K J.

If you are thinking about doing business with this company, I implore you to read this.

We were looking for help moving house, furniture, and all sorts of personal belongings. Found AnyVan which has delivery drivers give quotes/bid on the job you require, and you choose one to do the delivery job for you. Sounds nice and simple.

However this proved to be a nightmare. Original quote of needing two vans, they only turned up with one. Next day after we were supposed to have vacated our old house, another van eventually turns up, still not enough. Later that night third van turns up, supposed to meet with earlier van, unload everything back on to one larger van. Supposed to.

After a few days, first van turns up at new house before we do, only one driver, having been told by our AnyVan contractor 'Georgeo' that someone would be there to help unload. Never the plan, so we had to phone relatives nearby to help. The driver also was expecting to be paid in full, not receive a second half of payment as we'd agreed and partially paid already with Georgeo.

And the 2nd delivery van? Supposed to turn up the next day, but no sign of it for days, which turned into weeks. Georgeo supposedly didn't know that the 2nd van didn't show or what happened to it. Then we got excuses that it had broken down and was being repaired, and that our belongings were put into storage. Then they asked us what van had gone missing, what license plate. They say our stuff was in storage in London, then they say in Scotland. Then they ask us where our stuff was being stored. Then it transpires that Georgeo had subcontracted the job to other drivers/companies, and he tried to wash his hands of it! He tried to say our contract was with them. We phone the driver's mobile, someone else answered and said he'd gone back to Romania for Christmas. Needless to say we didn't have a very good Christmas wondering where half of our expensive, or sentimental personal belongings were, or if they were being sold off elsewhere in the world.

Someone at AnyVan first said they'd deal with the police it would be better going through them. But next time we spoke to them, they said we had to deal with the police ourselves, they won't do that. Data protection aside they just told us the full name (you reading this, George Bivol?) and address of username 'Georgeo' and apart from making some calls earlier to find what happened they just washed their hands of it all. Reading in their terms on their website, they DON'T vet their drivers for their customers safety, and apparently our contract is with the driver/company that won the bid/job in the first place, not with AnyVan.

Police or otherwise, some sort of outside intervention seems to have persuaded them not to steal our belongings. Eventually Georgeo finally rang us out of the blue and said that the van had been repaired (why they couldn't have just used another van I don't know). However he pulled the same scam before, expected us to pay in full on delivery to the driver he subcontracted, the cost was a lot more due to 'emergency Christmas/New Years delivery' when our agreement was it would be delivered only within a few days, well before Christmas. When we spoke to him and told him we'd already paid a large part, his excuse was then we had to pay for the storage too, which again was not our original agreement/legal contract. When we first met he spoke English well. When in disputes over the phone afterwards, he suddenly struggles to understand what you're saying or how to speak English properly. Once he was even slurring his words and sounded drunk, and handed the phone to his wife to speak for him on several occasions, and European accent became much stronger and harder to make any sense of.

We don't blame the subcontracted drivers, as they were ripped off and didn't get paid either, for the most part. We had to negotiate our own little payment agreement with the late 2nd van driver who came a long distance on his own money, not having received any of the money we paid George upfront. They also said where they actually did pick up our stuff from storage, and that they had to collect one of our TVs from a house which we believe to be George's personal residence!

AnyVan didn't want to know after they handed over George's details, it was just left between us and the police.

Furthermore, had no luck sorting out whose insurance to go through for damages and missing property.

All seemed perfectly legitimate at first. I saw PayPal as a payment method, so figured it would be trustworthy. Their prices were considerably lower than games cost direct from Steam.

But after payment was processed and completed, MMOGA only then prompted me to provide authentication of who I am, emailed me a PDF form to fill in including a scan of my passport, name, address, and signature, and show a photograph of myself holding my passport! I then emailed them to say I wasn't happy they'd ransom me for something I've already paid for, not being upfront, and that I'd opened a dispute with PayPal and wanted to cancel my order for a refund.

They then sent another email asking for authentication over phone, and answer some questions. I answered that they were supposedly doing all this to protect themselves from fraud, but they put their customers at risk instead. Our sales agreement was they'd deliver the game code within 5-10 minutes, they added hidden additional requirements after payment, after our legal sales agreement, and that they were in breach of that legal agreement.

At least they promptly repaid me in full, and not charge a €10 refund fee as others have said they were.

Avoid.