Britannia Sandersteads - Exported My Belongings and Threatened to Sell Them
Sanderstead Removals Limited (trading as Britannia Sandersteads) exported my belongings out of the UK to the EU (Germany) without my knowledge or consent, having cancelled a day of packing at the last minute (but did not deduct the cost). They then refused to tell me where my belongings were and threatened to sell them (after they had been paid a £3,700 deposit in advance). After they exported my belongings (which I did not know about) they emailed me to say that they had increased the cost from over £8,000 to over £11,000 (they had done a comprehensive home survey visit in person yet stated that the volume was a huge 50% greater than what they had quoted for). It is not a question of what is damaged, it is more a question of what didn’t they damage after my belongings were literally stuffed like sardines into a van, unsecured and mostly without any protection, with garden tools just thrown loose on top of antiques with no protection at all and left to rub against the furniture during transport (see photos), perhaps not surprising as the majority of their crew were school leavers (presumably much cheaper than experienced and suitably qualified men). Despite my prior insistence that my property was insured (when initially querying their packing materials cost they informed me that if they did not pack I would not be insured - I said my property must be insured), they told me via email that my goods were in another country and had not been insured. I am left with a permanent scar from a deep cut on my hand after they literally threw a kitchen knife block with seven extremely sharp knives loose into a box, unsecured, with no wrapping and concealed with all of the other items thrown in the box. AFTER I had paid a further £5,000 under protest (against the advice of my solicitor and whilst having to arrange for another company to retrieve my belongings from Germany to take them to my country of destination), they said “yeah, I do know where your stuff is but I’m not going to tell you.” This was after they claimed that they could not tell me because all of their computers were down - I had challenged him (their Operations Manager) and said that I didn’t believe him and he knew exactly where my belongings were. He also said that he had looked me up on the internet and he viciously taunted me about the closure of my company, saying “you are obviously no good at what you do.” I am left deeply traumatised (feeling like I have paid to be burgled and mentally abused) and am now facing an unpleasant legal battle after they have ignored an email requesting copies of the export declaration documentation that they fraudulently presented to the UK Customs, in order to unlawfully remove my belongings from the UK without my knowledge or agreement. A few days after packing I telephoned to confirm that my belongings were stored in their depot in Godstone, as agreed only five days earlier and recorded via email, and the woman confirmed that this was the case. I now know that she lied as their German sub-contractor has since confirmed by email that they collected my belongings from Britannia Sanderstead’s depot in Godstone and exported them prior to the date of this call. I had previously emailed their director (they are in fact a small family run firm operating under the Britannia ‘members’ scheme - there are numerous replies from ‘Britannia Movers’ here, asking reviewers which branch they are referring to) who replied by email, stating that he “was happy with the way his team were dealing with it”, so the director of the company was fully aware. Their chief problem stemmed from the fact that they were not sufficiently versed in overseas customs (they simply sub-contract without knowing the intricacies themselves). I had been advised that based on my foreign dual citizenship I would not have to pay customs duty. Their operations manager had shouted at me, accusing me of “looking up stuff on the internet” and telling me that I didn’t know what I was doing and “your stuff will be confiscated” - I can’t help but wonder if he would have done any of this to a man. He was wrong as I did not pay customs and I have the documentation to prove it. Clearly it was them who did not know what they were doing. These were not just ‘belongings’, my belongings are my entire life, from photographs of my children and family and keepsakes that have been collected over forty years, to cherished pieces of furniture from my childhood and gifts from those whose memories I cherish who are no longer with us.