Hi,
We tend to move more than most, but I couldn't see a removals thread here!

I recently moved from Switzerland to Vienna and had a bad experience with AAATodan, based in Geneva.

Things started badly and got worse: they were over an hour late and turned up with just one van rather than the van and trailer they indicated on their estimate. Quickly, they determined we had too much stuff for the van and would need a trailer! In the end nothing was loaded on the first day (they were packing too) and we were promised it would all be sorted by mid-morning the next day. Again, they were an hour or more later than promised and when we had to leave (at lunch time), much remained to be loaded. The crew spoke broken French and were not a harmonious team. I was promised that it would all be taken care of and that I could leave it in their hands...

They promised delivery for the Tuesday, but arrived only on the Friday as their van had broken down. Some of our things were damaged in the move and (literally) some rubbish was imported to Austria. Only two people were present to unload - which took much longer than planned. The wall in my new house was damaged by them trying to move a large piece of furniture without dismantling it (only discovered once they had gone), and the guys informed me that most of the team were "black" workers - surprise, surprise.

We discovered that a basemoent room had not been emptied -despite my showing it to them. It has proved impossible to get them to ship these items to us (since September) and it is pretty evident that either they have no insurance or won't invoke it to cover the damage that they caused. It is not worth the hassle of trying to sue these people, but I thought the least I could do would be to share my experience with the ex-pat community. Perhaps I have just been unlucky and they have a stellar reputation with others in this community, but somehow I doubt it. I would not reccommend them to any of you and would never have engaged them knowing what I know now.

Heads up people!

Mike

Sorry to hear about your predicament, i presume before you acceped their quote, you fully checked they had adequate insurance to perform your moving.....What were they, absolut cheapest quote give ?

Remember, you get what you pay for

With a name like AAA whoever, this should be a warning, it's just a ploy to be first in line with searches !

I was feeling slightly sympathetic until this part. Aside from that, what does your contract say? Have you tried contacting them with a complaint on Facebook or Twitter? Sometimes you get better results with social media than through "normal" channels.

I took the OP to mean the black economy by 'black' workers - ie, not legitimately employed staff, but paid cash in hand, so untraceable and untaxable.

Aye. "Schwarzarbeiter" is a fairly common name round here for illegally employed immigrants, irrespective of their colour. I guess they are "sans papiers" in the more poetic French

Thanks, I've not heard it put that way before. Just the more direct "illegal" or "paid under the table" phrases.

really? black market, black economy are very commonly used.

sure, but I admit I've never heard of "black" workers except in the context of color of their skin. So, learn something new every day on EF.

Just to confirm, I was indeed referring to undeclared workers (hence my use of inverted commas). We had to move quickly and at the worst time of the year (end of August), so I had little choice and no reason to assume that they would not be the professionals that at first sight they appeared to be.

"Schwarzarbeiter" does not equal with "black worker" and does not euqal with "sans papier". These three terms have all different meanings.

By the way: Yes, I would never make a contract with an AAA.... company. Never. You are spoiled even before you start to think about it. That however I even would consider a synonym.

Nevertheless, this definitely does relief me from to sympathize wth you. Your own error.

Remarkable! Am I supposed to be able to check their employment status somehow? I was told this by one guy who transported things to Austria and was legitimately on their books. I had imagined that a Geneva based firm would be legit. Oh well.

Why, because it has Geneva in the name ?

Obviously they were cheap and there is no such thing a as a "free lunch" you should have doen a bit of due dillegence before accepting the cheapest offer, if only to see their insurance policy against breakages.

Easy to have hind-sight though, maybe next time you won't get caught out.