The “Aussie man and van sham”

By Tim Martin
EARLIER THIS MONTH, a reader alerted Australian Times to a disturbing piece of news that should alarm expat Aussies looking to ship their goods back home.

Commenting online to a story we ran in August last year, about how Aussie Group (formerly Aussie Man & Van) and their chairman Brian Burgess were willing to give “anyone” a chance and a job in the wake of the London riots, one disgruntled Aussie Group client let rip.

“Brilliant stuff Brian. I’m on the verge of rioting too. I entered into a contract with your company in August 2011. I paid you to ship my entire household contents from London to Melbourne.

“I paid for this service in full but unfortunately never saw my household contents again. They were never shipped to Melbourne. I believe they remain in London.

“I emailed / phoned your company; even asked to speak to you numerous times but never received a reply to my enquiries. I am at my wits end with trying to get my entire household contents back.

“You quote that all people need to do is get off their backsides. Well Brian, can you get off your backside, do the right thing and ship our things to Melbourne, just like you promised….please?”

The comment was posted by Sonya Rand, an Australian mother of three. After Australian Times got in contact with her, Ms Rand told us she posted the above comment on our website after she had “had a gut full” of getting the run around from the company she had entrusted to move her family’s belongings home.

Her next comment on our website was much more of an emotional plea to Aussie Group and their chairman. It was also a warning to other expat Australians thinking of shipping their goods back to Australia.

“I am writing this story to hopefully help others who wish to undertake international removals. Engage with any company carefully and ensure that you are confident that they will fulfil their contractual obligations.”

She went on to post, “I see from the [Australian Times] article that Brian Burgess has a place in Bali.

“Brian, would you mind if my family and I camp out there, because it’s lonely in our house with no furniture, toys or clothes.”

Ms Rand told Australian Times that telephoning and emailing weren’t her only methods of trying to make contact with the Mr Burgess and his company.

“I have posted quite a few things on the Aussie Group [Facebook] site as well. Nothing nasty, just genuine enquiries. Some of my comments have been deleted.

“I have been back in Australia for a good few months now. I have a family with three very young children. We are living in a place with no furniture, no toys, no anything. It really is a nightmare.”

Not long after Ms Rand made contact with Australian Times, another Aussie expat approached us. Matt Braybon had a similar story.

“I’m an Aussie, I moved back to Oz from London late last year. I shipped stuff with Aussie Group and had no end of trouble with them.

“I escalated my complaints and dealt with the [General Manager] Sean Tillery to try get things on track. My stuff was picked up [from London] in August,” Mr Braybon informed both Australian Times and the BBC’s Watchdog program.

“Cut to now, I’m in Oz and have just found out that Aussie Group have gone bust, though there are still websites in operation and a company trading as ‘Aussie’. The phone is answered Aussie.

“All of my worldly possessions are currently god knows where…”

After some quick investigation, Australian Times found that Aussie Group had indeed actually “gone bust”. They were entered into administration on 23 December 2011.

Mr Braybon said the whole ordeal was akin to an “Aussie man and van sham”.

“Some info that I gathered from other people involved included admissions from former employees that pretty much they knew that the company was going under as they were still taking money from us all and taking on international consignments,” Mr Braybon said.

Investigating the matter further, Australian Times made contact with the company that had essentially bought the ‘Aussie Group’ and ‘Aussie Man & Van’ brand names.

It emerged that Ward Thomas Removals has acquired the brands and assets and has started a new trading company called Aussie Man And Van Limited.

Following our investigations, the story took a happy twist.

Speaking to Charles Richards, Chief Financial Manager of Wards Thomas Removals, Australian Times learnt that the inconvenienced Aussie Group customers may actually now be close to being reunited with their belongings. It seems this many months long saga may be actually heading towards a solution.

“As you already know, Aussie Group went into administration on 23 December 2011,” Mr Richards told Australian Times.

“The owner, Brian Burgess, bought it out of administration. Basically, he then approached us to see if we could help. They bought themselves out of administration but were short of cash so we acquired the assets of the new company they had established.”

Mr Richards said it was not a very hard decision for Ward Thomas Removals to step in and buy the beleaguered company.

“We looked at it and saw it was a good company with a good reputation so we said ‘let’s give it a go’ and threw some money at it.”

When drawn on why he thought Burgess and Aussie Group had gotten into trouble in the first place, Mr Richards said it was a case of wanting to be ‘too successful’.

“Here was a very successful company who were running 70 vans a day through summer last year. That was from a standing start of just one van seven years ago.

“They were going on all cylinders but they expanded too quickly. They tripped up and got into trouble.”

He said that it was lucky Ward Thomas Removals stepped in at all.

“We saved most of those jobs that would have been lost.

“Not all jobs but we saved about 40 or 50.”

Mr Richards wasn’t too keen to comment on doing business with Mr Burgess, who has a very chequered history, because he said he had only known the convicted drug trafficker “for a couple of weeks”. But he said that “he showed signs of being a reformed character” and that Burgess was now only involved in the new company in a “consultancy role”.

The good news for Ms Rand and Mr Braybon is that Mr Richards said their individual situations were now being looked after.

“As you can imagine, when a business goes bust it gets a bit messy but we’re trying to do the right thing by getting everything to its end destination.

“Two or three people were caught in the trap [when Aussie Group went into administration]. They’d paid their money in full into the Aussie Group bank account and their goods were still in transit when the company went into administration.

“Two very nice people came out saying ‘we paid our money in advance and our goods weren’t shipped…’.

“The first person, we have located their goods and it turns out the goods had already been shipped to Australia. We’re now arranging to get them from Sydney to Adelaide.

“The second lady, we are making very good progress with.”

Australian Times confirmed this was the case with both Mr Braybon and Ms Rand who were equally ecstatic that their “Aussie Group ordeal” may now finally be over.

However, Mr Braybon had some sage advice for those thinking of engaging in an international shipping contract.

“I would recommend that people be very careful with people who claim to ship stuff anywhere and only use internationally affiliated and recognised shipping companies.

“If something like this happens and you are faced with replacing your much loved stuff, you actually realise the costs of doing so will be way more than you imagined.

“I used Aussie Group because they purported to be Aussie and as an Aussie living in London not only do you feel ‘safer’ thinking you are dealing with Australians, you clearly also want to support fellow patriots.”

Aussie Group were trading on the well known ethos that Australians are hard working and reliable, and therefore any brand or business built on this premise is ‘reliable too’.

Unfortunately, events like Aussie Group “going bust” can threaten to tarnish the hard earned ‘Australian reputation’. The irony in this instance is that it took a British company, in Ward Thomas Removals, to save the ‘Aussie’ way.

Have you had your own international shipping horror story or know someone who has? Comment below: