Cita Van Lines Inc

Reviews

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1. M

   Martha W.

   Source: MoveAdvisor · Belleville, IL to Gulf Shores, AL

   13 Feb 20264-bedroomPaid $14,000

   Awful Service, Evil People

   DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY! Oh, I already wrote a review on Google (which is below) which this company responded to and acted concerned. I wrote the review 7 months ago, and they are just now responding! DO NOT use this company. We finally got our items.. MONTHS late and so many things were damaged and broken. Expensive things, irreplaceable things. Will we get any money to replace them? NOPE! When I filed a claim, I was notified that their claims company had dropped them. I have contacted this company over and over to get answers on claims and arbitration which they are legally required to have. They stonewall me and refuse to answer. They won't take my calls. They won't respond to my email. We DID NOT even hire this company directly. We hired them through Safeship who refuses to take any accountability for their failure to vet this company well. Safeship has since also dropped this company. Avoid Cita Van Lines. We paid extra for Guaranteed Delivery by June 21, and it is now mid-duly. Yet we still have no belongings, no assigned driver, and no delivery date in sight. When we finally heard from Cita (once), they blamed Safe Ship and claimed they didn’t know about the Guaranteed Delivery. That excuse is unacceptable. They are the carrier, and they are responsible for delivering our household items. Since then, we have heard nothing. We were promised a call from the owner. It never came. Our follow-up calls and voicemails have gone unanswered.We were told Cita has done “nothing wrong” except miss the Guaranteed Delivery date, and that they now have 30 business days to deliver, even though we paid more to avoid exactly this situation. We were even told that if we picked up the items ourselves, we’d still owe Cita the full amount. This has caused real harm to our family, including an ambulance trip, emergency medical bills, and the purchase of replacement furniture because my husband couldn’t sleep without our mattress due to a serious back issue. We also have young children, and this has made settling into our new home impossible. Cita has shown a complete lack of professionalism, accountability, and compassion. We are filing formal complaints and exploring legal options. Do not use this company.

2. C

   Caylie V.

