Shipping Company Misleading Quotation

[destino]

Hey there, I recently contacted a shipping company to send my belonguings from UK to Brazil. On contact after carefully measuring my boxes and weighing them they gave me a quotation of £360 which was much cheaper than other companies so I called in to make sure that there were no hidden costs etc, and they assured me there weren't. So I booked the company to come collect my things and once there they send me an invoice of over £700 which is double the ammount they quoted. Do I have any rights to contest this? I keep sending emails to them but nothing is getting resolved and now not only they are ignoring my emails but are starting to charge me extra for storing my things. I want to call someone who is in charge and try and sort this out but first I wanted to know what are my rights here and what should I say?
Thanks

[Sapphire]

Re: Shipping Company Misleading Quotation

Hiya

When they measured the boxes did they say anything about volumetric charge ? Basically what it means is that the carriers charge on the actual weight or volumetric weight whatever is the greatest.

If you can give me the measurements of each package and tell me who the carrier was I may be able to tell you what the volumetric works out at if its one of our carriers.

It may also be that your goods were subject to a duties and taxes charge, this needs to be paid before they will be delivered. If you can scan the invoice and post on here I'll take a look for you, please remove your personal information first.

[destino]

Re: Shipping Company Misleading Quotation

The company is Amiri Cargo and the measurements are as follows:
1 packages --- 59cm x 38cm x 25cm. Total weight= 15Kg
1 packages --- 59cm x 32cm x 37cm. Total weight= 18Kg
1 packages --- 90cm x 75cm x 27cm. Total weight= 40Kg
1 packages --- 60cm x 35cm x 33cm. Total weight= 20Kg
1 packages --- 60cm x 40cm x 35cm. Total weight= 20Kg
1 packages --- 70cm x 40cm x 30cm. Total weight= 21Kg
1 packages --- 108cm x 39cm x 11cm. Total weight= 7Kg
1 packages --- 103cm x 62cm x 52cm. Total weight= 20Kg
1 packages --- 83cm x 63cm x 18cm. Total weight= 15Kg
2 packages --- 32cm x 60cm x 33cm. Total weight= 36Kg
1 packages --- 31cm x 49cm x 31cm. Total weight= 8Kg
1 packages --- 32cm x 32cm x 30cm. Total weight= 7Kg

And this is the quote he sent me:

Quote ID: From: To: Weight: CBM: Mode: Type: Valid until:

16856 London (ALL) Brazil, Curitiba 227 1.223 Sea Freight to Dest. Port Personal Fri Nov 30 2012

Your price: £ 364.18

Now he is saying that exact volume is 2.36 cubic meters and that it was palletised, that all items over 70kg should be palletised so in my opinion something that he should have already put in the quotation.

Now I know that I have measured and remeasured my boxes many times and the size is correct. I don't know how to calculate volume so I trusted his calculations which have now doubled in size and it cant be because of the pallet as this only measures 0.14 cubic meters. And even if it was is a factor that he should have accounted for in the quote am I right?

So now I have this boxes and not enough money to send them, and if the original quote had been £700 I would have gone through them and sent half of the stuff as it is the only thing I can't afford. I am not in the country anymore so they are saying that I can send a representative to measure the shipment and I don't have anyone to send. And is not that I am not trusting their measurements, I just don't understand how they could have gotten the quote so wrong. And instead of explainging this to me they just keep repeating themselves and now are not even emailing me anymore exept to tell me about additional storage charges.

[Bill-K]

Re: Shipping Company Misleading Quotation

Hi destino. This is Sapphire's line of business, so I'm just chipping in with some maths in case it helps.
The total weight of the packages is 227 Kg., which agrees with the invoiced weight.
The total volume of the packages is 1.159151 cubic metres.

Subject to Sapphire's comments, I would guess that because the packages are all different sizes, then they will not pack tightly on to a pallet. There is probably a computer program that calculates the optimum way to pack the pallet, and then eventual total volume of the entire palleted shipment. This will likely be more than the total volume of the individual packages, as there will be spaces between some packages.

I suspect that the CBM of 1.223 shown in the quote may be this palleted volume, ie., 1.223 cu. metres ? This seems reasonable to me. How they can arrive at 2.36 cu. metres I do not know.

I'm not sure that your size of 0.14 cu. metres is correct, as this seems tiny. I suspect this should have read 1.4 cu. metres, in which case it seems like you are being charged for someone else's pallet, as well as yours !!!

JMHO, though. See what Sapphire says.

[Sapphire]

Re: Shipping Company Misleading Quotation

Ok so first off you're emailing them, if you havn't got their phone number here it is:

0208 222 6661
Fax: 0208 222 6699

My husband is working out the volumetric at this moment on the rate that we use, I've just read their FAQ's and they say that first time shipments which I believe you are have to be paid for up front, I guess that as they have changed the cost they have your shipment in storage and are charging you daily for this service which is normal.
The volumetric charge is 1.219 cubic metres which makes their calculation correct, we can only assume that their charge is based on the pallet size which sadly no indication is made. If its a standard pallet size 120 x 100 plus the height which is variable and if standard then it calculates at 1.2 cubic metres.
If their rules say that anything over 70kgs has to be palletised then they should have explained that it should have been done that way and given you the option to do it yourself or let them do it for you, if you'd done it yourself you would be aware of the size.
I'm afraid that you need to phone them and tell them that you've been mislead and that it should have been explained more fully so that you would have known, sadly until you do that your goods will sit in their warehouse accruing charges.
I'd try to do a deal with them to get it sent and arrange to pay the remainder of the bill in two or three payments.
I'm so sorry I can't give you any better advice on this, but I can tell you if we had sent it air freight for you it would have cost you around £2,400.00, so I think that £700 is a good price.