Removals firms may be fixing prices

REMOVALS companies have been accused in a France 3 investigation of fixing prices to keep them artificially high.

The TV channel said it had looked at 10 removals firms, and found they all refused to go below a certain price.

One firm even said: “We have to respect a fixed table of tariffs that is imposed by the chambre syndicale (body representing firms in the sector).”

However, the head of the chambre syndicale denied this, saying: “There is no price agreement, prices are free; though of course there is the minimum wage to respect, we can’t pay below a certain level and have to pass that on to the customer.”

The body also reportedly said that with more than 1,300 firms, most of them small, price fixing across the whole sector would be complicated to arrange, even if it wanted to. Plus each removal has a lot of variables in terms of the details of the service required.

Price fixing in general is more often than not found to be a localised rather than a national affair, said a spokesman for the Competition Authority.

The authority said it could not comment as to whether an investigation was under way into the removals industry as it could “compromise our work”.

France 3 said nothing had been proven as yet, but if price fixing was found by the authority, the firms could face fines of hundreds of thousands of euros.

Photo:Furniture Removals Christchurch