On the 27th April 2009 I was getting frustrated that there seemed to be no progress and no communication from Burke Bros about our missing boxes or the damage caused to our possessions resulting from their negligent packing. I fired off the following email with ‘Update Needed’ as the subject…
Hi Jacqueline,
Here is a link to the video I mentioned in my previous email…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JweAFJsF3U
Has there been any progress in finding our missing boxes. All my daughters clothes, shoes etc. are missing and she is extremely upset. I’d like to know one way or the other where we stand with this.
I’d also like to know what Burke Bros intend to do about all the other items that were uninsured and have been damaged due to mishandling and a failure to pack things properly. Burke Bros failed to do the job they promised to do and did not meet basic professional standards.
Watch the video and tell me if you think that is acceptable packing. Burke Bros failed to deliver on their promises and failed to meet basic standards and we should not be out of pocket the way our possessions were mistreated.
Chris O’Connor
Thank you for sending the insurance claim form. I shall wait before sending this back as our priority is to get back the possessions that have been lost. Hopefully you will be able to retrieve these as not everything in those boxes was insured.We are getting more and more angry as we go over each box (and it’s wasting days of our time going over everything!). We believed and trusted in Burke Bros. We believed in the recommendations, and I really fell for it when I was told by Ben Hingley as to how well our possessions would be packed, how much care would be taken, and how they would be packed in special boxes, well protected, and how your guys would look after our stuff and pack it really professionally. I’ve got to admit, you really took me for a mug!Here is a link to a Picassa Public gallery that I have set up on Google.It shows a *tiny* fraction of the problems and damage that we have encountered. Have your people ever heard of bubble wrap, polystyrene chips, or ANY sort of packing material?We only insured the things that we thought we REALLY needed to insure as our confidence in Burke Bros was so high that we really didn’t think it necessary to insure *everything* – after all, we were getting our stuff moved by one of the best and most highly recommended companies.As far as I can see the way our move has been handled amounts to professional negligence. I took out insurance to cover our goods in case of accidents or extreme situations. Gross incompetence and professional negligence are a seperate matter. I want to know what Burke Bros intend to do about this. I paid Burke Bros to do a job and it was NOT done professionally or with any sort of care or consideration. It is gross professional negligence. Large amounts of our stuff has been either lost or ruined and I want to know what Burke Bros intends to do about it. A lot of this stuff was not on our insured list, but why should it be? Burke Bros failed to meet basic professional standards and you failed to deliver on the promises that were made to me.I will be uploading a video to Youtube tomorrow morning that shows the way some pictures were packed. It’s unbelievable that anyone could treat a persons possessions with such disregard. The video shows a wedding present being retrieved smashed and broken from the bottom of a box where heavy books had been piled on top of it. And there is a lot more than that to show in the video.I will send the link to that tomorrow.Chris O’Connor
I’ve covered previously what happened the day our possessions were finally delivered to us. Quite honestly I think it is highly unlikely that anyone would have contacted us about the delivery. I had to do all the chasing and was finally told that the lorry had left a couple of days ago and was on it’s way to us! If I hadn’t have rung then the first I would have known would have been when the driver turned up at my door probably!
I’ve pasted below the email that I sent to Burke Bros after I managed to calm down a bit after finding 2 boxes missing and the disgraceful way Burke Bros had treated our possessions (those that actually got to us!).
Hi Jaqueline,
Burke Bros were recommended to us, which played a large part in my decision to use you. I was also impressed with Ben Hingley, particularly when he told me the apparent care with which our goods would be packed and transported.
Today they finally arrived at our house and I have to say that I am both shocked and disappointed with the way things have been packed, the resultant damage to our goods, and the fact that we are missing 2 boxes, which appear to be all my daughters clothes and personal posessions.
I sent a fax to Burke Bros stating that I had an LCD TV so that a suitable box could be brought to pack it in. It appears that your people have simply wrapped it in a couple of sheets of flimsy cardboard instead of using a proper box. When the TV was brought in there was no packaging around the bottom, leaving the stand and bottom of the TV exposed. The guy who delivered it told me that it was like that at the bottom (of a cage or some sort of container) with other things piled on top of it. I haven’t unwrapped the remaining cardboard but I can tell you now that I will be making a claim for the TV as the weight of whatever was put on top of it, combined with the flimsy (now non-existant) packaging has cause the base to buckle under the weight. The TV will now no longer stand flat as the base is so warped. It also looks like it has been bent backwards.
