Complaint Review: R&L Carriers

Vintage Headboards is a custom manufacturer of hand made old door headboards.  We have shipped our furniture nationwide.  To date, the only LTL Shipper that has damaged our Customers' furniture is R&L Carriers.  Specifically their Houston Texas Terminal.

The old doors that we purchase are one of a kind that are not easily replaced.  We purchase them from a three state area as they are so hard to come by.

In January we shipped a headboard to a Customer in Houston which R&L Carriers managed to rip a 4" x 4" leg off of one side of the headboard as well tear a 3" wide x 3/4" piece of cabinet grade plywood trim.  It is not humanly possible, especially after it is attached to our headboards for a human to rip the plywood with their bare hands.

The headboard would have to be dropped off of the truck or damaged with a forklift and pallet puller or something along those lines to hurt it.

Our headboards are over-engineered.  These headboards are made with old doors made from solid wood, we use screws, nails and the strongest rated construction adhesive available to retail Customers.  Bottom line - they are very strong.

We filed a claim that was denied as the freight was marked on the driver's paperwork as "unprotected" but yet he didn't put that on our Bill of Lading.

I am willing to give freight companies a second chance so I used them another time to ship two additional headboards to Houston and the same thing happened.

These freight companies carry general liability insurance so that when their employees mishandle things being shipped they can have they repaired or replaced.

I have a total of three claims filed with R&L Carriers - one of them I have filed three times as the Terminal Manager (Jim) in Houston TX told me that the unwritten company policy was to deny all claims the first time they are submitted.

The sad part of all of this is that honest people like our Customers that worked hard for their money and who were excited to buy our products are now upset or angry that R&L is not paying to replace what they clearly damaged.

The Claims Specialists that I spoke with Todd and Brenda were less than professional and very sarcastic on the phone which is not the professional way to handle the situation as we only want what is right for our Customers - to have their headboards replaced which they are not willing to do.

I hope this message does not fall on deaf ears - I want to warn people who are considering using R&L Carriers to think twice - they do not care about you or your customers at all!