   Source: MoveAdvisor · Manhattan, KS to West Warwick, RI

   31 Aug 20252-bedroomPaid $4,700

   SCAMMERS

   Cita failed to comply with multiple federal regulations specifically designed to protect consumers from scammers. Below I have provided bulleted summaries of my experience. • Federal law requires that a moving company provide the booklet “Your Rights and Responsibilities When You Move” and the brochure “Ready to Move.” Cita conveniently failed to provide either of these. • Federal regulations require the Bill of Lading to be signed 3 days prior to the move. I received it on pick-up day, and was told to sign a bunch of forms without being told what I was signing or given the opportunity to read and understand what I was agreeing to. I was under the impression I was only signing an estimate increase. • Cita charged by volume instead of weight (easier to manipulate and harder to verify). On the day of the move, they falsely claimed that I had too much stuff and increased the broker estimate of 450cf to 595cf. After delivery, I measured all of my boxes and bins generously to avoid under-estimating, and came to 330cf, just over half of Cita’s estimate. I was charged a $2300 fee for this significant over-estimate (which I’ve since learned is not a reputable practice). The combination of this bogus fee and the surplus 265cf resulted in an over-charge of $3492.50. • I booked my move a month in advance based on Metro Hop’s verbal promise of a 3-5 day delivery window. The contract, however, had a 30 business day (6 week) delivery window built into it, which was never disclosed to me. It ultimately took 27 days for my belongings to arrive, causing significant additional personal cost and lost wages. • Cita communication is TERRIBLE. On pick-up day, the driver knew of my 3-5 day delivery expectation and failed to disclose the 30 day window in my contract. It wasn’t until I called 3 days later that I learned I had been misinformed. At that point, I was told that standard delivery was 7-14 days. Calls often went unanswered or straight to voicemail which were never returned. At one point I was told a driver had been assigned, only to be told after a week of calls going straight to voicemail, that a driver had in fact NOT been assigned. It was only after the 7-14 day window had passed that I was informed of the 30 day delivery window on my contract. They could not tell me why I had been told 7-14 days. • Cita tricked me into signing away adequate liability coverage for my belongings by omitting verbiage, required by federal regulations, from their estimate form to notify clients of coverage options. Instead, the liability form was hidden amidst multiple papers I was told to sign without any explanation. On that particular form I was specifically told to sign on the line waiving full value protection, without being alerted to the the second option for full protection. • On delivery, multiple boxes and bins, including those labeled as fragile, were caved in, crushed, or upside down, as if they’d been aggressively thrown around. Loose items that had been wrapped in moving blankets had no identification on them, requiring me to unwrap them and confirm they were mine. Instead of the 2 TV boxes I was charged for, my TVs were wrapped in a moving blanket with a piece of cardboard taped over the front. As a result of this inadequate protection, my 50” smart TV was cracked in multiple places. Other major damage and missing items included multiple holes and rips in my mattress, a broken plate I got from my dad, and a missing luxury desk chair. My most valued possession, a drawing done by my late father, was nearly lost as well until I noticed it was missing and was able to locate the box on the truck. • Upon delivery, they did not accept all forms of payment that were outlined in my contract, and refused delivery unless I used the 2 forms of payment they accepted. This cost me an additional fee to transfer the funds from the form I’d intended to use, to the one they accepted. Why is it that I’m forced to adhere to the contract, but the movers aren’t? • My initial contract included a flight of stairs. At delivery, the mover showed me where Cita had, without my knowledge, changed the wording so that 7 steps = 1 flight, so that moving anything beyond the first level was an additional charge. In summary, Cita charged me over $4,000 (not including costs incurred from unexpected delay, lost wages, and lost/damaged belongings) to hold my belongings hostage for a month, and do the bare minimum in moving them out of and into my home. This was not a service, this was theft, pure and simple, confirmed by their failure to comply with federal regulations.

3. K

   Kathy D.

   Source: MoveAdvisor · Springfield, MO to McKinney, TX

   29 Jul 20251-bedroomPaid $3,500

   SCAMMERS -Damaged and lost items along with delays in getting my stuff

   3 weeks out I finally received my items. ALL of the boxes have been damaged - some were opened and rifled through. My 60" tv was missing. They said it wasn't loaded on the truck and wouldn't assit me with noting it was missing. They said "read your paperwork". HA! They won't answer their phone. Seems they get your money, hold your items hostage and when they FINALLY do arrive, demand payment IN CASH before they ever unload. Won't even unload until you sign off on everything. 1 person with an 18wheeler shows up - they hire local people to come help - in my case - they hired 1 person who immediately pulled their shirt off, helped themselves to my refrigerator items and talked "smack" the entire time. At one point - 2 weeks in - Jonathan Dixon (foreman - who also seems to be the only POC) tells me they had to fire the guy who picked my stuff up and that he didn't turn in his paperwork. I had to send JON texts of pictures I had taken of my stuff. While on the phone with him he says "oh I found it". Really? RUN as fast as you can away from this company. They are total scam artists. If and when you do get ahold of them, they lie to you and say, "oh it's on the truck for delivery tomorrow". At one point "Jon" tells me they fired all of their people because they weren't doing their job. So, there is only one person running the so called "big company"? They also work with a broker "Metro-HOP". Total scam artists - all of them. I'm reporting all of them to the AG offices in Florida, Missouri and any other state they have offices in. Sidenote - I tried to call them last night and again this morning. NO RESPONSE! They see your number come up and they put you on infinite hold which finally goes to voicemail. LIARS, THIEVES, SCAMMERS are words I feel describe these companies.

4. K

   Kathy O.

