I’m no fan of the van after all this moving mayhem
D.R. writes: My wife and I have purchased a property in Granada, Spain, and we wanted to get some bits and pieces taken there from our home in Stockport. I used a website called Anyvan to find the best price from a transport firm and I gave the business to Stephen Charlesworth of The Man With The Van Limited.
The goods, conservatively valued at £12,000, were collected a day later than promised, and we have since been given five delivery dates, all no-shows. I contacted Anyvan for assistance but was told it has no responsibility for the transport providers. I have reported this to the police and our insurers.
ANYVAN Limited, based in Hammersmith, West London, looks to be a good idea. Its website brings together people who want goods moved, and those with a van or lorry to move them. You enter details of what you want moved, and where; the transport owners quote a price; and you choose the one you want.
The company advertises: ‘Anyvan aims to provide both customers and transport providers with a safe community where they can interact to mutual benefit.’ And when you complained, Anyvan told you it had suspended Charlesworth and it refunded the £166 deposit you had paid. But this was no help in getting your hands on your missing property, or on the £625 you had paid to Charlesworth. When I checked on The Man With The Van Limited, the signs were not good. It failed to file details of who owned it – these were legally due at Companies House last June. It has since been struck off and dissolved.
But I did eventually manage to contact Charlesworth, and you and I were given a string of excuses over what went wrong. A van needed attention to its brakes. A lorry broke down. Charlesworth’s Spanish partner went bust. I was even told that you had given the wrong delivery address – in fact, there was a onedigit error in the Spanish postcode, which you corrected by phone.
Fortunately, your belongings have now arrived in Granada, though not in a good state, you have told me.
Charlesworth himself confirmed his company had closed down. ‘Anyvan killed the company off,’ he complained.
Surprisingly perhaps, it proved harder to get a comment from Anyvan and its boss Angus Elphinstone. I supplied written details of your complaint, twice. Anyvan denied receiving them, twice. Finally, customer services manager Kat Tope told me the only check that was made was on a transport provider’s driving licence or EU identity card.
She added: ‘We have recently introduced Goods in Transit in addition to this check as a necessary requirement.’ I hope this will mean that customers’ possessions are insured in future. Neither Charlesworth nor Anyvan gave me an answer when I asked about the insurance of your belongings. If there is no insurance cover, and since Anyvan does not take responsibility once you have handed over your goods, all the risks would seem to fall on the customer. And that’s too much to risk.