Complaint Review: Aaronson Van Lines - Boynton Beach Florida

Sometime around April 17, 2015, my fiance and I searched for a professional mover to move us from West Plains, MO to Oak Hill, WV. We were contacted By Aaronson Van Lines, a household moving broker operating out of Boynton Beach, Florida. The agent was a man who referred to himself as "Mendel". After speaking about our contents of our main home and guest home, we then discussed moving out grand piano. "We do it all the time. We can move your piano", was the response we got while discussing the move more in depth. I personally made it very clear to Aaronson Van Lines Representative, Mendel Korf, that my fiance was a medical provider, serving multiple cinics and 2 hospitals, and that this move had to be made in a time conscientious manner because of my Fiance's career. After we did an estimate, we were all comfortabole with the terms, and therefore entered into contract and made a down payment on the move.

Our moving date ETA was June 15. By this time, my fiance, a medical professional, was already in West Virginia, working and staying at a higher end hotel near the hospitals where she has privileges. I brought the second of our vehicles to West Viginia on June 10 and my fiance and I returned to West Virginia on June 13th to prepare for the moving truck to arrive and to get the last of our multiple vehicles.

About 1 week prior to our date of moving, Peter Aaronson contacted me to go over our load. My mother in law lived in our guest home and had packed her belongings very loosely, increasing our box count considerably. There was some discussion of this. Mr. Aaronson also informed me that I would need a qualified piano mover to disassemble the piano and prep the instrument for moving, which is the service Aaronson Van Lines had sold us on and why we contracted with them, a broker, rather than dealing with a moving company directly. I informed Mr. Aaronson that we lived in a small rural town and a piano mover was not something I could just find in a local phone book very easily. I further informed him that we had contracted Aaronson Van Lines based on the words of their sales agent who stated they could move the piano. Shortly thereafter, Peter Aaronson informed my fiance that they did not have a truck to accomodate our household and that our move was cancelled on short notice and we would not receive a refund of our $600 deposit. We were now in a panic. I was having great difficulty finding a moving truck on short notice.  Then, a day or so later, Mr. Aaronson informed us that the move was back on.

On the morning of June 15, we anxiously awaited the arrival of our moving truck By 12 noon, there was not a truck. I then contacted Aaronson Van Lines and was informed hat our move was scheduled the following day. After I scanned and emailed the contract to Aaronson Van Lines, I was informed a truck was nearby and could service us that day. Already behind and well into the afternoon of this day that was supposed to be our scheduled moving day, we had to accept this last minute plan. I suspected, but could not prove, that our move had fell through the cracks and been overlooked. 

I spoke to the driver of the truck, who spoke English better than he understoof it, a few times and he assured me he was into the deadhead to our house. The move had been brokered to J.T. Express Movers of St. Louis, MO and their dispatcher, whose name I don't recall, also called me and told me the truck would soon be there. 

I spoke with the truck driver one last time via telephone, and it was now around 7 pm, the time we had planned to be leaving Missouri behind a loaded moving truck. As a long haul, over the road commercial truck driver, I attempted to give the moving truck driver turn by turn directions into our area of the block. The driver hung up on me, for whatever reason. As I stated before, this driver spoke English better than he understood English.

The truck showed up around 7:45 PM. It was an 18' commercial box truck on a smaller Freightliner chassis. A single axle truck with an 18' box to move a 3 bedroom house and a single bedroom inlaw cottage. I immediately questioned the driver aout the logistics and the driver kept assuring me he could haul all of this. I knew the driver was going to be over the gross axle weight with his truck. Yet, the driver, and his sispatcher, as well as the broker, all assured me this truck could handle this move.

The workers, 3 of them, worked until 1:30 am and I then drove them to a local motel so they could sleep. I also had been awake too long at this time and went to bed immediately thereafter. I picked the workers up at 9 am and they again began loading the truck. Keep in mind, we had packed all of our contents and the only items the movers had to pack was 6 televisions of various sizes. These flat screen televisions needed to be safely packaged into a box that was specifically designed for moving and shipping these type of televisions. I will get to this further into this story.

The movers immediately informed me they could not move the piano. I called Peter at Aaronson's and we got into a heated argument. My fiance also got into a heated argumenrt with Peter. Long story short, we were about to have to find a piano mover somewhere in this rural area and ship the piano seperately. During my conversation with Peter Aaronson, whom I discovered to be the owner of this family run brokerage, I hung up on him and contacted my attorney. When Peter attempted to call back, I ignored his calls. I finally answered the phone. Peter informed me HE was the owner of the brokerage, then asked me if I was going to work with him or was I going to f**k**g hang up on him again.

The suncontracted mover dispatcher called and informed me they would handle the piano and for us not to worry about it. These workers were undoubtedly exhausted and moving at the pace of geriatric snails. My fiance only had x amount of days off from work and we were getting close to running out of time. I attempted to explain this to the truck driver and his crew and they did not understand what I was saying.

The man who was "experienced" in piano moving finally showed up. He was a mover himself and was not really qualified to move an expensive grand piano. However, the crew and this man finally managed to get the piano apart and packaged to move. However, as they were exiting the house, the men DROPPED the grand piano, causing extensive damage to the case of the piano. The moving crew strapped the unprotected piano case to the wall of the box truck cargo area. 

The flat screen televisions, 6 of them, had been contracted IN WRITING to be packaged professionally, in packaging made specifically for flat screen televisions. What we got?? The movers broke down some moving boxes from Lowe's, wrapped the televisions in corrugated cardboard and taped them, geting the packing tape adhesive directly onto ALL OF THE SCREENS!! We were livid when we saw this while the crew was unloading.