   Source: MoveAdvisor · Omaha, NE

   8 Feb 20254+ bedroomPaid $15,000

   Nebraska to Florida, total scam full pack, move, and 3 week storage

   Contracted through Safe Ship. The Cita Van lines Driver and one assistant showed up 30 min outside the window (at 630 pm). When asked where the packers were, he told me that had already timed out for the day, and he didn’t really know how he and the other gentleman would do all this alone. He then took almost 45 min to redo the estimate completed by Safe Ship which he calculated as over 800 more cubics than our Safe Ship estimate. When asked to provide what was missed in the disclosures both the driver, a representative at Safe Ship, 2 managers at Cita, and a manger at Safe Ship agreed that the disclosures were right but claimed my items were “oversized” from the computer estimator. But not so oversized that I was being charged extra for them (no large entertainment center, normal size couch, no oversized bed frames). Even accounting for large pieces of furniture that were disclosed but we ended up getting rid of before the move, none of the representatives could provide me with a detailed explanation of how the original estimate only accounted for half of my household and therefore added an additional $6k+ to my amount due. After 3 hrs of back and forth, the ultimate resolution was a “generous” discount of $1k off from one company and $2k off from the other n the absurd overage and “wait and see” what the final number was before signing the papers and then decide if I wanted to move it myself or hire someone else but I had no way to cancel at this point without forfeiting my deposit but there was no way to give me more info on what accounted for the discrepancy. But he assured us that they were all professionals and knew what they are doing. I finally agreed, as I had a move timeline, but it was so late at night that we had to reschedule for the next day at 8 am, still assuring me that a crew of 5 could be done “on time” when I questioned how they could possibly have gotten it done on the scheduled day with the crew starting at 6 pm (and not taking into consider time outs on labor). During the payment process that evening, the Driver specifically mentioned that sometimes customers have issues with banks approving payments, and they have had to have customers stop at their banks. After this comment he then suggested that we split the payment between 2 different cash apps (which is a red flag for money laundering or fraud which is why the banks flag it). The movers came at 8 am as promised with 5 people, none of them experienced packers. I was assured this entire process would be done around noon,it took until 5 pm. Watching things be loaded, and noticing the number of wardrobe boxes coming from main floor living spaces. I was already concerned about the condition of our items They called multiple times once they got to the move location attempting to encourage me to accept delivery early (immediately) despite the move being scheduled for 3 weeks of storage as we hadn’t yet closed on the house and were living in a hotel. The day of delivery was actually worse than pick up. A different driver showed up with two assistants. After already having gouged a wall and scratch the stair riser so deeply the laminate came up, I was then faced with an argument over moving the couch upstairs (the last item after already having moved two dressers upstairs). The driver claimed the stairs of this new construction home were too narrow to fit the standard couch upstairs. I pointed out that he could remove the feet of the couch if it wanted more wiggle room. In his opinion this was irrational as the previous crew had packed it with them on. He wanted me to text him and his boss an attestation releasing him of ALL damage liability, otherwise he wasn’t touching the couch. He further insisted it was “basic geometry, that I obviously don’t know” before turning to my husband and telling him he “had better control his woman”. Under his protest, his assistants got sick of him arguing with me and his boss and just picked up the couch and headed upstairs with no further instance. Thousands of dollars in property damage. It’s easier to list the items that escaped their wrath than the extensive list of damages (damaged beyond repair and requiring replacement including solid wood tables reduced to splinters). As I also suspected, the crew got sick of packing at one point and resorted to shoving everything in wardrobe boxes. Items from the office were casually put in these large boxes with little to no padding around anything remotely breakable. Despite all of this, we have been informed after 6 months that insurance only covers 60¢ per their estimated lb of those items damaged…..$100….

5. D

   Dale W.

   Source: MoveAdvisor · Kansas City, KS to Fort Lauderdale, FL

   16 Jan 20253-bedroomPaid $21,000

   Horrible Service! Liars and CHEATS!

