Complaint Review: Empire Relocation Inc

We contracted with Empire moving on April 4th and gave them a deposit of $750.  Empire Relocations was scheduled to pick up our goods on Wednesday, April 25th.  We could not reach them in the morning and e-mails sent to the  links on their site were returned.  We were able to reach them around noon.  About 3:00, we were contacted by the driver Charles.  He told us he was fueling in Denver and would be down in 2 hours.  We asked him what size truck he was driving; he said it was a 26 (straight) truck.  We told him that truck was too small for the amount of furniture and boxes we had.  He said he would check in with the office.  At 5:30, we called him again.  He had not left Denver yet.  He and Ray arrived at our home at 7:30 that evening.  After inventorying our items, he agreed that a larger truck would be better, but would try his best to load our items.  We watched them load our items until 1:30 am.  They were able to get everything onto the truck except an extension ladder and a blue cabinet.  They left at 2:30 Thursday morning.  Before they left, we asked Charles who would be responsible for our load.  He told us he would; that he was going to Denver that night to take Ray back and would leave for Arizona Thursday afternoon or Friday morning.  We kept calling Empire to determine what they were going to do about getting the rest of our items.  They would not return our calls. Thursday afternoon, some friends or Rays who worked with another moving company came by our home and picked up the two remaining items and took them to Denver.  They were not contacted by Empire; they did this as a favor to Ray.

We again began trying to reach Empire to confirm the time they would arrive in Phoenix.  Our calls to Empire were not returned. We contacted Charles and he told us that they had not given him the go ahead to bring our items to PHoenix.   He also told us on Friday that our belongings were being moved at a snails pace from our truck to the warehouse area, supposedly to be loaded onto another truck.  We called Empire daily and had to leave messages with the receptionist, because no one was available to take our calls. On Wednesday, I spoke with Robert who told me they had 7 business days to deliver our items.  This was the first time it was mentioned.   Finally, on Thursday, I was able to speak with someone who told me that they were waiting for a truck from Ohio and that our items would be loaded onto it.  I received a call later Thursday from Acacia who told me that our items would be delivered on Saturday.

The truck which carried our items arrived on Saturday, May 5th.  Not only was every piece of furniture damaged or broken, we were missing a 46 Samsung LCD TV, a commercial leaf blower, a box dollie, a coleman cooler and three boxes.  Charles , the driver called this into Empires office.

Both Charles and James told me that they had seen our items in Empires warehouse.   The items were in three different areas of the warehouse, unsecured.  When our truck was being loaded, Charles told us that as they were loading, he had to alert them to the various locations of our belongings.  When we asked him about our television, he said he did not remember seeing it in the warehouse when the truck was being loaded.  Charles notified Brittany of our missing items when the truck was completely unloaded.  Charles and James were also witnesses that our boxes had been opened and retaped We contacted Empire Saturday and Monday.  Their only solution to our missing and damaged items was to file a claim.  We told them to e-mail the information to us.  We have also sent 2 e-mails requesting the information.  We have not received any further communications, ether written or verbal from them.

The above was the actual statement I sent to the contracted claim agency of Empire Relocation. Its now 8/03/12 and I found out that two days ago that the claim agency froze all claims, files, and reports pending against Empire Relocation and has forwarded these files back to Empire Relocation for disposition and resolution. In other words, if you were waiting on a claim against Empire Relocation to be resolved, it just got alot more messy.

I welcome anyone with a comparable experience with Empire Relocation like ours and that has started any level of litigation to contact me. I would certainly join you and assist with evidence that  I have that you may not that would prove criminal intent of Empire Relocation. We will also be filing our case soon.