Thu 5 Oct 2006
Listening To: Endtroducing : DJ Shadow
Current Horn Factor :
Quote of The Day
ooze take a hot swedish chick from behind, bend over to her ear.
ooze and whisper “i have aids”, then try to keep your penis inside of her.
ooze thats swedish rodeo
What did you guys get up to on the long weekend ? IG and myself moved house. Two words - fucking nightmare !
It should have been easy - we were only moving 5 minutes down the road from Bondi to Woohlarra. True, there was an additional step at the start of the move which involved picking up a small amount of furniture from my self-storage unit in Castle Hill first (near my parents house), but this should have been no hassle for the removalists. I’d used them before, to move from the apartment I’d been sharing with the fat Wiccan chick and her two cats in Artarmon to Bondi. I’d been more than happy with their service on that occassion, which is why I decided to go with them again this time around.
Now, I had to extract the furniture they would be required to pick up from Castle Hill out of the storage unit and get everything else back before they arrived, so I got there two hours earlier to give myself enough time to achieve this task. Therefore I was definitely not impressed when their receptionist rang me a little later to say that the truck would be anywhere between two to two and a half hours late. Sure enough, an hour after the original designated arrival time (and 3 hours after I’d arrived on the scene, for those playing at home) they still hadn’t shown up, so I gave their office a call and got the receptionist to concede to giving me an hours worth of their time at no charge.
Two and a half hours after the truck had been scheduled to arrive (i.e. 4 1/2 hours of my life wasted waiting around at a storage depot) they finally turn up. They take a look at the pile of furniture I’ve managed to drag out of the storage unit. “Is not too much. How many floor at destination ?” they ask me. I’m not entirely sure, having only been to our new place a handfull of times prior to that morning. “Umm, I think it’s 5 flights of stairs” I hazard a guess. “Fifth floor withou a lift ? You fukkin kidding me, right ?” says the driver. “No, there’s no lift. I think it’s the fifth floor, yeah. It’s up the top” I reply. “There an extra charge for that” he tells me. “Ok fair enough. Look, Jack (their receptionist) was telling me I get an hour free since you guys are more than two hours late. I don’t want to pay any extra charge just because you have to walk a few flights of stairs. So how about we forget the free hour and I pay you for all your time, but you waive the ‘extra stairs charge’ ?” I offer. Unfortunately, this is where the situation completely breaks down.
The removalists start bitching about the free hour, even though I’ve just wasted 4 1/2 hours of my freakin’ time waiting for them to show up. They say Jack should never have offerred it, and it doesn’t matter that they’re late. They bitch about the stairs. They get on the phone to their boss and speak in Chinese. Their boss gets on the phone to me and tries to make me feel bad because I didn’t tell them it was going to be five flights of stairs when I made the booking. I point out to him that it’s not my fault, because he didn’t bother to ask me how high it was when I made the booking with him. He says he’ll speak to Jack and hangs up on me. Then he calls them again. They bitch some more.
Then the fucktards come over to me and tell me “so sorry mate, but we no do the job. You get someone else, uh ? Pay extra maybe, but you get someone else. We no do”.
Well sodomise me with a cricket post and call me Warney ! It’s 3 o’clock on a Saturday afternoon, on a long weekend with not one but two football code grandfinals (AFL & NRL) looming … these little lotus-eating Chinese pricks know my chances of finding replacement removalists on such short notice are virtually nil, never mind the expense I would have to foot if I did actually manage to convice someone else to take the job. I just want to plunge red-hot BBQ tongs into the drivers eyeballs until they enter his brain, and dangle his offsider naked and smeared with pig’s blood over a pool of hungry freshwater crocs (true Aussie style torture in keeping with the spirit of the weekend) - but I keep my outward calm and tell them “no, look … that’s fine. Shit happens buddy”. Consumer affairs and the blogosphere will be hearing about this - no point in getting into a blue when I still have to figure out a way to move all our stuff today, and I’ve got maybe 3 hours of daylight left.
