On the 13th of January my wife and I agreed with Lee from Range Relocations (RR) the removal of our items from London to our new address, 118 miles away.
We were moving from a furnished flat to another furnished flat, so no heavy appliances or heavy furniture. On "Removals Reviews" he had good reviews; Lee sounded reassuring; so all sounded fine. Parking would be needed in both ends, which to the best of our understanding was the case.
Lee arrived with a colleague to the collection address at 8:54 of Feb 9th, as agreed. He was driving a lorry, which was a lot bigger than necessary for our items (a long wheel base van would have been sufficient, as Lee agreed).
Lee arrived to the destination at around 3PM. He stated that he was knackered from loading and he was visibly distressed because he was late and he had caught a lot of traffic.
Lee parked his lorry 10 meters from our driveway. He refused to unload because admittedly he was too far from our door. Lee could have tried to reversed into our driveway, but he refused to do that. We have pictures that depict the available space.
We tried to reason with Lee, and offered help with the unloading, but Lee became verbally and nearly physically abusive. His character had shifted, and he became very irritable and volatile! Without any intention to open the lorry and unload, reach a practical solution nor acknowledging our distress, Lee drove away with our items.
We were offered legal advise, and understood that RR was failing to provide reasonable care and skill by failing to ensure an appropriate vehicle was used and for refusing to unload the items. As a result we would be legally entitled to 'repeat performance', whilst the trader should bear all necessary costs, according to the Consumer Rights Act 2015, Section 49.
Lee called my wife later. He would be willing to finalise the contracted service, by returning from Kent with our goods in a van, but at an additional cost. When my wife challenged Lee, he became verbally abusive and hung up on her.
She texted him straight away asking about the location of out stuff, and this was the answer: "We won't release until we are paid what we are owed Send our details to your legal team. As stated short term storage is £75 per night "
Sunday 10th, 7:14am, Lee texted demanding to be paid in full, otherwise we would not gain access to our possessions, which were in an undisclosed location. Later, Lee spoke with me on the phone; same demands, no room for discussion or consensus. Moreover Lee threatened me to come to our home to collect the money in person.
Monday 11th morning, two Met officers collected a statement from us. They called Lee, to attempt reconciliation. Long story short, we ended up paying Lee to be in a better legal position, although this was a payment under duress.
We got a mediator to liaise with Lee. The communication with our mediator wasn't straightforward, as Lee was constantly making excuses and delaying the release of our goods.
Wednesday 13th, Lee told our mediator that our goods would be available for collection that day only. Another removals company agreed to pick our items from Lee at around 6PM; but at around 2PM, Lee decided that the pickup would have to be before 5PM.
At this point, Lee accused my wife of "putting lies on the internet" and that he intended to take action against her. All she did was to write truthful reviews to prevent new victims.
The new removals company was extremely accommodating, and luckily identified another team to pick the items at 5PM. When the new removal team arrived to the warehouse near Ashford, they had to wait half an hour, as Lee would not answer the phone.
When our stuff became available to the new removals team, our items were told to be all over the place, and some needing repacking. Fortunately our stuff arrived to our new home on Wednesday late in the evening. We are now checking if all is there and in good condition.
At the moment, injunction is being considered in view of the threats, and the fact that we find Lee an unstable and volatile man (we don't know what he may do, and he knows where we live. Furthermore, Lee's actions look like a pattern of misconduct, and should be investigated. read more
