BIR Reviews 9

Scammers and theives. Mari-Lee , kerry and Ben dont answer timeously and eventually stop responding. Its fraud on their insurance. Stay away
They owe me money for damages and they dont respond.

After being taken for a ride by South African Relocations—who went bankrupt (June 2024) and refused to release our goods unless we paid over 50% of the original invoice—we were left in a very difficult situation. Thankfully, Mar-Lee from British International Removals (BIR) stepped in and truly went above and beyond. She personally visited their warehouse almost daily for approximately two weeks to fight for the release of our items. Without her persistence and dedication, we may never have recovered them. She deserves five stars for her efforts alone.

Once our goods were finally retrieved and secured in BIR’s warehouse, however, the level of communication dropped significantly. While we understood that delays could occur due to our use of a shared container, the lack of regular updates and clarity was disappointing. That’s the primary reason for this three-star rating instead of four or five.

Additionally, after the quote was accepted and payment made, we never heard from Ben, the owner, again, not even a courtesy email upon final delivery to acknowledge the completion of the service. A small gesture like that would have made a big difference.

In summary, we’d like to thank Mar-Lee, Lesley and Kerry for their assistance throughout the process. While the overall communication from BIR could be improved, we truly appreciate the efforts of the individuals who helped make a difficult situation more manageable.

Regrettably, our recent experience with BIR (British International Removals, bir.co.za) has left us dumbfounded, questioning how such a business can still operate. Having relocated around the world multiple times, we were unprepared for the level of incompetence and deception we encountered with this moving company.

The troubles began the moment we committed to their services. The lack of transparency and communication was staggering, leaving us feeling completely misled. Critical information regarding necessary paperwork was either omitted or conveniently deferred until the day of packing. For instance, the absurd demand to list all household items, obtain receipts, and providing valuations of any items over 20,000ZAR on the delivery day left us in a state of disbelief.

The saga continued when our container was inexplicably delayed and stranded in a harbor over Christmas, accumulating exorbitant costs. To make matters worse, upon the arrival of our belongings, the border police flagged incomplete paperwork, adding an additional layer of stress. The sheer volume of damaged items, including broken furniture legs, smashed cupboard doors, and shattered lamps, was disheartening. Astonishingly, when seeking compensation, we were met with the excuse that we failed to submit required paperwork—an omission conveniently revealed only on the packing day.

Items were missing, incorrectly marked, causing the local team (company in Czech called IDCAR, idcar.cz) to be extremely annoyed and screaming on us. At one stage I just started crying.

The unsettling discovery of internal emails from the account department, mistakenly sent to us, revealed a pattern of negligence. One customer's Vespa scooter suffered damage, and despite lengthy correspondence, the company staunchly refused any responsibility.

In conclusion, we implore anyone considering relocation services to steer clear of BIR (British International Removals). Their tactics of obfuscation, negligence, and refusal of accountability paint a disturbing picture of a company more adept at exploitation than facilitation. Save yourself the anguish and financial loss by avoiding these unscrupulous movers at all costs.

Do yourselves a huge favour and use someone else. Anyone but these guys! This company not only forgot to ship my goods the first time, causing me to wait and further 5 months on top of the 3 month initial delivery time, even worse was they didn’t notify me of the fact that my goods were not shipped. I paid all delivery and storage charges on the receiving side 3 months later only to be told, ‘sorry your goods are still in Joburg!’ How do you forget to ship a palate, then not tell someone for 3 months! To make matters worse we specifically ask for a statue to be looked after (huge sentimental value). We had assurances from the boss of the company via email this would be taken care of. Needless to say the statue was destroyed. The rest of the goods were delivered in good condition but the most important piece was destroyed. So between incompetence, poor comms, and destroyed packages, not the best experience! To top it off I’m still waiting for a refund for the charges on the first delivery which never arrived! How do these guys still get business!

People who run and work for this company have no conscience, and I cannot understand how they run a business and get away over and over with treating their customers they do.
Our belongings went missing in the packing process. There were minimum 6 people all over the house without supervision or following any logical system.
BIR hid behind " if it didn't make it to the container, it can't be claimed for" and they completely ignored the fact that they may have been some discipline issues with their employees.
The items that did reach destination, arrived damaged but we'll not be able to claim because “we didn't claim within 7 days from fully delivery”.
However, we identified two boxes as missing at the time of delivery, and it took two weeks to have the issue clarified.
They refused to disclose who their company Insurance company is and never supplied us with a copy of the insurance policy, claiming that the contract we signed with them is the Insurance policy.
They cannot even produce proof that the container was sealed before it left our house.
The labeling of boxes was of poor quality and label descriptions didn't correspond to the content; numerous boxes were renumbered and some unnumbered.
The discrepancy of number of boxes on the inventory against the submission made to customs , caused our container to be chosen for inspection, which we incurred additional costs for.

They will send you on a wild goose chase, keep repeating irrelevant information in circles, make up a fake email address for a legal department that doesn't exist to try and intimidate you, and not give one thought to the amount of stress they cause.

THE WORST experience!!! 5 MONTHS so far and WE STILL DO NOT HAVE OUR STUFF. Although we opted for a shared container, they told us that it will not take long to ship as they are extremely busy. It took them about 4 MONTHS to ship our stuff. Now we have to pay a LOT more due to currency exchange differences, but if they had not waited so long to ship our stuff we would not have to pay extra! They do not respond to emails or phone calls until maybe the 6th or 7th email/call.

Upon receipt of goods in UK, it was an admin nightmare as we had to provide all information and forms etc AGAIN to the sub-agent they use and to the agent who took over the process. The agent they used in the UK have told us that although our goods have cleared customs, THEY DO NOT HAVE ANY AVAILABLE TRUCKS FOR DELIVERY!!! This is really the absolute WORST client service I have ever experienced. The new agent has also told us to not phone them anymore. What has happened to our stuff!!??

MAYBE we will receive our stuff in 6 or 7 months if we are lucky, but we have NO idea, and follow up weekly and they cannot give us a date! We will NEVER use them EVER AGAIN, and I really hope no one else does! This experience has overall been terribly shocking and they clearly don't care about customers.

We used British International Removals recently from South Africa to the UK. Everything were fine until our cargo arrived in the UK. The container was opened, and not all our items, even though on the inventory list, were not in the container. Obviously we had to repurchase these items as it were quite important items i.e. our mattress. The local company in the UK couldnt give us any answers. BIR in South Africa would get back to us. We assumed the items were stolen being missing in South Africa and nobody could give is information about the whereabouts. After we had to repurchase the items and wanted to claim the monies from insurance since this is exactly why we took out the insurance, all of a sudden the items were in British International Removal's warehouse, waiting to be shipped. This is after two months living without these items and nobody knew the weherabouts, now they are found in the warehouse! According to British Internation Removals these items will be shipped immediately and we cant claim from insurance. Can you imagine the frustration levels after we allready spent the money, and nobody knew where the items where until we wanted to claim from insurance! What bad service! To top that we had to discard some of the items which arrived in the UK because they were covered in mould! And all that British International Removals does is shrug their shoulders. I will not recommend them to anyone and will advise all possible movers not to use them.