Shipping to the U.K.? - Beware of Olytrans
Posted: Sun 18 Mar 2018 9:05 am
UPDATE: Olytrans now say that their surveyor over estimated our volume by almost 50% but they still charge us for the surveyors original estimate! They ran out of other excuses (after 5 months) for losing 13 of our biggest pieces and would sooner admit to overcharging us than losing our possessions. I wonder how many others they have overcharged? They haven't apologised for that or offered us a refund either. We know that these 13 items were never shipped their own documents (which they sent us) is proof of that!
We used this company (Olytrans) to ship our personal effects back to the UK. Their surveyor came to our villa to assess our volume and then they sent us an email quoting a revised volume and cost for door to door. 3 days later they collected our effects and within a fortnight they were in a container heading home (part load with 3 others). The delivery in the U.K. was to our storage locker with other personal items already there.
The UK delivery was completed by a well known U.K. company (Greens) and we were told the delivery was complete.
We should have had a happy ending to this story but instead were devastated when we went to empty the locker and found that 13 large pieces from the inventory were missing. The UK agent told us that they received and delivered 2 pallets. Agreed that's exactly what they did. But their failure was to go against company procedure by unloading and withholding the paperwork from our daughter in law until everything was stored and only then gave her the paperwork to sign when finished! (she was told they took care of everything!). That was our biggest mistake but having said that we now know our 13 missing pieces never left this island and would have been long gone by the time the delivery was made.
We questioned this shipper, first they insisted everything was delivered - our storage locker must have been broken in to (would you take 3 suitcases and leave an Hitachi SMART TV?).
They sent all their paperwork to us to prove delivery and this is what we found:
Of the 46 pieces collected 13 are missing. Listed on page 2 of their inventory was 16 items. Only 3 of those were in our locker!
We received an email quoting the Volume assessed at 8.5cbm and a price which we paid after they received our effects at their depot! We never received an email or phone call advising us they'd made an error in their calculation.
Their Bill of Lading showing they shipped 2 pallets at a volume of 4.5cbm (not once did anyone from the company call us to advise us of the mistake, apologise or offer a refund). Only now do they say they made a mistake in calculating the volume. That's almost a 50% mistake (impossible to do and confirmed by another shipper).
The shipper included a copy of their spreadsheet identifying what was on each pallet. Pallet 2 had 17 pieces. Pallet 1 however had 29. Only 6 of these were small. The rest were extra large, large pieces. Absolutely not possible! We took the maximum size of a pallet and the maximum height and calculated the stacked volume (even being generous to this shipper there is no way those 29 pieces would fit on to one pallet). But they told us they're expert at stacking pallets!
They sent us customs documents signed which they insist that customs counted the pieces before they were loaded but again I checked with another shipper here who told me that customs don't always watch or count what is loaded it's done on trust!
The Bill of Lading itself doesn't add up (again the shipper sent us an email identifying the volume of each separate part shipment). The email identifies a total of 19.5cbm. The Bill of Lading identifies a total of 24cbm. That a difference of 4.5cbm. The difference in what the shipper assessed we had and now say was wrong is 4cbm??
To give you an idea of what we lost:
We have lost: 3 extra large suitcases full of Linen and blue silk curtains made by Mermaid, bed linens and some clothes.
An extra large plastic container (150ltr) full of craft tools and resources worth over £1000, 3 large containers of commissioned and framed paintings, silk batiks, leaf paintings (very rare Arabic scenes) cross stitch pictures on heirloom Linen and so much more!
3 extra large tool boxes - full of tools
Indonesian large carved wood framed mirror with chicken hutch doors
A Clothes hanging box which among other things contained very large ceramic ginger jars (yellow, green and blue).
A large box of ceramics
The most priceless and devastating loss was a teddy bear. Not a Steif just a falling apart, filled with straw big old (66 years old) brown teddy bear who has been with me from birth....
