Shipping my car to South Africa was very much like the Kennedy's trip to Dallas. It was all planned for the right day and the UK shipper (autoshippers.co.uk) arrived where the car was being kept and took it away as planned, much like the secret service took the Kennedy's to Dallas as planned. Then it all went wrong. I was advised of the ship the vehicle was being shipped on, but it was not on this ship. So, when I was tracking the progress on-line via the Port of Durban I may as well have been checking the progress of an ant across a table on YouTube. No-one bothered to advise me it was on a different ship or more importantly why. Why bother, they had my money in full. The UK shippers’ hands were well and truly washed of this transaction. Then the real fun started, of course all covered in the small print which was going to be discussed with me in the phone call that was never received from the UK Shippers. A local agent was appointed to clear the car on the South African side, who then sub contracted the work to a personal friend of the MD. Nothing to see there, on your way. The entire process was dragged out under the cover of a bounced e-mail because the sub-contractor was incapable of adding .za to my e-mail address. The reasons for this were so my 3 days of free holding once the vehicle was cleared would be used up and I would have to pay additional storage costs. (including for weekends when they are closed so you cannot even fetch the vehicle) He even only contacted me after the vehicle had been released with his one-line invoice for *** on the final day of free storage by that old fashioned tried and tested method of WhatsApp. Before then he relied on the modern stuff like e-mail, a phone call, which when returned he didn’t know who I was or what I was calling for, or the even more reliable method of just doing nothing. After all he had an e-maiI returned to him as undeliverable as it lacked the proper e-mail address to rely on for his utter lack of action. This bright spark then tried to claim he had delivered his invoice because he has sent the email that was bounced back to him as undeliverable. Maybe his bestie can buy him a dictionary for Valentine’s Day and he can look up ambiguous words like permanent and undeliverable. This takes lack of competence to a new level. I had a quote for a different company for 25% less from when I first made enquiries to ship the car as the then UK shipper, I was speaking to advised I should. As I had already left the country there was no point in getting a shipping company close to where I used to live to do the work when the car was now 80 miles away. If only I had tried! Unlike Mrs Kennedy however as I could see what was going to happen, I went into attack mode and all the storage charges were waivered because I am able to sketch out a timeline of how poor the SA agents were and in particular the arms-length transaction between the UK shippers appointed SA agent and his mucker who happens to be a personal friend, who was not interested in resolving anything. He couldn’t even be bothered to make a concerted effort to contact me until the final day of free storage. I did not believe there to be any issues as you would think that when something is not progressing the person who is aware would actually let you know, so you can rectify. What these people (across the board) don't appreciate is that most of us will ship one car in their life and expect the so-called experts to act in our best interests. Sadly, my experience is that this is anything but the case. So if you want to ship your car to South Africa make sure you appoint your own local agents where you have control of them and not people who just see you as a cash cow and you have no option but to pay their inflated rates as if you don't you will be paying storage costs. Then find an agent where you can speak to someone who has an intrinsic interest in you getting a good service, not just where they employ desk jockeys who can answer a phone and read a prepared script, but actually don’t care if your car is delivered, sunk or even goes to the correct port. When I got to Durban (which is not 2 stops up the Northern Line from where I live) I had to find the place the car was being stored at myself as no-one involved and getting paid *** for their efforts gave me any details, like old Napoleon Bonaparte’s invention, house or business numbers on the street you find them on. Then the car would not start, as surprise surprise the battery was flat. Thankfully I had shipped battery jump cables and a good Samaritan who worked in the harbour gave me a jump start where the people who had been paid to clear my car relied on the old tried and tested excuse it was not their issue to ensure the car started. Even the bloke who helped me with the final release forms, but clearly skipped the entire class on customer relations simply ignored my request for help. Maybe I should have taught a field mouse the basics of starting a car and this little field mouse, desperate to escape the cold English winters and stowed away in the car could have started it every second day to ensure the battery held charge when it arrived 7,000 miles away, some 2 months later.