Anyhow, to cut a long story short, I ended up hiring a ute from Kennards and moving all the furniture myself with the help of my mate G and his girlfriend C. Turns out I was wrong about our new building too … there are 6 flights of stairs, but it’s only 3 floors (two flights a floor). Basically, those removalists belong on the Chinese Womens Olympic Swim Team, because they’re big bloody girls !!! If a puny specimen like me (and my mate G, who’s ex-army and built like a brick shithouse … but the point is he was the only one even remotely equipped for shifting furniture) can get everything loaded up on the ute on his own (the first trip) and up those stairs with help (the first and 2 subsequent trips), then the non-effort by A2A Removals is just piss-weak.
Let that be a lesson to you gang, and pass this word around - NEVER EVER USE A2A REMOVALS WHEN YOU’RE MOVING HOUSE - THEY ARE LIKELY TO PISS YOU AROUND, DEMAND MORE MONEY THAN ORIGINALLY AGREED, AND POTENTIALLY LEAVE YOU COMPLETELY HIGH-AND-DRY, MEANING YOU HAVE TO END UP MOVING EVERYTHING YOURSELF.
 And they’re big nancy girls too !
October 5th, 2006 at 2:05 pm
What a nightmare.
I hope you saved yourself some cash by doing it yourself.
October 5th, 2006 at 2:10 pm
Yes, it only cost me just over 150 bucks for the ute, whereas it would have probably cost around 180 for 3 hours of removalists. So … I saved … but not that much …
June 14th, 2007 at 3:47 pm
I second you dear on NOT using A2A removals. It is surely my fault to use them at the first place even after reading your remarks. I thought you had a bad experience because your stuff needed to be picked up from different place and also they did not know in advance that there are stairs. My move was simple and I went through the experience which I like to share with you guys so no one ever use these bastards.
My move was from a unit to a house and I packed everything in boxes before they even arrived. I booked the move at 9:00 AM. They knocked my door at 9:10 AM which was impressive and then started moving. I helped them moving stuff to save some time for move. Now after loading they followed me to the destination and I helped them download stuff as well. The whole move was good and we finished at exact 12:05 PM. They sure slowed down at the end fighting with each other in Chinese and talking on the phone as well for atleast 20 min. When the payment came they told me to pay for 3.5 hours instead of 3. I told them that the move took exactly 3 hours and why I need to pay extra. First they said that “My clock NO right” and then switched their statement to a rule saying that they charge for half an hour because it was 5 minutes after the new hour(12:00) started. I told them that they came 10 minultes late as well, but they were really after that extra half an hour. I was excited about the move and did not debate more with them and gave them 3.5 hours wage.
Then they turned around and demanded tip from me which really started to updet me as I have already paid them extra. I gave them no tip which I would have if they stick to their honest work of 3 hours.
Now comes the main part which really pissed me off. My 4GB MP3 player($120) was gone along with the charger from one of the boxes. I know for sure I charged it just before the move and placed in one of the open boxes. I wanted to give them the benefit of doubt that it could have been fallen or trashed etc, but it is quite unlikely that only the complete MP3 device with attached headphones and charger is lost just like that.
Based on this experience I would not recommend A2A removals to anyone because mainly they are not honest and I am sure they make you pay extra by just working around the clock in a way that is not fair. Then the missing item is hard to believe as lost by me because I use it everyday and I myself put it in a box with other items. I would say there is 80% chance that they have taken it, but what scares me the most is that it could have been one of the other valuable item which costs more than 100 dollars.
Why take a risk in your move when there are other options. When they were discussing stuff with me for extra wage etc. I thought of their review and believed it totally that they are most of all not reliable and definitely not professional.
June 18th, 2007 at 2:19 pm
Wow ! That’s a very old post now, but thanks for the comment. It’s a shame to hear they are up to their old tricks, and doesn’t surprise me that you had a bad experience with them.
April 4th, 2008 at 11:44 am
Hey,
thanks for the heads up on A2A. We’re looking for removalist quotes and after reading your experiences we won’t go near these guys!
John
June 4th, 2008 at 7:55 pm
Dont use MIKE MURPHY REMOVALISTS. i did and they chipped door frames, scratched the floor and broke the leg on a cupboard. and they didn’t care!!!!!
bastards, also spent the whole time swearing and acting like complete tossers… its not like we weren’t paying them to do the job!!!