| First off, this was not my first cross country move. It was my third. I chose this company because they could ship our furniture and our cars. I also chose them because they provided 30 days storage as part of the contract.
I felt conned and it all seemed like a Bait and Switch.
The company did not send anyone to our house to see what we were moving. NEVER, EVER go with a company that doesn't come to your house to do the inventory with you.
I went through the inventory list like a crazy person. I listed every thing and even sent in measurements for all most all the items including the number of boxes and box sizes. I made sure the list was as accurate as possible. When the company sent me the contract, I reviewed the inventory list on the contract and noticed several items missing - several big items. I had to ask them several times to update the inventory list on their end and every time I received an updated contract, the inventory list was still wrong. I think in the end it was still missing 3 items.
There were a lot of hidden fees. The estimate for the house move doubled! Yes doubled!!!!! And we even ended up donating several items that were on the contract inventory list so I thought we'd be under or at least on target with the contract. Of course I didn't know that the $ amount doubled until after it was loaded.
When we finally received our stuff, many items were broken. Many boxes and plastic bins were broken. Stuff was falling out of some boxes. It was like they just threw our stuff in the truck.
There was even a part of what appeared to be an entertainment center they brought in and I had to tell them it didn't belong to us. Who knows who it actually belonged to.
Of course, I had to pay even more money when our stuff arrived. The head guy was like it will be another $250. By this point I just wanted my stuff and didn't argue but he never explained how he arrived at $250 just seemed to say, hey another $250 please.
Also, it was a company relocation so we had to put everything on an American Express Credit card. I was overly clear with the company before I signed the contract that we had to pay using the AMEX and they agreed. I made it clear that if they wouldn't/could't accept the credit card then we would have to go with another vendor. So they AGREED but that wasn't true!!!! We ended up having to pay via cashiers check for parts of the move even though they AGREED to my terms with the credit card.
So we also had them move our cars. I wanted to only deal with one vendor instead of multiple vendors like I had done in previous moves. I set this all up and in motion about 2 weeks prior to the pick up day for the cars. I even set an earlier date then our absolute have to move date to give them a day or so on either end of the pickup day. Again, not my first move so I know how it works.
We were given a pick up day so we were ready. Then a few days before the scheduled pickup day, I got a call from another vendor. They could see all the info about what was being shipped and said that based on what all the vendors can see, we didn't even have a driver yet and he didn't think that we'd be picked up any time soon.
So I called the movers and told them about the call. I was assured that everything was fine and on target for the pickup of the cars. Finally pickup day arrived and nothing was happening. They finally called and said they had someone on the way but they broke down. And that person wouldn't be coming at all. They didn't have anyone else that was heading to the west coast. So we were at a no go with the cars. It was too late to hire another vendor to transport the cars and in 3 days we had a flight scheduled to California. I worked it out to leave the cars with a friend and have them hand over the cars but was told that the broken down driver wouldn't be coming to pick up the cars. So the company made calls and called me back saying oh we have one other person but they are charging an insane amount. We'll keep looking. Finally, they call back and say we found someone it is going to be several hundred more dollars and you can't use AMEX you have to pay with cashier's check up front. I felt very BAIT and SWITCH. It felt like a con to me! At this point it was our only option.
So in the end, maybe they are ok for short moves but I would never ever recommend them nor use them ever again! |
