Europack (a.k.a. Brytor international) review: Moving services - lost items, lengthy delays, lack of communication

I realize my complaint will be fruitless but I am angry when I see Europack (who also call themselves Brytor International) posting on their website that, according to your website - complaintsboard.com - there were no complaints against them as at June 2022. The public needs to be warned that this company will mishandle your goods, will not reply to emails and phone calls and will ultimately take no responsibility for loss and damage to your belongings. Don't use them. Read other complaints and know they will be valid. We lost over $6K worth of goods and important documents that are irreplaceable.

This company took over 14 months to move our belongings from BC, Canada to Victoria, Australia. The original pickup was in early August, 2021 and we finally got our goods in October 2022, but missing 12 substantial items.

Naturally they blamed Covid for everything and constantly told different stories - for example we were told that our entire shipment had been packed up and sent to Montreal in January 2022 which was impossible because all roads out of Vancouver had been impassable for months due to an atmospheric river event. Google it.

They refused to sell us damage/loss insurance - stating that we could only buy total loss insurance - i.e. taking a bet that the ship would sink... or not... for 1.65% of the cost of the move. Their claim is that we were offered insurance but that we refused to buy it. Not true.

We had to go to the Canadian Association of Movers twice to get replies from them.

The following is the (futile) report we made after the final delivery. They responded with a letter from their "legal department" stating that we had declined insurance and, basically, bad luck.

"Unfortunately our shipment arrived very incomplete. Some notes were made on the form at the time of delivery and we are still not fully clear what is missing but at this point of time we are certain of the following 6 missing items:

- Glass dining table top x 2 pieces (2 separate pieces)

- 3 Teak outdoor dining chairs (assume this is one box as the others had three to a box)

- Box spring for Queen size mattress ensemble (we got the mattress only)

- 3 side table legs and 4 coffee table legs - we only got the glass tops for these items (probably 2 separate packages as we received one package with 3 side table legs).

Your manifest stated 223 items were being delivered, however the box numbering system (white tags) shows 236 items at minimum. We are missing the following item numbers - 16, 21, 32, 56, 60, 62, 77, 85, 88, 92, 96, 97, 101, 104, 112, 125, 137, 149, 151, 158, 161, 164, 167, 196 - a total of 24.

There were 12 items without white number tags on them.

236 - 24 + 12 = 224

So there is a net number of at least 12 items missing (more on this below) and we have identified 6 of the missing items leaving us with at least 6 unidentified missing items.

When the goods left our home in Canada each item had a yellow (not white) number tag on it so it is impossible for us to use the original manifest to work out what is missing. There were 254 yellow tags used in Canada however we had to leave 8 items behind because the 24’ long furniture van truck was full. We were very surprised when the Australian truck arrived and it had a 20’ container that was only 7/8ths full. There was a lot of space at the back of the 20’ container that the carriers had filled with packing materials for a job they were doing on their way back to Melbourne.

I believe that 10 patio chairs were consolidated in to 4 boxes in Vancouver (one of which is missing), so this reduces the known number of items that should have been delivered from 248 (less 6 for the patio chairs) to 242.

If I use the 242 number of items that left Canada and subtract the 224 items delivered then we are missing 18 items.

As you will understand this is a nightmare for us.

Please check the Dandenong warehouse as a first option for the identified items as they are valuable and we need them. To assist I am sending some photos in a separate email.

What is the claim process? Please send full details of how we need to go about this and to whom we should be speaking."

Be warned... this is not a trustworthy company, not the sort of people you want to entrust your belongings to.

The only competent people we dealt with through this experience were the Australian movers who completed the task efficiently and professionally once our belongings arrived in Australia.