Complaint Review: Unified Moving Services And Orange Van Lines

Customer's version of incident:

Moving day, Baltimore, MD, August 15, 2007:

Pick-Up Guys: Alexey Kushnarev, Ivan Nikolajevich, Azamat Dzamalovich, Taulan Ildusovich

After all furniture and boxes were loaded onto the truck I had to sign paper work and pay the estimated cost of the move upfront. I was told by the GM, Marc Zammichiele, that his company accepts American Express (AMEX) as a form of payment. When I went to pay for the total using our AMEX the driver told me that they do not accept AMEX and asked for another form of payment. We (my fianc and myself) asked him to please check with his company, Unified Moving Services, before we gave another form of payment as we had planned to use our AMEX per discussion with Marc. Reluctantly he did and after several minutes came back to tell us that yes they do accept AMEX but that the card number would have had to been taken by the office, but that they offices were not open at 6:45pm and the machine he has only accepts VISA or MC. My fianc gives the driver his VISA, but as we never use this card except for times of emergencies, and as the dollar amount was over $2,000 the credit card company asked that Unified Moving Services call for verification of identification. Had the driver understood and spoke English, this would not have been a problem. As a result of not understanding this and telling us that the card had been declined he called someone from the company and was told to accept a personal check from us. WE NEVER wanted to give Unified Moving Services a personal check. In addition to this headache, I was also told by the GM, Marc Zammichiele that if I needed my furniture ASAP then on the paperwork I should put August 16, 2007 so that my furniture can start its journey to its new location ASAP. I did just what I was told.

During the time the four movers were in our house one of them STOLE my BRAND NEW (purchased on 7/16/2007 from Sephora in DC as a birthday present to myself) $80 bottle of Dolce & Gabana Light Blue Women's Perfume. D&G makes the same named scent for men and the bottle looks exactly the same. I noticed it was missing the next morning when I went to use it while I was getting ready for work. I do not make it a habit to accuse someone of stealing until I know for sure that it is missing. FYI, this perfume was taken from my bathroom which I DID NOT have packed as I needed those toiletries for work on Thursday and Friday of that week. Regardless, I was given these thieves the benefit of the doubt and waited until I had received my furniture and boxes. Everything has been unpacked and there is no sign of my perfume. I also thought that maybe they were smelling it and might have dropped it and it broke and they just picked it up and put it in the garbage can, but there was no trace of such an event occurring. I have waited to say something until I filed my claim because one of the movers at the house said that him and another one of the guys was going to be delivering my furniture to Chicago, IL. and I did not want them to become angry at my accusation and take it out on my furniture. My perfume was never seen again.

While the movers were moving furniture out of our house in Baltimore, the movers broke the railing on our stairwell.


August 16, 2007:

Omar Mazintas, the moving coordinator calls me at my work to discuss the total weight and price of the move. He also tells me that I cannot put August 16 for the earliest possible arrival of my furniture as it does not make any sense. I tried to explain to him that Marc Zammichiele told me to put this date down and that I needed my furniture as soon as they could get it to me and that I did not feel comfortable changing the date. He told me that I had to because, again, it did not make sense and was not possible. Reluctantly, I agreed to change the date to August 20. This was five days after the pickup date and the earliest possible delivery date for east coast deliveries. Omar agreed to this date after explaining to me that my delivery was a west coast delivery and needed between 8 to 10 days. I said that I just wanted to get my furniture as soon as possible. I never heard from Omar again. I was under the assumption that m furniture would be arriving on August 20, 2007.


Furniture arrival day, Chicago, IL., August 28, 2007 at 4:50pm:

I had called Omar on Monday August 20 to see when my furniture would be arriving that day. He told me that it would not be arriving until Friday, August 24 between 9 and 10 in the morning.

Friday, August 24 at around noon I call looking for my furniture. I cannot get a hold of anyone. At around 5pm that evening I receive a voice message from a guy named Alex Petranskas who tells me that my furniture has just arrived in Chicago, but that they will not be able to deliver it until Monday, between 9 and 10 am, as they do not have the key from Unified Moving Services to get my furniture.

