arrived. From the pictures of my spirits collection I noticed I had four identical bottles of unopened expensive Gin in the pictures I took. I now only had three, I expect the thief thought I would not notice if one went missing. The missing Dyson hairdryer and Gin were packed on the Thursday, everything was supposed to go into sealed boxes with just the room name indicated on the box, so it was very unlikely to have been the forth person who turned up on the day of the move, who stole the items.
I spent many hours dealing with Pickfords and spoke to the staffs manager, who told me the truck had been searched but nothing had been found. Their manager also told me all the staff had been interviewed and as the culprit(s) were not identified all of them had the missing items recorded against their records. Although I was extremely annoyed and upset about the missing items it really was not fair on the staff who were not responsible for this.
I then reported the missing items to the Police, there was nothing much the Police could do, other than speak to Pickfords and record it in case it happened again.
It took many months before we were reimbursed for the stolen hairdryer and damages. The insurance refused to reimburse us for the expensive bottle of Gin as apparently alcohol was not covered! I eventually got Pickfords to reimburse me for this, but they refused to compensate me for all the time I spent dealing with this matter, which was appalling when we spent the best part of £2,000 with them, for their staff to steal from us. Moving house is a stressful time as it is. So please save yourselves a lot of further distress and hassle and do not to use Pickfords, their staff cannot be trusted.
Sent our stuff to Africa instead of Canada..
Honestly I could write an entire novel about my nightmare with Pickfords but I'll try to keep it brief. We moved from UK to Canada in early 2019 and, as the title suggests, they misrouted our container to Africa instead of Canada. A five week shipment took over 3 months to arrive - I was 5 months pregnant when we loaded our stuff and it arrived when I was 9 months along - a week before the baby was born (I was actually on bedrest at that time so we had to hire people to unpack for us.) This wasn't pickfords fault apparently (they claim the shipping co, Maersk, loaded the wrong container) but pickfords was our only point of contact during this and I felt their customer service was horrible throughout. In fact, they refused to acknowledge that the container had even been misrouted, even after Maersk told me it had. Their negligence caused us a huge amount of a huge amount of financial, mental and emotional stress. Here's an overview of our experience:
Negatives:
- Hidden fees (eg insurance, parkings) that we weren't made aware of until after we'd paid for the move. For example, the insurance ended up costing twice as much as the "3%" they tell you in the beginning due to fine print clauses that they don't point out until later.
- They promised things when quoting that they didn't deliver - eg council parking permit (I had to walk up and down my street asking neighbours to move their cars.)
- Packing and unpacking were not careful or as thorough as promised.
-Poor communication / not answering questions / vague or confusing answers when they did.
- They wouldn't track our shipment for us - I had to do it myself with shipping company. Found out from them that our container was in morocco but pickfords dismissed me and told me I was wrong and ignored my concerns for two weeks.
-delivered wrong container to us, costing us and the delivery company a lot of money (we had to start our lease on our house early to accommodate this and also take days off work to recieve and clear this container.)
- They told us it'd be no problem to get compensation for our delay, but when it came down to it they told us they required extensive paperwork to "prove" that we were put out by the delay (this was never mentioned before and by the time we were asked, we were unable to provide some things they requested so lost out on compensation.)
- Insurance claims were a pain - we had a few minor things and they pushed back on everything and used 'fine print' to stiff us for relatively small amounts.
Postives:
-They were usually quick to respond to emails/calls (even though their answers were often vague and unhelpful as I've mentioned.)
- They eventually did pay some compensation and for some rental furniture for our home while we waited for our container. However, this was something I had to push for (after everything they should've offered it up as an option in the beginning.)
- The movers on both ends were very friendly and helpful, and the shipping company in Canada was really wonderful to deal with when our shipment went wrong.
All in all, their customer service is not only lacking, but in our case, dangerously negligent. I had to push them to help us at every point along the way; there was no point in which I felt like they were genuinely trying to proactively help me. I'm sure in 95% of their shipments, nothing goes wrong and they are fine, but in the cases like ours where things do go wrong, be prepared to fight tooth and nail to get them to take you seriously and provide any kind of assistance.
Goods damaged in transit.
We used Pickfords to move from London and Cambridge to Auckland.
No serious complaints about the packing of the goods or unpacking on arrival. They forgot to list a few key items e.g. bikes and the hoover on the inventory but we spotted this in time.
However, the container was not sealed properly before it set sail and there was a lot of water damage to most of our book collection, ornaments and our leather sofa which we will have to throw away.
