10 Apr 2018 · MoveAdvisor
1.0 out of 51.0
This is written with the hopes of warning anyone who considers using this service, not to do it.
Our experience with this carrier has been absolutely horrible from the moment we signed the commitment and paid our deposit until now. The price increased almost 100% from the original quote - even though we spent over an hour giving detailed measurements and counts before the crew arrived.
We received a call at 9 pm the day before our scheduled loading, advising they would arrive between 8 am and 11 am the next morning. I called at Noon the next day because they had not arrived and had not called to say they were running late. I was told they would have the driver call and update me. At 2:45 pm the driver called to say they were 35 minutes away. They arrived at 5:30 pm and offered no reason for their lateness. They also were not in a full sized moving van, (as we were told would be coming) but rather, two 26' Penske trucks.
One of the Penske trucks left to go unload somewhere and the crew sat around for an hour and half waiting for the truck to return. After he returned they loaded the first truck that had been there for the duration and when they had it filled we were told we had to much stuff to fit in both trucks. After lengthy questioning of the crew foreman (who was very evasive about why they would arrive with insufficient space for the detailed loading manifest we had provided) we were informed that the original truck that had left, never unloaded and so there was not enough room , BUT, somehow, we were way over the space that had been calculated by the person to whom I gave our information 4 days earlier.
The bottom line, we were being charged another $5,000.00 to cover the overage! And we could not could not get our deposit back if we cancelled and we would have to unload the truck!
I was told the crew would return the next morning at 9 am to load the remaining items and they would be on their way. They did arrive until almost 3 pm the next afternoon and offered no apologizes for there tardiness. After completing the load, the foreman had the nerve to ask me how much of tip I was going to give the crew!
This story does not improve and gets worse.
We had scheduled to accept the items at our new address on or after 2/10/18 and we told we would get daily updates about the progress of our shipments. We were informed, by the foreman of the crew that loaded our shipment, that it would arrive between 2/10/18 and 2/13/18 and that we would get daily updates.
Neither of those things happened and, needless to say, getting any information was next to impossible. We got a lot of BS about trucks being serviced in Arkansas, and the truck being stuck at the California border awaiting something, plus a whole lot of you know what. We were promised a number of arrival dates that never transpired.
Bottom line, we did not get our belongings until 2/28/18, and a great number boxes were damaged, semi-crushed, or missing. Plus none of our appliances had been wrapped in protective blankets and, therefore, had sustained damage. Our white bed, white dining room table and bedside table were not wrapped and had been secured with brown tape that either left a residue or pulled the finish from the pieces when it was removed.
On March 6, I contacted Direct Van Lines about the missing and damaged items - providing them with a detailed list. As of today I have been given a complete runaround about our claim and do not expect anything to change.
I hope this lengthy description of our experience will help anyone else to decide to go elsewhere for a moving service.
Read more