Monday August 27 around noon I call looking for my furniture. Alex tells me that they will not be able to deliver it until Tuesday, August 28 between 9 and 10 am as the guys are very busy and apologizes for the inconvenience. We have been sleeping on the floor since August 16. We had a friend arrive from out of town on Monday August 27 (we thought the furniture would have been delivered to our new home by now) who now would have to sleep on the floor as well.

Tuesday, August 28, was one of the worst days of our lives. AGAIN, I have to call Alex looking for my furniture as no one from Unified Moving Services has the decency to call me and give me an update on the status of my furniture arrival. I was told that my furniture would be there between 9 and 10 am. It was 11 am and still no furniture. Alex tells me that he will call me back after he gets a report from his guys as he does not know what is going on just yet because he has not spoken to his guys. Alex calls me back and tells me that the movers should be to my residence by 1:30pm. 3:30pm I call, again, looking for my furniture. He tells me that they are on their way and will be to me in 20 minutes. 4:45 the movers finally arrive. When they get here they are clearly, absolutely exhausted. As it is policy for moving companies to hold customers belongings hostage until the balance has been paid in full we pay the remaining balance and the then our nightmare began.

There were three delivery guys (Albert Ruslanovich, Michail Zaton, and Alexey Kurijev); they barely understood or spoke English and spoke amongst themselves many times to try and figure out what we were saying or asking them. They were unprofessional and unqualified to move furniture. They always carried everything by themselves no matter how heavy it was. They could barely lift some of the furniture. They were exhausted, careless, and inconsiderate of our belongings and our home.

One guy started to unload our furniture and boxes off the truck onto the lawn as the other two guys began to carry boxes in. As they begin they never ask us where we would like the boxes to go and just start dumping everything into the living room/dining room and kitchen area. My fianc tells them to please take the boxes to where they should go. They get annoyed by this, but eventually begin to bring some of the boxes to the right rooms. Some of the boxes were heavy and required at least two people to carry them. Instead they were using a truck dolly, loading it up as much as it could possibly take, and then began to slam the dolly into the concrete stairs leading up to our house. Meanwhile, pieces of concrete were beginning to chip off in chunks at which point we politely asked they guys f they would please not use the dolly as it is damaging our stairs not to mention the slate flooring we have inside the house. They told us NO because using the dolly was easier for them. Occasionally, when a box or bin was too big for the dolly the guys would carry these pieces up the stairs in a hurry and ended up dropping some boxes and spilling the contents onto the ground. One such bin was mens dry cleaned work shirts and pants and as they guy was throwing the clothes back into the bin was telling us that the bin should have been secured better when it was packed. It's a bin that has two handles on the bottom piece and locks in place once the top is placed on. The bin will only open if it is not carried properly or do not have help carrying the bin as it is long in length. As these guys continued to carry the boxes in they began to fade quickly, and again, boxes were being left all over the place. They took a smoke/break around 6pm explaining to us that they have been working all day since 6 a.m. and this was the break between jobs.

When they begin to work again there is no order to anything and they are in even more of a hurry as it is starting to get dark and they are feeling even more tired. They will take at least four more cigarette breaks and explain to us that they are exhausted.

They begin to bring in the furniture and are struggling to make it fit through our front door. We remove the door, but are not able to remove the storm door which is now dented on the side and broken on the bottom from the guys haphazardly running into it with the furniture as they were simply not paying attention to what they were doing all in an effort to hurry the job along. We also have a door on the side of our house that is closer to the basement, kitchen and master bedroom that we suggested they use for boxes, bins and furniture going into those rooms. Those are the only two entrances to the house. FYI, the front and side doors and storms doors are exactly the same width and height and exactly the same doors. We DO NOT have a balcony. Furniture can be moved in and out of both entrances with a little patience and skill. One microfiber sofa was originally going to be brought through the front of the house, but my fianc suggested that they bring it through the side door as it was going in the room connected to the kitchen. It is a tight squeeze getting it through the door and once it is in because of the stairs the sofa is unable to make it through the hallway. As a result, the guys had to remove it from this entrance and bring it through the front door. This bit of extra work angered them and one of the guys snapped at us as we were trying to explain why we thought it should go through the side instead of the front. We apologized for this inconvenience. The guys bring the same sofa to the front door, but cannot figure out how to make it fit. A friend who was in from out of town ran to the rescue and explained to the guys how maneuver the furniture in order to make it fit. Ten minutes later, with our friends help lifting and angling the sofa, the guys were able to get the sofa in the house. They start to bring in the other half of sofa, but again, cannot figure out how to make it fit. Again, our friend helps the guys lift and angle the furniture into the house.

