County Court Judgement against ASL Removals (ASL removals Forest Hill London)

Member Name: scotjls

Product:	ASL removals Forest Hill London
Date:	19/08/08 (160 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: not funny

Disadvantages: too many to list

DO NOT USE ASL REMOVALS, Forest Hill, London.

We used them to move from London to Scotland in June 07. In brief -

- The truck broke down in Rotherham at the height of the June floods

- They failed to tell us this until the truck was almost a day late.

- They attempted to charge us more money once they had all of our belongings on the truck, falsely claiming we had more than when they provided the quote

- They kept our belongings for an entire week, unable to tell us exactly where they were, whether they were dry/damp, and when we could expect them to arrive

- They didn't return any of our calls throughout the duration of our 'move', becoming outright rude and hanging up on us latterly. Any communications we did have were initiated by us.

- My husband had to pay for an additional return flight to meet them in Glasgow when they arrived a week late

- When the truck finally arrived, upon opening it looked like a bomb had hit it - boxes emptied on the floor, broken furniture, smashed pictures, etc. They demanded money straight away and threatened to drive off with our belongings if we didn't pay

- It later emerged that our belongings had been transferred in and out of this and several other trucks during the week, finally sharing with another load destined for Newcastle

- Many of our belongings were missing or damaged

- After weeks of pursuit and latterly legal threats, we were reluctantly provided with insurance details for Norwich Union. Once we had prepared and submitted our claim, it was rejected as the policy had only been taken out the previous week and did not cover our move. We had to claim through our own insurance for the £1500 of loss and damages, pay the excess and lose our 'no claims'. There had not been any appropriate insurance cover in place during the time of our move despite ASL repeatedly and fraudulently insisting that there was. If your move was after August 1st 07, their current policy details are - policy no. 243800015 CXF, Kelly Armstrong T/A ASL Removals - good luck!

After reading complaints on forums like this, and on advice from Trading Standards and Norwich Union, we filed a claim with Woolwich County Court - Small Claims track - for fundamental breach of contract and we won (claim no. 7WO01938 against Sebastian and Sat Singh and Kelly Armstrong trading as ASL Removals). They filed a pitiful written defence claiming they had been 'considerate, empathetic and courteous' to us at all times, and included terms and conditions from a different removals company which they claimed had been posted to us when we booked. They didn't even bother to show up in court. Our award from the Court covers our insurance claim excess, return of our fee in full, and our expenses both arising from their late delivery and our court fees.

We have never been through court proceedings before but companies like ASL should not be allowed to continue trading and this is the only way that we can try and get them out of business. ASL periodically remove posts on this forum - this came to light during our court case, there are many other people out there who have had this experience - we collated posts before they were wiped over a 7 month period so please keep checking and re-posting and do everything you can to stop other people falling into the trap of ASL Removals.

Summary: Cowboys