[Kate]

We are in the process of getting bids from moving companies in the US on container shipping our household goods. They insist that you must have all your items professionally packed as customs will open anything that is labeled "packed by owner". However, I e-mailed NZ Customs about this and this was their reply:
"No New Zealand Customs do not have any interest whether or not you pack the goods. Will not hold up the clearance at all if you pack the goods yourself.

So, was wondering what the customs/MAF experience has been for folks who packed their own goods. I may have them packed anyway......but don't want to be mislead by the moving companies.

Thanks,
Kate

[veronica]

We packed all our own stuff from the ski business we had and a small amount of personal stuff and the customs/maf were only interested in seeing Petes golf stuff and the vacuum cleaner. Its specific things they are interested in not who packed them.

[RoadRunner]

Kate,
I know some shippers will agree to include your packed boxes in their "carrier packed inventory." Usually, you have to leave the box unsealed so they can "inspect it" and seal it themselves. They usually don't spend much time inspecting your boxes though so I plan to self-pack a number of items.

By the way, which shipping companies have you talked to? I've spoken to three so far - Allied Pickfords, Southern Winds, and Trans Global Moving.

I'd love to compare notes - I need to book one in the next week or so.

RoadRunner

[wilson182]

I didnt have a whole container to myself, I actually ended up with 29 boxes, all of which I packed myself.

I had no problems at all, I numbered all the boxes and wrote a packing list detailing what was in the each box. I added notes for things like DH work boots, stating that I had cleaned them etc.. I think on the MAF form I had to state that I had packed the boxes myself, but they had no queries with anything. I could only insure the boxes for total loss though.

I actually prefered packing myself, I worked for a shipping company in England so I had a rough idea of how much stuff I had. I contacted a couple of companies for quotes, Crown never bothered to contact me back, PSS just told me to fill in a form and they would quote from that, and Allied Pickfords (the only ones who bothered to come out to quote) gave me a ridiculous quote for 8cm3. By packing myself I was able to make sure the boxes were completly full, and also saved space by using clothes and towels etc as packing. Everything was fine and there was no damage.

[Radders]

Packed all our stuff ourselves. Kept anything I thought they might be interested in together. They had a look at what they wanted and never opened the other boxes. Charge $80

[Kate]

Hi Roadrunner,

Just wanted to know if you got my PM?

Regards,
Kate

[RoadRunner]

Kate,
Yes, sorry. :oops:

We've been busy getting the house ready to put on the market this week. I'll PM you now...

Cynthia

[T-and-L-PDX]

For members shipping from the US -- we've seen a quote on movingscam.com (a site that gives advice on how to avoid bad moving practices) that US customers cannot self-pack. It appears to be a US security issue not an NZ customs issue.

Is this true? Is that the reason anything self-packed needs to be left unsealed and "inspected" by the moving company?

Thanks.

[selchie]

Kate & Roadrunner, will you share your mover quotes and experiences with us here? I have yet to begin searching for movers & shippers, and would welcome any leads. Thanks.

[Kenny]

One thing to note.

Check your Insurance. One thing we were told is that the Insurance would not cover anything that was packed by us.
It has to be packed by the professionals for it to be covered.

So double check with them first.

[veronica]

we only insured for total loss. it seems to me that when people insure things generally in the big move that the insurance co. always find a reason that they dont have to pay.

[GeorgeM]

it seems to me that when people insure things generally in the big move that the insurance co. always find a reason that they dont have to pay.

We had a disaster with some of our stuff which was moved by Pickfords (see other postings). At the end of the day the insurance company coughed up without any hassle at all (email and digital photos make the whole process far more simple than it must have been years ago) and in the end we almost got back as much as we paid for the cover in the first place.

(It's an odd feeling really - on the one hand I'm glad we had the cover or we would have been loads of money down to replace/repair etc, on the other we would have much rather that the items hadn't been damaged / lost which would have meant we had paid all that money for nothing!)

[Kate]

We have had 2 quotes from full service door to door shippers, ie, they pack everything, load container, ship container, deliver contiaiiner to final destination and unpack everything and handle customs, MAF. The quotes are from Allied and Crown relocations for a 40 ft container from San Francisco to Wellington for an estimated weight of 11,900 pounds, the outbound charge is based on weight. Both quotes are around $13,000 for the full door to door service. We have a 3 bedroom house.....not an excessive amount of furntiure.....but a lot of "stuff" including tools, etc. that add to the weight.

That quote does not include insurance which can run from 2.5% to 2.8 % of the insured value. We may go with the full service as we have to be out of our house much sooner than we planned. We were also much more impressed with the woman from Crown who did our survey, she was much more helpful than the Allied person and got the quote back to us in 2 days, it took Allied 2 weeks to get back to us.

We wont be having our stuff shipped until August, so can post more after we pick a shipper and go through the experience. We have some friends who used Crown from CA to Wellington last year and their experience with them was very good. Also, about the same cost as we were quoted.

...Kate

[Andrew and Donella]

If you want to save some additional money we used a compay in Auckland that took care of all our customs and MAF paper work and arranged the delivery of our container to our house. They quantified ort services charges, we only paid the actual MAF fees and they were really efficient.

Try them

Contact customerservice@relocationnz.com