United Van Lines

Reviews

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1. L

   Linda M.

   Source: MoveAdvisor · New Orleans, LA to Pittsburgh, PA

   14 Nov 20212-bedroomPaid $15,000

   Armstrong Relocation/ United Van Lines

   Armstrong Relocation/ United Van Lines moved my household goods from New Orleans, LA to Pittsburgh, PA on May 28th and 29th this year (2021). They lost 2 pieces of furniture - an antique french fruitwood chair and a black lacquer table with fretwork legs that I have had for the last 20 years and moved with several times in the past. They also lost my bedroom rug- an 8x10 wool rug. They broke the marble top of my french secretary into three pieces; they broke the legs on two Windsor chairs which have now been repaired by the company who made them in Maine for $750 ( shipping costs both ways was $1,404); they broke the bow on a gold leaf mirror and on one of two car ed, wooden wall hangings. They never contacted me regarding the missing items. I had to telephone them. Their attitude has been dismissive from the beginning. The move was a disaster. They are now trying to not pay my claim .which is miniscule in regard to the loss and damage. This is one company to avoid at all costs. They told me the move was covered by their insurance for $70,000. Linda Monroe

2. J

   Joe P.

   Source: MoveAdvisor · Long Beach, CA to Dallas, TX

   18 Aug 20213-bedroomPaid $12,550

   Horrible, Horrible company - RUN the other way

   Horrible, horrible company. Lost some of my items during the move. When going through their process denied any reimbursement, although I checked box stating "ALL ITEMS NOT RECEIVED". They say I should've itemized what was missing. With over 400 asset tags, that would've taken a week while the driver waited. Just insane. No one replies to a call request, all email replies are standard pre-existing replies. This move was almost $13k, and they can't even treat you like a customer. You are the enemy after they collect their money. DO NOT USE.

3. E

   Earl R.

   Source: MoveAdvisor · Tewksbury, MA to The Villages, FL

   10 Jan 20203-bedroomPaid $7,000

   Disastrous move done by an incompetent company.

   Moved from Massachusetts to Florida after retiring in May. This company was to take my furniture April 26th and expected delivery in late June. When it was delivered, several items were missing. Many other items were damaged. Worse, they “lost” a dining room chair along with a headboard for one of the beds. I told them the chair was my top priority as it rendered a $5000 Thai Rosewood dining room table and chairs worthless. I am now 73 and retired on a fixed income and don’t have the money to buy new furniture. A week later, they found the dining room chair and headboard (around July 8th). In spite of weekly calls, emails - pleading, cajoling, they kept telling me my chair would be “coming next week” then transferred me from person to, obviously trying to hand me off to others. Finally, in desperation, I agreed to forgo the rest of my claim down to $500 if they could just PLEASE get me the dining room chair. Finally, they shipped my chair to me UPS Freight, FIVE months after they found it. They had just thrown the chair in a flimsy card board box with no protection. Due to this, it was destroyed in shipment. The mover’s adjuster come out to assess the damage and took pictures of the dining room chairs. He confirmed all of the damage and took pictures of the broken chair. Three weeks later they had still not responded to the claim. Finally, when I called threatening a lawyer and contacting the better business bureau, they sent me a “settlement letter” saying the chair was only worth $200 and included a link to a web site to some other chair. It was a different color, cheaply made, and the only thing it had in common was they were both chairs. Regarding the rest of the damage, they said I couldn’t prove it was not damaged before after the move.

4. B

   Bryan M.

   Source: MoveAdvisor · Denver, CO

   18 Jul 20194-bedroomPaid $26,000

   Bait and switch.

   Under no circumstances should you use United Van lines. They purposely low balled my estimate (straight talk price assurance is truly nothing of the kind), then six months later demanded an additional $3,000.00 and then 6 months after that demanded an additional $3,000.00! They kept coming up with a variety of excuses and really could care less about the customer experience. I will also be filing a formal complaint with the FMCSA as regards to their deceptive business practices. The actual movers themselves were very professional, but the bad taste left by the mafia-like collection tactics totally negates any goodwill they may have earned the company.

5. A

   Anna C.

   Source: MoveAdvisor · West Palm Beach, FL to San Antonio, TX

   20 Nov 20184+ bedroomPaid $10,000

   Worst experience we have had in over a decade of moving!!

   My family and I have moved 5 times in the last 11 years. All of these times we have used various moving companies. Our fist experience 11 years ago was with United Van Lines. It was outstanding and everything just shy of being perfect. Since that time we used many other companies as a result of the concern for cost. All of those experiences were decent but pretty much mediocre. This last move was from West Palm Beach to San Antonio. We paid $10K out of our own pocket to have United to move us. They were not the cheapest but our first experience was such a positive one that we wanted to have that same experience again. The packing experience was a JOKE! We were sent 2 packers for a 5 bedroom home (3700+sq ft) that was short on the actual packing supplies and had to have one of the packers leave early in the day to get more and they STILL ran out! After 8pm they simply threw items in boxes without any sort of padding or wrapping. I cannot even tell you how many items were damaged in the move. As items came off the truck we saw item after item damaged. The final straw was when we noticed my husband's MV Agusta damaged. This is a showpiece motorcycle that he had shipped directly from Italy (it's only 1 of 57 in the entire US). We immediately called to let them know that we would have to be putting a claim in on this move (which we have NEVER done in all of our years of moving). We followed every single detail we were told to do to ensure the claim was handled properly. We were told it would take 3-4 weeks to have the claim resolved once it was submitted. We submitted everything on our end June of 2018. Here it is the week of Thanksgiving and we are just getting it settled. That might sound great, however, they have not only denied items (which we expected to some degree) but they are only paying for 1 item that was damaged on the motorcycle. I was SPECIFICALLY told to break down all of the items on the motorcycle since this was such a unique and specialty item and they would handle it as a separate claim even though it was all in the same original claim. NOW I'M BEING TOLD THAT IT WASN'T TO BE BROKEN DOWN AND WAS CONSIDERED TO BE ONE ITEM?!?!?! How is that my fault that I followed your orders?? If I want this resolved I will have to take it to arbitration in order to get the additional couple grand that they destroyed out of my bike and how ever many months this will all take to resolve!! Trust me - this isn't over! I'm not just rolling over. Arbitration is definitely worth it for all of the hassle and headache they have put me and my family through. We were insured for 80K yet they can't fork over what they screwed up? We are the ones to suffer and we are the ones that will now have to come up with the funds to fix THEIR mistakes and mishandling. And yes, we have pics and documentations for everything so this is by no means fabricated. We will NEVER use United again and I would advise you to do the same!!