They take another smoke break. These breaks are because these guys are physically exhausted and are trying to remain awake to finish this job.

After the break more furniture is being unloaded from the truck and placed all over the front lawn. There are still many more pieces of furniture and boxes to be carried into the house. Two of the guys decide to bring in boxes while one was unloading the rest of our stuff from the truck. One mover, Alex, was carrying our wine cooler on the truck dolly through the house to be placed in the basement. When I noticed that he was doing this by himself I offered to help, but all he kept saying was no and that he got it. At this point he has two flights of stairs to bring this cooler down so that it could go in the basement. I am standing down the first flight of stairs watching nervously as he tries to maneuver the truck dolly around the staircase in order to be able to bring the wine cooler on the dolly down the stairs. Before he begins I beg him, again, to let me help, but he is already trying to place the dolly down and looses hold of the wine cooler and it goes crashing onto the wall and takes a chunk out of the wall. He notices that I am clearly exasperated and annoyed by this and proceeds to yell at me telling me that he thought I had it. I never had it because he kept telling me no that he had it. I begged him to let me pick up one end and help him carry it down the stairs. He says no and asks that I helped bring the truck dolly with the cooler on it down the stairs. As we approach the bottom of the first stairs I tell him that it is not going to fit and ask him to wait, but he continues to lower the dolly and smashes the dolly into the wall and, again, another chip is created on another wall. I tell him that I told him this was going to happen and he jumps over the banister to get to the other side where I am standing to take a look. He is jittery and rushing. He grabs the wine cooler and proceeds to walk down backwards down the stairs. He is struggling to hold the cooler all by himself and I, again, ask him to please let me grab one end of it. He says no, again, and continues down the stairs. When he gets to the bottom of the stairs he looses his balance and the wine cooler goes crashing into the wall first and then to the ground. He fumbles to pick it up and says that he's sorry it slipped and that he will unwrap it and we can take a look to see if anything is wrong. We do that and I realize that the door is broken. It will not close. Alex quickly looks under the wine cooler and tries to tell me that the reason it will not close properly is because it is uneven on the bottom. I shake my head and say I'm not so sure I will look at in a minute as I wanted to tell my fianc what had happened and where I was going to be for a minute. Alex leaves and continues to carelessly and haphazardly bring in boxes and furniture. I go down to the basement and take a look at the wine cooler. It has the feet that adjust to the ground. After I adjust the foot accordingly I try to close the door but it still won't shut. I try several more time to no avail. The wine cooler door is broken.

When I run upstairs the guys are taking a break and our friend is talking to them. I offer to buy the guys dinner, but they say they are not hungry just very tired. While they rest myself, my fianc, and our friend bring in boxes and parts of the beds into the house. The guys get anxious because of this and start to bring in more boxes and furniture. They decide to bring in the entertainment center, but when they get it to the front door they tell us that this piece of furniture does not fit and that they will try, but that they cannot guarantee that it will not break. At this point I had just about had it and told them that I did want them to bring this piece in as it will be no good to me broken or seriously damaged. I asked them to please leave it on the lawn for now. Alex told me he can't do that as they have to deliver the furniture and begins to pull the entertainment center through the front of the house. All of a sudden we hear a loud pop and think that either the legs or top of the entertainment center have just broken. We discover that it is just the small round metal feet that have popped off and the guys continue to cram the furniture through the doorway. My fianc and I yell for our friend to please come and help these guys as we just cannot bare to se this catastrophe any longer. Once again, ONLY with our friends guidance, muscle, and patience were these guys able to get the entertainment center into the house. This particular piece of furniture was suppose to go into the master bedroom on the second floor, but after the movers disastrous delivery so far we asked them to please leave it in the living room along with absolutely everything else they were bringing into the living room already. At this point we did not want them to bring anything any further into the house.