Yes we made the mistake of not being there to receive our effects, we have paid dearly for that. We put our trust in this shipper but we would never do that again!
This shipper won't even acknowledge they made mistakes and openly admitted that they “OVER CHARGED US”! Because they won’t admit they list our belongings! Basically they don't want to know even though their own paperwork is proof against them!
We used this company (Olytrans) to ship our personal effects back to the UK. Their surveyor came to our villa to assess our volume and then they sent us an email quoting a revised volume and cost for door to door. 3 days later they collected our effects and within a fortnight they were in a container heading home (part load with 3 others). The delivery in the U.K. was to our storage locker with other personal items already there.
The UK delivery was completed by a well known U.K. company (Greens) and we were told the delivery was complete.
We should have had a happy ending to this story but instead were devastated when we went to empty the locker and found that 13 large pieces from the inventory were missing. The UK agent told us that they received and delivered 2 pallets. Agreed that's exactly what they did. But their failure was to go against company procedure by unloading and withholding the paperwork from our daughter in law until everything was stored and only then gave her the paperwork to sign when finished! (she was told they took care of everything!). That was our biggest mistake but having said that we now know our 13 missing pieces never left this island and would have been long gone by the time the delivery was made.
We questioned this shipper, first they insisted everything was delivered - our storage locker must have been broken in to (would you take 3 suitcases and leave an Hitachi SMART TV?).
They sent all their paperwork to us to prove delivery and this is what we found:
Of the 46 pieces collected 13 are missing. Listed on page 2 of their inventory was 16 items. Only 3 of those were in our locker!
We received an email quoting the Volume assessed at 8.5cbm and a price which we paid after they received our effects at their depot! We never received an email or phone call advising us they'd made an error in their calculation.
Their Bill of Lading showing they shipped 2 pallets at a volume of 4.5cbm (not once did anyone from the company call us to advise us of the mistake, apologise or offer a refund). Only now do they say they made a mistake in calculating the volume. That's almost a 50% mistake (impossible to do and confirmed by another shipper).
The shipper included a copy of their spreadsheet identifying what was on each pallet. Pallet 2 had 17 pieces. Pallet 1 however had 29. Only 6 of these were small. The rest were extra large, large pieces. Absolutely not possible! We took the maximum size of a pallet and the maximum height and calculated the stacked volume (even being generous to this shipper there is no way those 29 pieces would fit on to one pallet). But they told us they're expert at stacking pallets!
They sent us customs documents signed which they insist that customs counted the pieces before they were loaded but again I checked with another shipper here who told me that customs don't always watch or count what is loaded it's done on trust!
The Bill of Lading itself doesn't add up (again the shipper sent us an email identifying the volume of each separate part shipment). The email identifies a total of 19.5cbm. The Bill of Lading identifies a total of 24cbm. That a difference of 4.5cbm. The difference in what the shipper assessed we had and now say was wrong is 4cbm??
To give you an idea of what we lost:
We have lost: 3 extra large suitcases full of Linen and blue silk curtains made by Mermaid, bed linens and some clothes.
An extra large plastic container (150ltr) full of craft tools and resources worth over £1000, 3 large containers of commissioned and framed paintings, silk batiks, leaf paintings (very rare Arabic scenes) cross stitch pictures on heirloom Linen and so much more!
3 extra large tool boxes - full of tools
Indonesian large carved wood framed mirror with chicken hutch doors
A Clothes hanging box which among other things contained very large ceramic ginger jars (yellow, green and blue).
A large box of ceramics
The most priceless and devastating loss was a teddy bear. Not a Steif just a falling apart, filled with straw big old (66 years old) brown teddy bear who has been with me from birth....
Yes we made the mistake of not being there to receive our effects, we have paid dearly for that. We put our trust in this shipper but we would never do that again!
This shipper won't even acknowledge they made mistakes and openly admitted that they “OVER CHARGED US”! Because they won’t admit they list our belongings! Basically they don't want to know even though their own paperwork is proof against them!