1 Dec 2015 · MoveAdvisor
1.0 out of 51.0
Sun Trust follows an interesting business model based on the Christopher Nolan film "The Prestige." The transaction takes place over three distinct acts: the Pledge, the Turn, and the Prestige.
The Pledge is pretty obvious. Someone warm and friendly gives you a suspiciously low estimate to move all your life's belongings for you. It's very convincing because it comes with a NO HIDDEN COSTS (their all-caps, not mine) guarantee.
In my case, the warm and friendly representative was Natalie, and I did my best to probe her on this guarantee. "Is there ANYTHING that could cause the charge to be higher than this estimae other than if I go over our agreed-upon square footage?" I asked. The answer was no. I couldn't find the catch! So I signed the papers, gave my credit card information, and then the magic began: Natalie disappeared, never to be heard from again.
The next stage, the Turn, occurs when they arrive for pickup. Suddenly you learn the many inventive ways the document you signed can me reinterpreted to allow for new charges above and beyond what you were guaranteed in the NO HIDDEN FEES estimate. In my case it was over $800 for packing material they insisted upon above and beyond what I had already provided, and $300 for stairs that I had told them about prior to the estimate, but which wasn't included in it.
It's a great lesson in how the trappings of society are by and large imaginary, and when a company has you utterly by the gonads—as in, you need to be moved out of your apartment by the end of the day and there's no time to hire anyone else—the notion of honesty or integrity disappears.
But as Michael Caine intones in the movie, "making something disappear isn't enough. You have to bring it BACK." The tension of the final act is amplified by Sun Trust drawing it out. In my case, they did not complete the delivery for well over a month. Long enough to forget what life with possessions is like. It's like being homeless in your own home.
I ruined the surprise a bit by calling Sun Trust to find out when my stuff would arrive, and threatening legal action when they refused to answer the phone. It wasn't a bluff—I had been talking with a lawyer, who let me know some surprising facts, like how legally Sun Trust could keep my things for 90 days (or, 78 more than their longest estimate) before I could do anything about it. Until then, they could continue to sit in a warehouse in Miami while Sun Trust waited for enough westbound business to make the trip worth their time.
When the Prestige arrives, it's a little underwhelming.
The possessions reappear different from before, sure. Some stuff is broken, with a laughably low reimbursement offer that is barely worth the ink you would exhaust filling out a form.
Other things are missing, but after 5 weeks without possessions, who can really remember what was packed and what was left by the curb? Their notes aren't really detailed enough to know for sure. I thought I had a floor lamp that I really liked, but maybe it was all a dream from sleeping on the carpet of a dark room, wondering what it would look like when illuminated.
And sure, there are last-minute fees that are icing on the cake. In my case, a shuttle fee because the movers they outsourced to couldn't fit their truck in my new apartment complex. It seemed like the sort of thing Natalie might have mentioned when I asked about anything that might come up, but not only was Natalie gone, Sun Trust was, too. The goons who delivered my stuff were contracted out and didn't give one fig what was said back when I was giving my money to some other group of goons, ages ago.
But after all the slight of hand you've already been through, it lacks punch. Maybe replace my family photos with photoshopped duplicates where everyone has tiny eyes and snaggle teeth? Cover my furniture in itching powder? Deliver a video of using my cookware as a toilet but only after I've made a few meals with it?
The treatment I received on the phone while I waited for them to deliver the possessions that they accepted money in agreement to deliver was pretty rough, the sort of disorienting runaround that feels vaguely like you're a detective in a movie trying to break a massive shadow conspiracy. It left me expecting something with real punch, not just the bar-none worst service I've ever received from a business full of greedy con artists.
Have some showmanship, Sun Trust.
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