Crown Relocations HQ

DO NOT TRUST THIS COMPANY if you are moving from Auckland. Do not think that their worldwide image make them better than the others, they are actually worse, they do not communicate, their service is very poor, they take no accountability with their own mistakes and will always manage to make sure that you pay more, more, and more, having your belongings in hostage which gives you pretty much no leeway to negotiate.

Here is my story with Crown Relocation NZ.

Back in late 2021, I have received and accepted a quote for a move from Auckland to Montreal. 4 months later, once my visa for Canada was granted, I gave the green light for a departure. However the price had doubled during this period, according to them (I did a due diligence to check this and could not find such price increase from other companies). Problem, I was not in the country anymore and had already paid to Crown the full amount. On request, they agreed to let me go with another company but would hold 60% of the cost for their local charges (ridiculous, providing the worldwide shipping costs). No supporting documents, no breakdown were given to justify the price increase, not even an invoice, just a request to pay the amount otherwise the container would not be shipped. So I had no choice but to pay and I swore myself it would be the last one.

This was just the beginning. Second surprise, I was told at the time of the offer that the service would be fully executed by Crown in Canada and that was one of the reason I should chose them rather than the others, because they have a worldwide service and would not subcontract the local destination handling. Guess what, all local handling has been subcontracted to a local company.

Third surprise, without rational and against the advises from the local agent, Crown unilaterally decided to ship the container through Toronto while it could have been shipped straight to Montreal, without incurring extra time. Correspondences between the local agent and Crown prove that the knowledge of the local agent was correct, Toronto port was congested and the container has been sitting there for days.

Fourth surprise, once the container was finally shipped to Montreal, the local agent took it in its premises. The following day, the container was custom cleared in 15 minutes, however delivery was put on hold due to additional storage and demurrage costs to be paid due to the Toronto stopover. Guess what ?

The situation is stuck and Crown Relocations are now asking me (the customer) to pay for those charges (Crown mistake) with a company I have no contract with. What a lack of professionalism, what a lack of business management. Who will send money to a company without being sure where it goes and without having the assurance that the container will effectively be delivered ?

Let’s be serious, all this is a mockery and absolute madness.

Move size: 3 Bedroom Home Service cost: $30000

We have travelled 8 different countries with over 300boxs.

Whne we hired Crown for $15,000 NZD they were meant to pack our belongings professionally.

Sadly we received more the 50 percent broken and smashed just because thier workers couldn't pack them as per thier agreement.

All I got was a sorey and compensation that doesn't even cover quarter of thier prices :(

Tromotized by thier service. Hope no one ever has to go through what we have to...

Also they didn't even give us a full written box list as we found more numbers then they stated on thier list.

Move size: 3 Bedroom Home Service cost: $15000

Crown Relocations charged me a tidy $13,000 to move from Wellington to Christchurch more than a month ago. And that had to be paid a week before they will do the actual uplift. These were what I had experienced with the move.

1. Some of the boxes were not professionally packed. Items were simply stuffed into the boxes without proper wrappings.

2. Boxes were illegibly scribbled making it difficult to determine to which room they had to be moved to. Had a stressful time with the unpacking and trying to sort out the items.

3. Bolts to the beds were not placed properly. Had to open all the boxes to search for them. Even then the bolts for the master bed could not be found. Had to go without the bed for a couple of nights until I had to buy the bolts from Bunnings myself.

4 TV cabinet arrived broken.

5. Adapter for the speaker was broken.

6 Baten for the standing lamp was also broken.

They accept no responsibility and were quick to tell me to make a claim from my own insurance. With all these faults can Crown Relocations still claim to be a careful mover and will take good care of your contents?

Move size: 3 Bedroom Home Service cost: $13000

All this is from the perspective of Crown Delivering our items from another terrible provider in SA, moving from South Africa to New Zealand.

1. Prior to any delivery, my fiancé had to constantly follow up as to the location of the container and dates were always being changed regarding delivery.

2. They were scheduled to arrive at 9AM on Friday, we had to constantly call for updates as the team did not arrive until 12:30PM after getting the "They will be there soon" excuse every time we called

3. The Team left before completing the job because the day was ending(due to them being late).

We had to spend the entire weekend unpacking and opening up everything they left to not have the house in a state of chaos for the coming week. So we did not get the service we paid a lot of money for and ended up doing the work ourselves.

4. We were promised they would be back on Monday morning first thing to finish the Job. They only arrived on Monday at 4:15 PM to remove all the boxes and shipping trash left behind after constantly calling from the morning around 9AM again to find out where the team will be and getting the "They will be there soon" response.

5. Items got delivered that weren't ours and some of our items were missing, so I suspect our boxes got mixed up. When the guys finally did arrive they didn't have any packing materials to take the items back that weren't ours and I have a feeling our missing items will forever be missing.

In summary, terrible to no communication, we had to constantly chase them and follow up. Terrible service overall with a lot of work they were paid for not being done that we had to end up doing ourselves. I will definitely not use Crown again in future if this is the level of service I can expect, and I will dissuade anyone I can from using them.

Move size: 2 Bedroom Home Service cost: $11000

I would give zero stars if I could. Paid them an exorbitant $12500 to move our life from NZ to UK. It has been over 3 months since they picked up the container and absolutely no further progress. They told me at one stage they had a booking, then they backtracked and said nobody can get any bookings. It's a cube; how hard can it be to book space on a ship. They are now telling us that prices have gone up and we owe them another $1500 - for what? They have done nothing as far as I'm concerned, and they simply don't care to do anything. Can't get any sense out of them at all. My advice if you're looking for a shipping company - look elsewhere.

Move size: Partial Move Service cost: $15000