6. C

   Cynthia

   Source: MoveAdvisor · Portland, OR to Iowa City, IA

   4 Sep 20183-bedroomPaid $7,900

   United Van Lines - Horrible.

   Promised in 4-10 days. I am sitting in my new home 16 days later. No furniture, and United cannot tell me when it will arrive, because as of today, they have no one to drive it here. I paid super high price to United purposely to hire a premier moving company. It was irrelevant that I scheduled my move 4 months ago. When I asked United Customer Service if I should just hire another company to pick up the load, the agent replied that it was a good idea. She also said I should have anticipated delays because of the peak summer moving season. Having now passed L about Day, United still has no driver to assign to the load. Their last suggestion was that they might be able to send a partial load, and then the rest by container. When I asked why they don’t just send it all by container, TODAY, they said they don’t want to send the whole load that way because it is not the best, safest, or most secure way to send a load. My exasperation and disappointment is through the roof. Although I took my walker on my plane flight here, United was unmoved when I explained that my wheelchair was on the truck. They offered to rent me another one until they understood that it is a customized chair,..not easily replaced. Cannot warn enough to not use UNITED.

7. S

   Steve

   Source: MoveAdvisor · Las Vegas, NV to Tucson, AZ

   8 Aug 20184+ bedroomPaid $11,000

   Stay Away.

   Only hire them if you have a law firm on retainer or don't value any of your possessions. "Car Salesman" and "IN absentia " owner. They should be ashamed of themselves.

8. H

   Helen M.

   Source: MoveAdvisor · Fairhope, AL to Sparks, NV

   22 May 20184-bedroomPaid $11,759

   Missing & Damaged Antique Furniture - Poor Help from Claims.

   We have moved many times over 30+ years. Most have resulted in damage and/or lost items. Therefore on our last move we opted, at the advice of our move estimator, to purchase Full Value Protection. We followed the rules provided to have the driver note the items of most value on the inventory sheet. All went well until the load arrived at our destination but with only one man to help unload. Because of lack of room for the moving van on this street my husband and son unloaded the van and no one was available to mark off inventory numbers. As we began to discover problems including damage and missing items we notified the moving management concerning claims. They suggested we take our time to be sure we had a complete list of problems before filing the claim which we did and they told us to start finding pictures of lost items and search for comparable values. A difficult task as some of the items were very scarce but I was able to obtain auction prices and pictures as close as possible. Finally, they told us a antique appraiser would visit us to make a report. Well, that never worked out so they ended up sending a furniture repair person instead that was not really qualified for the task he was given. He did make a repair to a very valuable table that did devalue the table but we felt like we had no choice in the matter. This same man with our help, as he really didn't understand, made a report and took copies of our photos. Not sure if he ever really submitted the report but a lot of time transpired - at least two months until we got a letter from claims. This letter stated that we would not receive anything for our claim because 1. we had thrown away some of the damaged items (untrue we still have those items in a box) and 2. we did not check off inventory when truck was loaded. Which was true but as I stated we could not do so. I wrote several emails to three people involved in our claim. They told us many different stories in the beginning different from the final reasons I gave above. It didn't make a lot of sense to me that they sent out a furniture person and asked us to do all the research for values when they could do anything about the claim. I continued to write them and in my last email I included all the confusing answers I had received from them as I had kept their emails to me. They have not responded. A letter to woman who advised me to purchase Full Value Replacement was never answered.

9. A

   Anna

   Source: MoveAdvisor · Jupiter, FL

   24 Apr 20184+ bedroomPaid $6,000

   Horrible.

   We had to pay for housing from November 19th to December 2nd because it took a long time for our furniture to arrive. We got $100 for delay of transport. Initially the salesperson said furniture would be delivered before Thanksgiving. Then, the driver was sick and no one wanted to take the job. Then, the truck broke down. Finally, got my furniture with scratches on two tvs and missing items. I submitted a claim but the big 70" tv was not covered because it did not have a scratch. It has noticeable finger marks on the lower edge and was hung professionally before the movers took it down. By the way, if you pack your own dishes and the box is smashed, they are not liable for broken dishes even though the box was broken because you packed it. Horrible.

10. S

    Stacey R.

    Source: MoveAdvisor · Hiram, GA to Amarillo, TX

    16 Apr 20183-bedroomPaid $3,500

    Stolen property.

    They picked up our house and have never delivered our belongings to us. Nothing has ever been brought to Texas that was picked up in Georgia. One time they gave us a delivery window, but never showed up. We filed a police report this morning.