Goods disappearing during transit is cause for concern

PLEASE would you give me some guidance.

My daughter moved out of digs in late November 2015 and arranged for a company to fetch and store her goods as she did not have need for them while travelling around.

I duly paid R650 a month for the storage, which increased after a year to R715 a month.

Among the items were an LG 32 television, a HiSense fridge and an Electrolux vacuum cleaner which cost about R9 500.

Growing tired of monthly payments, I asked the removals company to transfer the goods to our holiday home in Kenton-on-Sea (Eastern Cape) in June this year and paid approximately R9 000 for transport costs We had planned to use the newer items in the home.

Lo and behold, those goods were missing on delivery. Once I had pointed this out to them, they said they would search the warehouse for the goods, but they had clearly been removed or stolen.

They initially offered me R3 000 as full and final settlement. I turned this offer down as the replacement cost is of the order of R7 500 and they have finally crept up to R5 000, but will not budge even though I said I would settle for R6 000.

I asked them to replace the goods and send them to Kenton but they ignored the request.

This is not a lot of money in the greater scheme of things but I wonder how many other customers’ goods have gone missing. Clearly they are just turning a blind eye to the bigger internal issue and hope that I will buckle, accept the offer and go away.

Georgie: I had a similar experience a while back when I moved cities – a heater, which was on the inventory, did not arrive with the rest of our stuff. A few things went wrong with the move so this was the last straw.

I was also annoyed because one of their guys also tried to solicit a bribe, which I refused. They tried stalling, telling me they were “investigating”.

Then they tried to shift blame. I got tired of it and told them since the heater was on the inventory, it had been stolen and I would therefore open a case of theft.

They paid me out that very day. I had also threatened to report them to the long-distance freight association – not sure which of it worked, but I got my money.