Complaint Review: Colonial Vanlines Relocation Division

To begin, Colonial VAN LINES Relocation Division is NOT a mover. They are a broker. They solicit people who need their household goods moved, then parcel out the jobs to third party "movers" who do NOT work for CVLRD.

I knew I was going to bemoving this summer, so I began shopping for movers in March. I chose CVLRD because they gave me the best price. The man I spoke to on the phone, Tiago Lucena, was personable and professional. He never offered to send anyone to my house to view my goods. He took an inventory over the phone, room by room. I was very forthcoming about my items. I made certain to tell him we had LOTS of books. He gave me a quote for poundage that he assured me was an OVER-estimate, and more than likely I would be paying less. He said, "This is a binding estimate. You will only pay up to the amount quoted you. If your weight goes over, you don't have to pay." I made sure to ask him several times to clarify that point before I gave him a deposit.

Three and half months later, I get a call to go over my list once more to see if there's anything I want to add. I do add a few things and the man who called me says I must pay more toward my deposit as the estimate just went up in pounds. I pay this amount and go on packing to move.

The day of my move, the movers showed up at 8:30 pm. They unload my storage locker first, then drove to my house. Upon going through my house, they said, "Oh, you have way more than 11,000 pounds. I'm going to have to write you a new estimate. And by the way, you do know you owe us 70% of the remaining balance today, right?" Okay, admittedly, the possibility of having to pay a portion of the remaining balance IS in the contract, but it says, "May" collect, not will. No one bothered to mention this prior to the movers' arrival. I told the movers the truth, that I can't get that kind of money on a Saturday night. They tried to give me a new estimate, which I refused to sign. They said they'll be back in the morning.

Sunday, they showed up two hours late, once again saying I need to sign this new estimate. I told them to unload my stuff from the storage unit and I would call on Monday to talk to Colonial.

I spoke with my Moving Coordinator, Kurleen, and tried to cancel the move. They say they can only refund HALF of my deposit, so instead (unwilling to throw away $2000) we worked out an agreement wherein I would pay the amount originally quoted and nothing more until AFTER the goods were delivered (per the US Transportation Safety Administration's website).

A month later, after I had already moved to Colorado, new movers showed up in an unmarked truck at 5:30 on a Friday. My realtor was there to meet them. She showed them my email detailing the stuff they were to leave behind and giving some special instructions for some items to be moved. They took two days to load with only 2 men for a 4 bedroom house.

They arrived in Colorado the next week. When they opened the back of the truck, I was appalled. Many of our items were just thrown into the truck carelessly. They demanded the TOTAL remaining balance, including extra charges, at the time of delivery. Then these guys offered to let us pay them a lesser amount in cash and they would unload, and tell their bosses we refused to pay! I refused to do this and got a cashier's check from the bank. Again, it was just two guys. It took them two days to unload our goods, and by the end, they weren't paying any attention whatsoever to where they were putting things. They just dumped everything in the garage. They never went through and counted everything, and because of the haphazard way they unloaded, there's no way we could tell if anything was missing. The truck WAS empty when they were done, but if they'd removed anything, we had no way of knowing. We did take note of everything that was damaged, and there was a LOT. They never finished putting together our furniture, as promised. We discovered, as they were preparing to go, that they'd left 2 of our area rugs behind, and some other items.

THEN, my realtor called me to say when she went back to the house to tidy up from the move, she discovered the movers had defecated EVERY TOILET IN THE HOUSE, and then not flushed.

I have been trying for three weeks now to get my moving coordinator to call me back so I can make a claim and get them to ship our remaining items. Kurleen has not called me back in that time. I have made repeated attempts to reach her, left multiple messages, and she simply hasn't called me back. I've tried to escalate the call to management, only to be put into an interminable hold queue.

Don't make my mistake. Do your research. These people are thieves and shysters.