While the guys were continuing to bring in the rest of the smaller pieces of furniture my fianc and our friend were upstairs putting together the beds. The guys made no attempt to put together anything and when I asked them if they were going to put our furniture together they got flustered and said yeah in a minute. Meanwhile, I realize that some pieces of furniture are missing (5 dining room chairs, 4 glass top tables that are part of my patio furniture, 6 patio chairs), an outdoor wooden beverage cooler, a 12 foot ladder, a hand truck/ moving dolly, a plastic bin with shoes, a shoe rack, and boxers, 4 cases of wine, and pieces to be able to put our bed together and pieces to be able to put together modular shelving. Several minutes later around 9:30pm I receive a phone call from Alex, the coordinator in IL., asking if they guys were still at our house delivering the furniture. I say yes and tell him that I am missing many things. He tells me that they were not able to fit everything on the truck and that the rest of the furniture will be delivered tomorrow between 9 and 10 am. I hang up the phone and go to explain this to my fianc. We are upset, hurt, and annoyed.

As the guys unwrapped our furniture we noticed that absolutely every piece of furniture was damaged and seriously scratched, dented, nicked, and/or chunks of wood were missing from it. Some of the furniture is so new that the plastic wrapping was still on it.

Finally, around 10pm the disaster stopped and the movers were done bringing in boxes and furniture. At this time, one of the guys goes up stairs and offers some tools to my fianc and our friend in order for them to put together the beds. The movers only half attempts to help us put the bed together when Alex yells something up to him and he leaves the room. Shortly afterwards Alex comes back with paperwork for me to sign. I refuse to sign all the papers as I did not have all of my furniture yet and sign only the paperwork that says boxes all over it. They movers tell us that they will b back tomorrow morning with the rest of out furniture and they will put together everything then.

During this entire effort it is our observation that the movers are not qualified to perform this work. They are college students from Russia who have only been in the US three months while waiting for school to start. Alex explains later that the movers are doing summer work. They are not strong enough to lift the furniture as such they have damaged our furniture, our personal effects and our home in the process. The movers did not have the experience in moving furniture. They acted as individuals and did not ask each other for assistance in carrying large and heavy furniture through entryways and hallways. I understand that it is difficult to move large furniture; hence we hired and paid for professional movers. The movers refused to communicate to us and to each other when they attempted to carry heavy furniture and large items through our home. As a result our lives work has been damaged by carelessness and unprofessional nature of Unified Moving Services and its agents. This disaster could have been avoided if Unified Moving Services hired qualified movers and properly secured our property as promised.


In our search for a moving company we obtained quotes from over five different moving companies. We went with Unified Moving Services because they had no complaints on the BBB and because Marc Z, personally assured us that our furniture would be taken care of and treated as if he was moving his mother. In the end, Marc Z., broke all his promises and did not stand by any of his guarantees.

Wednesday, August 29, 2007:

It is 11:30 and no sign of the movers anywhere. I call Alex, the coordinator, and ask him when he thinks I should expect to see the rest of my furniture. He tells me that they will be there in a couple of hours. It is now 7pm and I call Alex. He immediately explains to me that the movers are still on a job in the city that is taking a while because of the trucks, he does not know when they will be done, but that he will call me when they are on their way. I tell Alex that I absolutely do not want them to deliver my furniture tonight after the catastrophe that occurred last night and proceeded to explain to him everything that happened as a result of these guys being exhausted and unqualified to do the move. He tells me OK, thank you, and that I will have the rest of my furniture by 9am Thursday morning.



Thursday, August 30, 2007:

