Complaint Review: City Moving Systems

This letter describes the reasons I am disputing the charge by City Moving Systems (United Van Lines) on 5/10/2005 for a total of $11,554.60. Our experiences with United Van Lines thus far have been the worst we've ever had with any type of retailer. Our goal is to ensure that United Van Lines/City Moving Systems receive absolutely nothing for what they have put our family through.

My intention is to make this letter as thorough as possible. Thus I am going to iterate over the damage [that we know of thus far] as well as highlight a few of the execution issues that were absolutely appalling. Almost every piece of handmade furniture we own has been damaged in one case I found a steel garden rank embedded into our dining room table!

My main concern at this point is that 80+% of our belongings are in (were actually thrown into) mini-storage. How are we going to determine the full extent of the damage without moving each item out of storage, unpacking it (if necessary), inspecting it, repacking it, then moving it back into storage? United Van Lines/City Moving Systems has done nothing to date to help us resolve these issues.

Washington Phase of Move

The movers urinated on the master bathroom floor.
We moved to Washington in September 2003. The carrier was Graebel and the weight of that move was 12.5K lbs. While in Washington we *sold* our side-by-side refrigerator and a professional quality [PreCor] treadmill. Bob Fullerton, from City Moving Systems, estimated our shipment at under 12K lbs (which made sense due to the fact we sold two heavy items). Myra (customer service rep) stated that the United Van Lines driver said that are shipment was close to 15K lbs I have absolutely no idea how that is even possible. We are sure the United Van Lines driver grossly misrepresented the weight of our move to increase his/the company's profits.

New Hampshire Phase of Move

The NH driver was able to choose the size of the mini-storage so that we could easily gain access to the things we might need and ensure that none of our valuable items would have to be unnecessarily crushed, scratched, etc. Unfortunately we found our $4000 Crate & Barrel couch sitting directly on its side on a cement floor with a $1500 Relax the Back office chair propped on the top of it!

HP 2210 All in one fax machine shattered
Dead Dell 4600 PC the damage appears to have been caused by water damage
Torn and scuffed corner on leather couch
Gouges in computer desk
Missing back leg on Cherry nightstand (which was propped up with cardboard so that we would not notice the damage).
Gouges in two different bookcases
My wife's craft supplies were dumped all over the floor of the mini-storage the filing cabinet that contained the items was in pieces.
A lawn rake was dug INTO our $6000 handmade Cherry dining room table! None of our really expensive items were protected in any way in the mini-storage (a mountain bike was sitting directly on top of handmade bookcase shelves).

Mud was tracked EVERYWHERE in the apartment.
There was mud on the bottom and top of our master bedroom mattress.
Almost every box that was brought into the apartment was covered on both the top and bottom with mud.
The movers left litter outside of our apartment when they left.

The movers did not reassemble an office desk and the mirror on the dresser in the master bedroom. This wouldn't have been too big an issue except for the fact that I was not present when the pieces were disassembled in WA *and* I did not have any tools (as they were mistakenly left in mini-storage).
We have thus far made FOUR trips (using my BMW X5) between mini-storage and the apartment (and we are no where near done) to swap boxes marked stg (for storage) with those marked apt (apartment). The packers in WA made it very easy to determine which boxes went where, so I do not understand how this mistake was made over a dozen of times. The NH movers were aware of the mix-up yet left the storage boxes in the apartment. One of the boxes (carrier packed) in the apartment weighs so much that I cannot even budge it.
We desperately need things (marked apt) that are absolutely buried in the mini-storage (for instance, we have no idea where our shoes are I have been making due with a single pair of sneakers).

The services rendered by United Van Lines and City Moving Systems will, in the end, cost us more in terms of time and money than if we had performed the move ourselves.

I have been in contact with the VP of Sales and Marketing at City Moving Systems (Greg Dolan, 253-518-1960, or 253-261-6371) numerous times. As soon as I made Greg aware that I had contacted an attorney and that I needed contact information for both United Van Lines and City Moving Systems (to send the lawsuit notification letters) he simply stopped responding to me.

I told Greg early on that if City/United would just refund our money we would walk away quietly. I did not want to file this report, nor do I want to move forward with litigation, but they have left us no choice.

If you value your belongings (as well as your time and sanity) stay away from United Van Lines and City Moving Systems!

R
duvall, Washington
U.S.A.

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