   Extensive damages to our furniture and boxes: antique furniture that is completely damaged that was wrapped when put on the truck and unwrapped when arriving, antique bed frame (unwrapped) with poster snapped in half and taped together, missing boxes, mattresses and box springs either unwrapped (I was told they would be wrapped when they arrived at the warehouse) or the wrapping was ripped exposing the mattress, missing section of a desk, missing pieces of a drafting table and Adirondack chair that was loaded intact that at some point were taken apart and now are unusable, a reclining chair that is now broken, wood furniture that was simply taped together causing damage to the furniture as well as the finish, pieces of furniture that clearly fell off and were put into our children's plastic bin of clothing by someone. Virtually every piece of furniture has some damage to them, even those that were blanket wrapped-and many of the blankets had tears in them as well, exposing the furniture underneath. Nearly ALL boxes were smashed and damaged, and we are missing boxes that contained precious heirlooms. We expect a few things to go wrong, but not to this extent. Also, the driver of the truck bullied us into signing lading form & attempted to hold our furniture hostage when we were upset about the state of the items. He then left without us being able to go through the inventory together (we did not sign). Even he acknowledged that the loading of the truck was unprofessional. Cita has not returned our phone calls now & has repeatedly not given us forms to fill out a claim after saying they would. They showed up significantly late to pick up the furniture and under prepared (not enough room in the truck or covers for the bedding) despite knowing the size of our order (having received half of the down payment). We have over 200 photos of damaged goods, which can be seen here: We want a full refund as the service was horrible.

6. A

   Anthony S.

   Source: MoveAdvisor · Dallas, TX to Corpus Christi, TX

   19 Jul 20241-bedroomPaid $6,500

   Contract price scam

   Coastal Movers and CITA Van Lines are to companies you don’t want to do business with! We signed a contract with Coastal Movers in end of May to move our belongings from Dallas, TX to Corpus Christi, TX for 2,179.50 with a 1,000.00 Deposit. CITA Van Line shows up June 2nd and starts writing a new contract for all most 7,000.00, with no explanation. Trying to reach Coastal Movers was a waste of time as no one would answer the phone. By the time I caught on as to what was going on I lost almost 5,000.00 and still have no belongings. Contacted a lawyer and trying to sue for our belongings and money back is now costing even more money.

7. H

   Hamed T.

   Source: MoveAdvisor · Saint Louis, MO to Puyallup, WA

   24 Jun 20242-bedroomPaid $5,000

   Absolutely Terrible Company

   I recently hired Cita Van Lines Inc to move my furniture from Missouri to Washington, and it was an absolute nightmare. From start to finish, this company displayed nothing but incompetence and rudeness. Many of my items arrived damaged, and they completely failed to assemble anything they disassembled at the time of pick-up, despite this being a clear stipulation in our contract. The customer service was atrocious—rude, dismissive, and utterly unprofessional. The manager was no better, displaying a shocking lack of accountability and courtesy. To make matters worse, they blocked my phone number when I tried to follow up on the compensation they owe me for the damaged items. This is not just poor service; it's outright fraud. I have already filed a complaint against them with the USDOT (FMCSA). I strongly urge anyone considering this company to look elsewhere. They are irresponsible, dishonest, and a complete disgrace to the moving industry. Avoid them at all costs!

8. A

   Angela R.

   Source: MoveAdvisor · Greeneville, TN to Hernando, FL

   3 Jun 20242-bedroomPaid $3,149

   Terrible company

   I have filed a complaint w the BBB. My things took 10 days to go from tenn to fl. I was over charged and noone knows why or an explain the reason. All the things I had gotten cause my mom passed a few wks b4 the move is all damaged, broken or useless. Your company has given me emotional stress on top of everything. The boxes were all smashed they lost some of my things, I have other people's boxes. Glass and block soot is on e erything. All my plastic 3 or 4 drawer organizer are smashed, the lids ruined, tore open or smashed. I have every pic of every item that your company has destroyed. I have filed a complaint w your co as well as the BBB. I want reimbursement for damages refund of what I've paid, and for the emotional stress I have been in since the 1st day. I keep opening boxes and keep funding more things broken, I filed a claim and noone has called to fix this issue.

9. A

   Amy C.

