18 Oct 2018 · MoveAdvisor
1.0 out of 51.0
WORST MOVING EXPERIENCE we've ever experienced in all our years of moving, and we sustained significant damage to our valuable possessions as a result of negligence and incompetence. Starting with the very late crew, things went downhill rapidly. Attempts to communicate with the office by phone were a total fail, as we encountered one problem after another. The crew was not notified by office staff that we had an antique baby grand piano that required special handling, and that created an emergency situation. A local piano company was called in, and they didn't have the right equipment either. Although the piano was later packed properly in the Stewart warehouse, during the transition the piano was dropped, severely mishandled, traveled on a truck with very little protection, and subsequently damaged virtually beyond repair. The sound board was cracked in 2 places, the casing was gouged and chipped, and the legs were inadequately packaged, and sustained damage. When they loaded the shipping container for overseas shipment, they did not inspect the container by closing the door and looking for light coming through - our container had a hole in it, and our shipment was destroyed by water ingress, mold, and mildew.
Our goods were already carefully packed and labelled by us, and the crew repacked things to consolidate. In doing so they failed to label or re-label the boxes, and made no effort to keep vital pieces together such as TV remotes, power cables, nuts/bolts/screws to furniture that we had taped to the back of the item to keep them together. We are still searching through the jumble of boxes trying to find essential parts and pieces.
Clothing was taken out of the sturdy wardrobe boxes with hanging bars, and jammed into flimsy little flat cardboard boxes that fell apart and were soaked by water. We disposed of a mountain of evening gowns, suits, leather jackets, dress shirts, shoes, and purses that were destroyed by mold and mildew. Linens, a leather chair, documents, electronics, photographs, rugs, everything ruined by water and mold. Had a degree of care been taken to prepare our goods for travel across water, it wouldn't matter if a leak occurred or not, our goods would be safe.
One of the crew members was new, and he didn't even have basic skills in packing or handling goods. No evidence of any training or experience whatsoever. If the boxes were labelled at all, it was a pitiful attempt to write words in English that no one could comprehend. Much of what we received had no inventory sticker or labelling at all.
The Irish crew that unpacked our unfortunate shipment felt so bad for us that the crew supervisor issued a formal report documenting the substandard packing, and the poor condition in which our goods were received. This was shared with Stewart Moving and the primary company we contracted with, Shumacher Logistics. No one contacted us to apologize for the fiasco that resulted, even after I sent pictures to show the severe damage.
We sold our home and most of our belongings to move to Europe, and kept only the most valuable and important things to bring with us. We trusted that our goods would be handled in a professional way for the $10,000 we paid, and what we got instead was an amateur job and a lot of run-around and excuses. We would have fared better to put everything in a rowboat and row it across the ocean ourselves, given the magnitude of damage that occurred at the hands of the "professionals."
To add insult to injury, basic communications functions at Stewart were non-working, including phones, email server, and the tablet with our inventory. They never did get that to work, and I had to take a picture of each screen with my phone as my official record of the shipment.
Today I posted negative reviews and photos on their Facebook page along with all the other negative reviews and horror stories: they DELETED EVERY CUSTOMER'S NEGATIVE COMMENTS and blocked me from their page. Instead of dealing with the negative experiences like a professional company, they are hiding behind only happy comments like cowards. What kind of organization handles complaints in that manner? They are a disgrace.
Read more