Unknown to us, the box truck cargo area had a couple of water leaks. We did not know this. I will address this in a moment.

When the crew finally finished packing all they could pack onto this small truck, it was now 31 hours after they first arrived. At this time, we are now more than one day behind on our tight schedule. AND....all of our belongings would not fit onto the moving truck. THe driver and crew closed the truck and left. But, they did not go to West Virginia. Rather, they diverted through Rolla, MO and on to their home terminal in St. Louis, MO. This is reflected in the CAT scale ticket when the truck was weighed in Rolla, MO. Not only was the truck overload on the gross vehicle weight, it was also overloaded on the axle weights for the single drive axle and the steer axle.

The following day I receieved a call from the broker informing me that the truck had broke down en route to West Virginia and that it had something to do with so much weight. Our net weight was somewhere around 14,000, which could have easily been handled by a Class A apportioned moving truck, which is what we thought we were getting. For one week, we got every excuse about how the truck was broken down and they were trying to get to us. When, in reality, the truck had diverted for home time for this crew and their junky old truck was in their own shop getting a fuel pump put on it, hardly a 7 day mechanical task.

While the crew was loading the truck in Missouri, they kept dropping hints, in broken English, about us paying them cash to package the televisions. Although I kept informing them that we had a set price per unit for this television packaging, and that we desired to keep the transaction clean and honest because that is how we live our lives, the drive, also the crew leader, did not understand we were telling him"No".

So, the crew loaded all they could and left our Missouri home, leaving behind enough items they could not get onto the truck and causing us to utilize the following day to find and rent an interstate U-Haul truck and a car dolly to put my car on. So, instead of being able to travel in the comfort of my car, along with our 2 cats (we have 1 dog and 3 cats we rescued over the years), I found myself in a hot moving van with two upset cats and very upset myself, pulling my car on a dolly.

When the moving crew fianlly arrived in West Viginia, my fiance, who was handling the financial aspects of the move, had aleady burnt up her 1 week off from her new job with waiting for our truck to arrive and she could not get away from the clinic on this particular day and was actually overbooked with patients. The crew wanted paid IN FULL right at that moment. No waiting. Pay now or we are gonna get a storage locker and hold your belongings hostage. So, she had to get to a stopping point and then make arrangemnts for a cashier check for the ballooned bill of lading.

I had been negotiating with the broker to get a rate reduction because we had to spend and additional $1200, more or less, for the U-haul, dolly and added fuel to move the few items the moving company eft behind. The moving bill had been padded grossly with overages such as packaging the televisions and other bogus overages, as well as the legitimate extra weight. All during this fiasco, the broker was arguing with me about not estimating the move correctly. In fact, everytime I tried to discuss this with him prior to the moving truck leaving Missouri, he would never allow me to speak or he would not hear the words soming out of my mouth. Ironically, for whatever reason, I received a Facebook friend request from a lady within the Aaronson family whom also worked for the family run business. Really?? Of course, I blocked it as soon as I had time to do so. Still shaking my head at this one. Back to the final bill. We were now about 45% over the original estimate. We could have handled this. However, with the beligerence from the broker and the beligerence from the sub contracted moving company dispatcher, we were livid!!! 

When the broker told me that he would negotiate a discount from the moving company becaus eof all the issues. I specifically told him, "DO NOT pad this bill and then offer us discounts in the amounts of that padding. Guess what?? This is EXACTLY what they did! They chagred out the arse for the slop packaging of the 6 televisions, then discounted that amount. They also ballooned the piano packaging from the contract price of $75.oo to $500 and then discounted that amount as well. That is an old scam from way back.

As for the piano?? When the truck arrived, the crew was now reduced to TWO men. The movers brought in a professional piano handler/tuner to help with the piano and whom we ended up paying OUT OF POCKET OURSELVES!! The piano had been extensively damaged in transit. And the 7 day break the crew took in St. Louis, leaving the piano in the summer heat and unproected in the truck cause strap marks to bake into the finish on the top of the mahogony lid. The piano was again dropped. and the damage to the piano is extensive. We have been waiting all summer and now into the fall for  the insurance provider of the mover and/or the broker tomake contact with us and settle our claim. In fact, we had extensive damage to nearly all of our belongings, including, but not limited to, scratches, busted furniture and extensive water damage inside the truck. Many boxes got wet and our personal items we strung all over the cargo area and all over the street where these idiots were unloading.

Then, to make matters worse, these movers expected us to pay for the packagig that they were trying sell behind their dispatchers back for a reduced rate in cash!!! AND....THEY EXPECTED A TIP!! I immediately threw them off the property and locked the doors!!!

At this time, there still has not been any attempt to settle our claim with the movers. So, today I am escalating this to a much higher level in an attempt to recover our losses from so much damages to our household goods.

My advice to you is to NEVER use a broker when you move. Research the people who are estimating your move. Even though they may have a Federal Motor Carrier number for their truck authority, and even though they may have a trust or bond to cover them, it still does not mean they actually own trucks. They are basically middle manning your move like a pimp arranges the services of a hooker!! No difference, except the hooker will at least kiss you after screwing you!

STAY AWAY FROM AARONSON VAN LINES> This is the most incompetent, beligerent bunch of people I ever dealt with. All you are going to do with them is come u on the losing end of the stick.