   Source: MoveAdvisor · Omaha, NE to Austin, TX

   5 Apr 20241-bedroomPaid $5,000

   Borderline a scam if not for the fact they completed the move

   Moved from NE to TX. The movers showed up with a different quote than what we had most recently so we and the movers sat around for an hour and a half waiting for a response from their manager (who was asleep we found out) to go forward with the move. The movers themselves were nice, patient and moved my stuff relatively quickly and safely so kudos to the guys doing the ACTUAL job. The problems only started there. The delivery time was supposed to be 2-4 days, turned up being 7 days. They said early on multiple times they would give me a 48 hour notice of a move in window (date and time). I then called EVERY DAY to see if they have an update so I can be sure to be there for the move in and oversee damages and let them in. They never had a delivery date and time and by the time they gave me one it was 1230pm the day before for a 9am delivery. I was still in NE waiting to hear back from them so I can drive down with my family and prepare for move in (rather than spending hundreds a night in a hotel). I called them immediately and eventually they told me that they would be able to delay the delivery to the following day, so we decided the next day to drive out of state to be there the morning of the move with keys in hand. Then the REAL problems started. On the drive down they called me asking me to let them in because they were outside the apartment at 1030am. I had to pull off the road and go back and forth for AN HOUR with their undertrained and careless manager. She was extremely disrespectful, talked over me and kept saying there is nothing she can do (Mind you I was very calm and trying to work it out but she was trying her best to escalate emotions and panic). SHe said I pay a $650 delay fee or they movers will drop my items in storage nearby. WTF!? I called my TX location and the owner there was kind enough to assist and let the movers in and show them where to go. That being said, the movers were then looking to move our items in while it was raining. Then, since I was not on site to pay the movers directly I had to pay remotely which was a hassle itself but eventually got it out and the movers moved in. When I arrived, I noticed that ALL the furniture that was taken down to be moved and PROMISED to be reassembled on site.... NONE of it was reassembled. My best guess is I wasn't there to help them locate the screws and bolts that the previous movers taped around the different disassembled furniture. I could understand that if we werent there and they didnt know where the items were to reassemble that they would avoid it, but they NEVER called, texted, or asked me directly where it was to reassemble. Lastly, without giving away too much information, I overpaid the movers and when I requested a return of the separate overpayment they had the audacity to give me the run around for over a week and then at the end state that they never got it. I had to then issue a legal challenge and BAM my money was returned in a few days. Worst experience moving ever. Would absolutely stay away NO MATTER WHAT. If you go through a broker or third party mover, ask their delivery and if CITA comes up, you should stop right there and find someone else.

10. D

    Deneil H.

    Source: MoveAdvisor · Hastings, NE to Mesa, AZ

    3 Jan 20242-bedroomPaid $14,000

    Absolutely the worst experience! Total scammers!

    We moved from Nebraska to Arizona. I was working with a different company and gave that company an inventory list of what needed moved and also did a video walk through going room to room explaining what stays and what goes. We were not moving much furniture. Mostly boxes, a few dressers, desk, super light table, 2 queen size beds. I received a quote of $3,500. I said ok and signed a contract and paid half up front. I did not realize the company I was dealing with was going to subcontract with this horrible company Cita! The day they were supposed to come the kept texting me saying the were running late. I explained to them my mom unexpectedly passed away and I absolutely had to get on the road but I left a copy of the inventory list and instructions. The said ok and several hours later I get a text from them saying the price of the move is going to be an additional $10,000 on top of the $3,500 contract amount! I questioned this and said I don’t have that kind of money! I am on my way to make funeral arrangements for my mom and you guys pull this!? They wanted me to Venmo $7,000 to his personal account right away. I explained over and over I didn’t have the money I was quoted $3,500. He said that was just an estimate and subject to change. I signed a contract for the $3,500! I understand amounts may vary a bit like $500 but not $10,000! The refused to give my deposit back. They left without moving a thing. They would not return my calls or texts! Finally the original company I contracted with called me and called them and said they will go over and move some boxes but that’s it because they want more money! This is the worst company ever! The kept calling and texting me demanding I venmo money to them right away while I was at the funeral home making funeral arrangements for my mother! The original company I contracted with isnt any better. They should make this right instead of avoiding me!