>
Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 21:46:35 +0100
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> I don't have much to move, no furniture, just clothes
> and some personal belongings. I have seen the links to
> the moving companies suggested however, as I don't
> have too much, yet too much to take on the plane, has
> anyone ever done or heard about sharing a container
> with someone?
That's what actually all of the companies listed end up doing.
> I have no clue;-(( how many square
> meters or I blieve cubic meters I would have but maybe
> someone could give me an idea, again considering just
> clothes and personal things. I'm thinking I could
> maybe fill 10 suitcases or so, maybe a bit more.
Many or all of the companies charge primarily by volume, so it's a
good idea to estimate that first (we dreaded that part of the work,
but ended up spending about 15 minutes to get an estimate that was
within about a factor of 2 of the correct value). 10 suitcases work
out to about 1m^3, BTW, but we found that our initial estimate was a
bit on the low side.
If you're very price sensitive, Accord Export Lines might be a good
bet. The owner, Mike Ansari, gave me a price quote that was
considerably lower than the other two services I asked, and he seemed
very flexible as to what service he will provide. That means, if you
want the lowest price, you can bring your packed boxes to his
warehouse in San Francisco and choose whether you want them palletized
or crated. If you want the boxes picked up, he'll arrange for that &
you'll pay extra. Similarly, at the destination, you either pick up
from Basel or pay the destination company (Cargoline) to deliver to
your place. All the rates quoted were very reasonable; the primary
reason we did not pick this company is that the delivery basically
works by putting your crate of boxes on the sidewalk in front of your
place. We wanted some more help than that, and went with a different
company.
We ended up going with Swiss Moving Service. They basically work with
a similar setup (you choose & pay for the level of services provided),
but their rates are somewhat higher. They also had a minimum volume
(not sure if they would have transported a smaller volume, at a higher
price). They did carry the boxes into our basement, which given the
number and weight was a big advantage. The other advantage turned out
to be that Swiss Moving Service is a Swiss (Zurich) based company with
US partners, while Accord Export is an US company with Swiss partners.
In our move, the US partner had misquoted the shipping volume as being
almost twice what it actually was. Having kept my own set of books
about this, I questioned the figures, and Swiss Moving did their own
measurements upon arrival, which saved us a considerable amount of
money. I suspect that in disputes like this, it's somewhat easier if
the primary moving company is at the destination.
All three companies we asked for quotes responded within 3 days or so,
even though we didn't even have a volume estimate yet.
Hope this helps
Matthias
Received on Mon Nov 19 2007 - 12:57:41 PST