I could go on about the scratches and damages to other items, but I will wait until we have had a chance to assess the full extent of the damage. The way the things were packed was an absolute disgrace. There were things such as computers packed with no padding or protection, and a lot of scratches on items due to stuff being dumped in together with no wrapping or protection around them.
We paid for insurance but were never sent any paperwork for this. Please would you send me whatever I need to make a claim.
I would be grateful if you could track down the two missing boxes containing my daughters clothes, shoes, and personal possessions. Many of the items in those boxes are of sentimental value and cannot be replaced.
We have a 7 hour time difference, so if I haven’t got an email reply by tomorrow morning (my time) then I will phone to find out what is happening.
Thanks
Chris O’Connor
At the end of my tether with Burke Bros, STILL having not had a single reply to any question about what they intend to do about my possessions that they lost and damaged (possessions that, as I showed in my previous post, Burke Bros are legally obliged to pay for), I emailed Gary Burke.
I assume that Gary must talk to his brother and therefore should be aware of my situation. I wanted to know why Chris Burke was ignoring me? Why were Burke Bros admitting to me that their packing was ’sub-standard’, yet failing to meet their contractual obligations to pay out when loss or damage has resulted from their negligence?
I’ve made him aware of this site and that I will continue posting as I feel it only right to alert others to my experiences, as I would hate for anyone else to have to lose or have items damaged that mean a lot to them in the way that we have.
And finally, I promised Gary Burke that if the matter was not sorted out promptly then I would be taking legal action against them.
I was pleased to see a prompt reply from Gary Burke, although it offered nothing new other than a promise that Chris Burke would be contacting me ‘in the next few days’. He is apparently overseas at the moment, which may explain why he hasn’t contacted me in the last few days, but does little to explain away his failure to respond to my questions over the last few weeks!
Apparently they are doing investigations. If that is true then when why has Chris Burke (or any one else from Burke Bros) not bothered to tell me ? And didn’t they already do these investigations in the days immediately follow me reporting boxes lost? So, did they not investigate properly the first time? And how much investigation do they need to do when it was Burke Bros own staff that packed our possessions and damaged them!
May
On the back of the acceptance sheet that Burke Bros ask you to sign and send back to them is their terms and conditions, with no mention of the fact that they are there or anything to draw your attention to them. But they ARE there.
I’ve got to admit that I at least have an excuse for not noticing them, and I didn’t notice them until later, after everything had already left our house. In fact I didn’t even get around to reading them until we completed our move to Canada and we discovered that Burke Bros had lost and damaged our possessions. Then I read them!
What is interesting is that while I have an excuse for not realising they were on the back of the acceptance form, I don’t think Burke Bros have any such excuse – they wrote the terms and conditions and they put them there!
Here is the relevant section of those terms and conditions (written by Burke Bros) that I have been repeatedly asking them about, only to be ignored each time…
Burke Bros terms and conditions - They promise to pay up if they lose or damage your possessions - except they don't!
And just in case Burke Bros are having trouble reading their own small print let me remind them of what THEY promised ME…
“In the event of our negligence or breach of contract resulting in loss or damage to your goods, we will pay a sum equivalent to the cost of the repair or replacement whichever is the smaller sum up to a maximum of £40 for any one item”
Chris Burke has consistently ignored every request I have made for information on how to claim for these items despite my numerous requests and the fact that I have stated that we want this resolved quickly. He has however emailed me in connection with the insurance that I took out (he had to as the insurance claim gets passed on by him to the insurance company). In one of his emails he stated…
In respect of the quality of packing, please accept my apologies but unfortunately Dean (the youngest of the men who packed your goods) is longer with the Company and his colleague is adamant that Dean was responsible for the poor packing.
and again further down the same email…
please accept my apologies for the losses and sub standard packing.
So Chris Burke, if you accept that the packing was poor and sub-standard then why are you ignoring me and why are you refusing to honour the guarantee you make in your own contract?