Bekins World Wide Moving

Great service from Bekins World Wide from my residence in North Vancouver to London, U.K. they had someone come over to my place to asses my move and provided me a quote promptly. The cost did increase slightly but to be fair I did add additional items from what I showed the chap that came over. The movers were very friendly and experienced.

The treatment that I have is a great violation on all levels with the symptoms of organized criminal activity. I was moving to Europe in July 2021 and Bekins from Surrey BC was to provide for me door-to door service. I was asked to email my inventory lists and pay before they could start the moving process. On the day of the move I had majority of my belongings packed but because I gave up taking my car with me, I decided to pack more goods that I was attached to so I still kept on packing boxes. The driver of the 5 ton track who came to move my belongings to be loaded into a shipping container was OK with me packing more boxes and offered help with my packing as he hired local helpers for the job so when they were loading I continued my packing. But, at some point, they started taking more time to come back to the house for more items to load and when the driver returned he said to me that he will not take more of my goods as he had limit on weight and time. The truck was less than 2/3 full and I could not believe that my boxes with everything in them plus few pieces of furniture weighted 5 tons but he left suggesting that I hire a loco company to deliver the rest of my goods. I called the manager and he said that the rest of my items must be delivered at my own cost and he added 'you have food in your boxes and it is illegal'. I assured him that the food items I packed are allowed in my destination country without restrictions and I packed them to support myself for a long time without having a job. It was evident that the driver who came to move my belongings was opening my boxes and snooping in them before he left my property. I was forced to pay additional several thousands of dollars to move the rest of my belongings. The next thing I heard is from the Bekins secretary 'I really hope that you don´t have in there things you shouldn't have. We have to repack your boxes'. I could not believe what I heard. I asked them not to touch my boxes as I had them packed in a specific way and I didn't have anything illegal in them as I was in contact with the customs on several occasions due to the transport and documentation required for a very personal item and I was perfectly informed about moving of all sort of goods. The next excuse for giving themselves the right to snoop in my boxes on full scale was the making detailed itemized list as they said 'your lists were misdeclared'. I prepared several inventory lists but did not list every item in every box as it would take an inventory of the size of Encyclopedia Britannica and I was ready to answer all questions for the customs if I needed to. Bekins sent me later several pages of their 'inventory' lists with my signature on them mysteriously obtained, as I did not sign their, lists that show many repetitions of the same items to show for the detailed work with no items that I declared, and no lists prepared by me were attached . When I started questioning the additional charges, I was told that the second truck brought 1 ton of my goods and together it made 8 tons of goods and the money I paid is not enough. After I asked about the clarification of the strange math (how not fully loaded 5 ton truck and a second delivery of 1 ton came to 8 tons. I received an answer that my 'container # has shipped' and information that I am to contact their agent in the destination country for delivery to my residence for which the agent was to charge me directly 1720 euros... After that there was no communication except one email from the manager that saying that he could have kept my belongings in his warehouse at $1500/month until I send him proper inventory lists. I was in shock but I didn't know how devastated I was to be after the container arrived, boxes were unloaded and later opened. Bekins held my belongings back for almost a month and a half and opened every single box of mine in their warehouse and checked every item in every box. They even removed pictures from the frames looking for something they believed I could have hidden in there. All of my valuables are no longer in my boxes; gifts from my son are gone (my son passed away and those things were precious to me), expensive camping equipment is gone, electronics, all silver jewelry, art pieces, expensive expedition clothes and equipment, new personal care items - all of it is gone. Whatever items they removed from one box, they never put back in the same box. They threw the contents in their own boxes mixed up disgracefully (food items with garden tools and cat bedding with liquid soap poured over them)... There is no good rating for the service they gave me and the thousands of dollars of material losses they brought upon me. The emotional loses they put me through can never be healed.Read more

They were thorough, professional, and helpful. The final price ended up being within a couple hundred dollars of the quote which was fantastic. No surprises. And they have a designated person that you can talk to throughout the entire process.

I assume Bekins is similar to most companies, but their pricing is anything but transparent. You will receive a quote but use the best 'guess' as a low estimate that will ultimately lead to additional charges.

It all starts with the shipping volume estimate that appears to be purposely low in order to lock you into a contract. You are never given any indication of what additional volume will cost, but by the time you're told, your belongings are already packed and on the truck. In my case, the first estimate was 456 cu ft. at the cost of $13,585.08 CAD. A second estimate was 650 cu ft. at the cost of $13,661.80 CAD. So the difference in adding 194 cu ft. was $76.72 CAD. Now, that would have been awesome, but the movers made little attempt to pack efficiently as they were in a hurry (the driver was impatiently waiting), so the charged volume measured in the container was NOT the volume of the actual shipment. In the end, we were charged about $1000 more. I should add that after the second 'estimate,' we removed a large dining room table, six chairs, and a number of items. Even with this, the estimate skyrocketed once the truck was loaded.

I should note that for some unexplained reason, Bekins changed the services included/excluded from one quote to the next. Predictably, the exclusions were most restrictive on the final quote.

On the day of the move, we were happy with the movers, but Bekins and, I assume, most other shippers have the ability to increase the movers 'cost' with no reasonable explanation. If you refuse to pay, they have already have possession of your belongings so, what can the consumer do? I did find it telling that even the physical movers told us that the final volume is always over the quote.

So, I guess the problem is, first, with the incredibly poor volume estimation that, as I said, appears to be a low ball number in order to secure a customer. It's that, or the company needs to retrain/rehire competent staff. The second issue to the lack of transparency with pricing. You are NEVER told what the extra volume price is until after everything is loaded and on its way. And, you're not permitted to confirm the actual volume of the shipment.

All of these claims can be confirmed as I have the actual quotes with prices and the final bills. One more thing, Bekins charges you an extra 2% to pay with a credit card so you'd better carry around 140 - 150 hundred dollar bills to avoid this charge too.Read more