A friend of mine is moving back to Australia and wants to bring her small upright piano (200kg) with her. Her company is paying for the relocation and the local agent has confirmed that the container has space for the piano, meaning the shipping itself costs nothing, but any extra handling costs for the piano are on her dime.
So far so good, but the relocation agency is asking for US$3000 (!) in extra handling costs, split into US$950 to move it the 10 meters to the truck (same floor, no stairs etc), US$1250 to crate it and US$800 for handling at the other end.
This is approx 15x the market rate to move a piano within Singapore and in fact in the same ballpark as shipping an entire house in previous moves, so I'm pretty sure my friend is being taken for a ride. (And yes, we've made it clear that this is not a grand piano or something.). Any other data points on how much this should cost?