I try calling Alex several times that morning, but his phone went directly to his voice mail which was not able to receive any more messages because it was too full. It's now 1:30 p.m. and my fianc and I are furious and together we call Marc Zammichieli. Omar answers the phone and we ask for Marc. He tells us that Marc has left for the holiday weekend and will not be back in until Tuesday morning and then asks us what the problem is. He is not much help. He only explains that he can send us the claim form and that he will call Alex and see where they are. He puts us on hold, comes backs and tells us that they will be there within the hour. At 3:30pm there are still no movers. I call Alex and he tells me that they will be to my house in twenty minutes and that he is personally coming with the movers to write down our complaints and take note of everything that is broken and damaged. Alex and the movers do not FINALLY arrive until after 4:45pm. Alex introduces himself and the movers begin to unload the truck. While Alex gathers the paperwork the movers are, once again, bringing in pieces of furniture that requires two peoples' hands by themselves. I ask Alex if the movers can get help from the other guys. He says something to them in another language (I believe it's Russian), but continues to bring the large chair through the door by himself. Alex and I begin to discuss what will happen from here on out. He explains that we are going to go through everything right now and he is going to make note of it on the inventory lists. While we begin going over every piece of furniture the movers are in the house removing the rest of the blankets and wrapping from the furniture that was delivered several days before and the furniture that was delivered that day. My fianc was explaining to Alex what exactly happened and was getting upset about the whole incident the more he talked about it. During this time the movers were interjecting their side of the story. My fianc raised his voice and said that this was not between them that this conversation was between him, myself, and Alex. They guys continued to talk to Alex and Alex was listening to what they had to say. Again, my fianc raised his voice and told these guys to stay out of it that this was not a conversation between them and the three of us. At that point my fianc and the three guys were yelling back and forth until Alex told the delivery guys to get out and I yelled telling everyone enough. Approximately 10 minutes later after the guys had a smoke, Alex spoke to them, and then made a phone call we continued to go through each piece of item that was damaged. While I was in the kitchen filling out the remaining paperwork one mover was in the sitting area attached to the kitchen trying to take off the blanket that was wrapped around the top of our brand new dining room table. It is heavy and requires at least two people's help. Not one person helped him and right in front of us and as our friend was trying to tell him to wait that he was going to help him the table's corners scrapped the slate flooring and are now missing pieces of wood as a result of the mover pulling out the blankets without any help and the table top was left unprotected.

When the movers said that they were all through delivering our furniture at that time I realized with Alex present that there were still things missing. Alex asked what pieces were missing and said that he would look into it the next day. My fianc and I took five minutes to explain to Alex exactly why were so upset and explained to him that this is simply unacceptable. He apologized and said that he will look into our missing furniture tomorrow and to call him if we discovered anything else was missing and then he left. The movers stayed back to put one modular shelving unit together and then they left as I did not want them to destroy anything else.

During our discussion with Alex, he shared with us that the reason our furniture was damaged and items were missing is partially Unified Moving Services fault. Alex indicated that our furniture was scattered on the floor when they picked up our furniture and personal items. When we first spoke to Marc, Marc indicated that our furniture and belongings would always be protected under lock and key. It seems to me that we have been taken for fools and we have been continuously lied to and abused. We are extremely insulted and upset by the way we have been treated by Unified Moving Services. The only explanation we have received to date is that the movers are very tired and that they have been working all day every week since 6 a.m. Meanwhile our home, our personal effects and the furniture that we have worked for during our entire lives has now been damaged and destroyed. We feel that the service and explanation that we have received from Unified Moving Services and their agents is absolutely unacceptable.

Friday, August 31, 2007:

I call Omar around 11:30am to let him know that I am missing furniture and other items. A guy by the name of Gary Stonys answers the phone and tells me that Omar is not there that he is in the warehouse and can he help me. I explain to him my situation. He takes note of everything that I tell him is missing and tells me that Omar will call me back shortly. It's 4:00pm and I have still not heard from Omar. I call back and Gary answers the phone. I tell him who I am and that I would really like to speak to Omar and he says, "yeah, yeah, yeah I know who you are, you have the problem, your missing....I wrote down everything and will give it to Omar when he comes back and he will give you a call. I never heard from anyone ever again.

Friday August 31, 2007 Tuesday Sept. 4, 2007

Discuss numerous e-mails and phone calls to Marc Z, and detail how no one responded to our calls until Tuesday September 4, 2007.

To date, we are still missing:
4 cases of wine (2 Mollydokers, 1 Cavi, and one mixed case)
1 plastic bin with shoes, boxers, and a shoe rack
4 glass table tops for patio furniture
Hand truck/ moving dolley
12 foot ladder
Dolce & Gabana Light Blue Perfume (STOLEN)

Jill
Chicago, Illinois
U.S.A.

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