The customer service for managing this issue has been really poor. Its now 2 months since our arrival date and the NZ office are making no progress. I am chasing weekly for an update and apparently ‘staff leaving’ is the excuse I have been given for the lack of response. The UK office aren’t much help either as they simply forward my email to my NZ contact in a ‘cut and paste’ fashion ask for an update. I have been told to hold onto the trashed items for the claim, so we can’t dispose of them and this is dragging on and on. It seems once they have your payment then their interest in resolving problems is low priority. I don’t feel I have much leverage other than the small claims option. What a hassle!
Better safe and AVOID than sorry.
Nightmare from start to finish. Not one step was without extra cost, despair, or panic. I promise you, you're better going elsewhere.
Prices don't add up.
After undertaking on online quote of £938 ex vat (£1,125) we had a visit from a very nice lady whom subsequently quoted £2,887.20 that did NOT include any insurance. Only my wife and I live in this 2-bedroom flat and are not moving fridge, freezer, washing machine, etc. Only one bed, etc. However, I have circa 20 art works/prints, perhaps a few more than a normal flat of this size, half of which are valuable and require extra packaging.
Those few pictures/prints required an additional and frankly mindboggling additional charge of £1,762.
So, there are some serious questions to be asked about the online pricing methods which appear untoward to say the least.
I am shocked by this behaviour from what I thought was a reputable household name and shall be talking to the Trading Standards Office about their business practices.
5 Star Service!
I cannot rate Pickfords highly enough. From the first phone call, to the move on the day, it was extremely professional, courteous and efficient.
On the day, the men were incredibly helpful and polite and nothing was too much trouble.
The also moved me in record time despite the 2 hour distance for relocation!
Will definitely use Pickfords next time I move!
Excellent service!
The service from Charlotte and Chantelle at Pickfords was very efficient and professional right from the initial quote and survey.
The move went extremely well and Barry and his team were brilliant and made a busy stressful event a lot of fun. Incredibly hard working!
A great job so thank you all very much.
Never again.
We used Pickfords to move from the UK to Qatar in 2011. Most of our UK goods were put into storage.
I have to say that their fees were very high, but we assumed that storage, for those prices, would be first class.
In August 2018 we returned to the UK. when we contacted Pickfords we were quoted an exorbitant rate from return of our goods to our old house. This was because they decided to store our goods in Tamworth withour telling us. They were also extremely inflexible about removal dates.
On the day, the biggest removal truck I have ever seen rolled up in our street. This was despite having told Pickfords in advance that we had narrow access to our property.
In addition I told Pickfords that some of the furniture was extremely heavy ironwood, and that it required four guys to remove it from the house back in 2003.
Lo and behold, only two guys appeared in this behemoth.
It was immediately apparent that the storage of our property had been haphazard at best. In effect we had been overcharged for storage during that seven year period, because the containers were not filled properly and one of them was virtually empty.
Wrapping of goods was also erratic. Various items were damaged most notably a very valuable print, worth several thousand pounds. I found it partially wrapped in a bath mat. Not surprisingly the frame was damaged.
The truck did not turn up until midday, so with a crew of only two guys (who were excellent, by the way) I had to muck in and we spent the next six hours lugging goods from the road, down a lane and into our driveway. This was a return journey of 60 metres, which I must have done 50 times, hence it was a bloody long day.
I called Swindon office and they said there was no one available and they would have to finish the move the following day. After a lot of complaining on my part, a crew was diverted from another move to help shift the heavy furniture.
It is also worth pointing out that Pickfords' insurance gives you one week to lodge any claims. This is totally unreasonable. How many people manage to unpack in a week?!
Honestly, I will never use Pickfords again. Their casual indifference to customer service is a disgrace.
Mansfield to East Leake.
Hi Deborah, Everything went well with the move thank you, the team arrived on time with no problems, same at the other end all went to plan, even when I kept directing them to the attic bedroom with all the boxes! My daughter is moving in may so will definitely be recommending yourselves to herThanks for your help Teresa .
Very Professional.
The team were were professional from start to finish and everything was delivered safely to 2 separate addresses.
Fantastic A* Service.
Our recent move could not have been made easier with the help and understanding of Pickfords. Providing all the services we required from packing, storing and transportation overseas they have made a stressful process easier and so organised. Susana Barrajo has been wonderful, a delight to deal with and absolutely nothing is too much trouble.