DO YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS?

A: As much notice as you can is obviously preferable.  We do not take a deposit at the time of booking, so you don’t have to worry about that side of it.

We operate on ‘first in, best dressed’, so if your move must occur on a particular day, we recommend 6 weeks notice.  If you have a window of a few days where your move could occur, usually 2 weeks notice is sufficient.  We understand life can be last-minute, though, so we will always try and fit in short-notice jobs if we possibly can.

A: Absolutely, and if you are in our local area we will endeavour to come give you a free quotation on-site to ensure nothing has been missed or misunderstood.

A: Probably not unless we find we have made a mistake in our quoting.

We feel we are already the best value removalist around, when balancing cost and quality.

If you find a cheaper quote, be sure to ask that removalist:

• Are they fully insured for both business liability and Carrier Goods in Transit?
• Are they a registered proprietary limited business?
• Are they registered for GST?
• Do they pay their employees at least award wages, including penalty rates for long days/weekends (well-paid employees do better jobs!)?
• Do they blanket all furniture?
• Do their trucks have tail lifters (easier on both the removalists and your furniture)?

We believe you will never find a competitor who can answer “yes” to all of the above and still match our prices.

A: No, we do not discount our prices for cash.  We are registered for GST and put all jobs through the accounting system so GST is charged on all of them.

The only surcharge is applied to credit/debit cards – this is a 2% surcharge which is what the bank charges us.

A: Yes!

We believe in the old adage “pay peanuts, get monkeys”.

We want the best, most careful employees, so we believe in compensating our workers properly.  So we pay them award wages for casual workers in the Road Transport and Distribution Award, and above-award super contributions.  This includes penalty rates for more than 8 hours work in a day and/or weekend work.  Also, for overnight trips we cover all their meals, which is above-award.

A: We do not recommend it, as the type of insurance cover that would benefit you – ‘marine cargo partial loss insurance’ – is often prohibitively expensive.  As in 3-4% of the declared value of your goods expensive, if not more.

Just to clarify, for some reason the class of insurance we are discussing is mainly called ‘marine cargo’, even if no ship is involved.  It is divided into either ‘total loss’ or ‘partial loss’.  The former would involve basically an accident with our truck, and the consequent destruction of everything or nearly everything it is carrying.  The latter would involve the truck arriving fine but selected things within the load having been damaged.  This damage could have had any cause as long as it happened in transit (including packing and unpacking).

The good news for you is that for a ‘total loss’, you are already insured when you choose Strathbogie Removals & Trucking.  We carry ‘Carrier Goods in Transit’ (CGIT) insurance for $150,000 with a $500 excess.  This would cover both a ‘total loss’ and partial losses only where it is our fault – i.e. we loaded a large flat screen TV right next to a Webber barbie with no blankets and the TV cracked.  As we are far too careful to allow something like this to happen, we don’t envision ever claiming on our CGIT insurance for a partial loss (and hopefully never for a ‘total loss’ either!).

This leaves you uninsured for a ‘partial loss’ that is not our fault.  This would primarily be breakage within boxes that you have packed, which we do not take responsibility for (as we have no control over the quality of your packing).  It would be caused mainly by vibration within the truck or the truck hitting a bad pothole, for instance.  As we said in the beginning, this type of insurance can be very expensive – 3-4% of the declared value – and, if online reports are to be believed, can be difficult to claim on as well.  So we do not recommend it unless you have something that, if it breaks, you really need cash to replace it.  Probably in the household goods space the only thing we could think of that would meet this criterion would be delicate and expensive machinery, such as a photocopier.

A: Yes!  We are fully insured with a) $20 million business liability insurance, b) ‘Carrier Goods in Transit’ (CGIT) insurance for $150,000 per load with a $500 excess, and c) comprehensive vehicle insurance on the trucks.  Many cheaper “cowboy” operators won’t have some or all of this insurance – always ask when getting quotes!

The CGIT insurance bears some explaining.  While it is in place to protect both us and you, it is more along the lines of ‘marine cargo total loss insurance’ (see “Should I purchase my own insurance?” below for an explanation of that) than standard household contents insurance, which are partial loss in nature)  In that CGIT is primarily there for a pretty serious incident, such as the truck rolling over in an accident and smashing most things that can be smashed.  In that case it would be indispensable, and that is why we carry it.  It is not really there for a thing here or there that has been damaged or broken in transit, as the $500 excess is a good-sized barrier to making it worthwhile – remember insurance companies pay fair value, NOT replacement value…and it would only be claimable for things that are OUR fault.  Things that you have packed in boxes are not our fault, nor is normal wear and tear on furniture, nor are items that we have advised you are probably too fragile to transport safely.

At the end of the day though, we load and blanket everything with extreme care (just look in the back of the truck as we are loading and you will see!), have never had to claim on the CGIT insurance, and have only 3 times had an item break that was our fault.  In those 3 cases out of hundreds of jobs, we compensated the customer out of our pocket.

A: If you need storage in and around Euroa, VIC, we use and recommend the Hay Street storage containers.  They are not affiliated with us but we like them because they: a) are containers rather than sheds (= fully dust- and moisture-proof all the way to the door), b) are great easy access for our trucks (some sheds compounds are extremely tight to manoeuvre in – one particular one in SA we spent about 45 minutes just making a turn in the compound!), and c) are very competitively priced.  Call Tony on 0412 599 566 to enquire as to price or to make a booking.  Again, we’re not affiliated with Tony but we just like the storage he offers (and we have seen many storage units!).

Realistically, if you just need a day or two for your things to rest between settlement dates, and we can possibly squeeze it in, we are happy for your goods to just stay in our truck free of charge.  But only if the truck in question is free for that time period.

A: You could do that, and many people do.  But if you want to keep your furniture and valuables safe, you will need to hire not only the truck, but also hire/buy a decent trolley (hint: cheap hardware-store imported ones often won’t do the job!), dollies, blankets, possibly lifting straps, and possibly ramps.  Don’t forget the truck hire people will require you to purchase their insurance and need you to return it filled with diesel.  Also don’t forget that car-licence rental trucks are usually 15m3, so if you have more than about a 2-bedroom place, you’re into multiple trip territory (fine if around the corner but a lot of extra rental time and $$$ if across the state!).  By the time you’ve done all that you will have probably spent nearly as much as we charge, and quite possibly more.  Add to that the fact that your mates working for a slab of beer don’t know all the tricks to avoid dinging walls and scuffing, scratching or breaking your furniture.  Our professional removalists, with many decades of experience between us, DO know how to get your precious things in and out with a minimum of fuss and no damage to house or furniture.