A ace removals Shoddy, Rude, Dishonest - two Michaels charming initially. Rathcoole Leinster

I used AACE to ship my stuff to Australia in 2014. I agree with the other reports about the initial charm offensive. I was too angry to write anything about this until now 3 years later. I also don't want to write reams and reams of complaint. Bottom line my wedding ring and my iPod got 'lost' during packing. This was despite my specific request for them to leave my bedroom to LAST when commencing the job. I had to work on the first morning of the 3 day packing job so the items got 'lost' during the only time I wasn't around to supervise. Of course the response "they must have been packed" to my discovering they were missing is impossible to check until 6 weeks later when unpacking happens in a different country. Our passports were also "packed" and only recovered after a frantic search. We wouldn't have been able to travel if we hadn't recovered them. Again they were in the bedroom I had requested be left for last. I'm very suspicious about the haste to pack the bedroom and wonder if any other customers have had a similar experience.

We were told a hot tub we had wasn't suitable for shipping after they had taken it from our house to their depot. We then had MONTHS of relatives in Ireland trying to recover our property. When eventually my brother did recover it he was charged a "storage fee". The tub turned out to be fine and would have shipped easily. There was a h*o haa about an export document for one of my cars without which I wouldn't have been able to apply for the VRT rebate which was worth thousands of euros. I eventually had to get it from the Dublin Port company who had a carbon copy of the AACE driver's original. The person/Lady on reception at AACE treats every request for help/information like a personal insult. She told me that shipping our cars and hot tub in the condition we delivered them would "damage the reputation of their company". What a laugh!

I'm not sure what their reason was for not shipping the tub - the reluctance to return it supports my pet theory that I won't document. With the cars we had to pay extra for a couple of cleaning procedures and this appears to be a common scam as it happened at the Australian end too as we were informed the cars had to be "steam cleaned" for a fee there also - the cars were actually covered in dust when we picked them up in the warehouse and we watched them being driven out of the container.

So to be fair to AACE the shipping trade in general does appear to take advantage of the fact that they have possession your stuff. They appear to be able to add in extra charges at the last minute and if you dispute them they can charge you "storage fees" ($600 dollars per day in Melbourne) while the dispute is being adjudicated so you just pay up. So standards in the trade appear to be low in general but the specific issues I've mentioned above including un-professionalism (at best - I obviously can't suggest in a public forum that anything happened my wedding ring and iPod other than being "lost"), poor communication, rudeness and borderline thuggery (we, at one stage, arranged for a family friend who was a retired policeman to try and get back our tub - HE was told to bugger off too!). Persistence eventually wore them down and my brother got it back about a year later!

So bottom line is sell your stuff rather than shipping it if you want to avoid the bureaucracy and the thievery of shippers, agents and port workers.

If you have to ship stuff my advice is don't go for the best deal as it will cost you more financially and mentally in the long run. Choose the oldest most reputable company and PAY THE MONEY. You'll be glad in the end. Avoid the cheapo rip-off artists.