Complaint Review: ABC Moving System - Riverwoods ILLINOIS

Hey there ABC Moving System,

I'm very sad to write this and you all probably have this on record, but I truly believe you need to know about my experience this past week. I must reiterate what happened. What was supposed to be a smooth moving experience...turned into the worst moving experience I have personally ever had. And Honestly..... we have moved out of state a quite a few times!

We had another company lined up to for the business, but we called United Relocating, because we wanted to make sure our moving out of state will go smooth. We heard all good things about your company we decided to choose you instead of the competitor. 

The details we agreed on:

-We set up the time when and where we will be moving. The movers would come out to pack on the 30th of May and the 31st they will load the truck. It will be a shuttle truck taking our things to a semi truck that will go to Livermore, CA from Crystal, MN. We planed everything according to that. 

-Made our inventory and put deposit down. They informed us that we have the Platinum plan with no price exceeding and the movers will call us with details. 

Four days prior to the move day.... Jose called from ABC Moving that he will be coming out to see what they have to work with. We told him we already have a company moving us.... He then informed us that United is the one sending them. Nobody told us that a different company will be moving our personal items! This was the first surprise. 

-He came to look and we tried to explain to him that we have a very expensive and important to us bed, a sleep number. Jose replied that the bed needs to be taken apart in order to bring it down. We attempted to tell him that the top doesn’t come off, but they are two, side by side pieces and that is how the movers brought them up last time wrapped up with wrapping. He’s got offended and raised his voice and told us to "let him do his job, he knows what his doing." He had nothing but negative comments about a lot of personal items. He kept saying how busy he was and there may be an extra charge for this moving with addition to whatever the office told us. So....just to mention....we helped by purchasing our own supplies and started to pack all the important/valuable things ourselves, because we already lost trust in your representative. 

Jose called us a few days before the moving mentioning that they will come earlier! That was a bit of a surprise.... Instead of the 30th, the crew will come on the 29th and they will pack and load the truck the same day. Take our things to the big truck that will deliver them and he will have 5-6 people with him. This would be beneficial to us, because that way we will have our things in 5-6 days. We took this as a good thing, and we had to readjusted our schedule according to that again. Then, he finished the conversation by telling us he will call the day before, just to let us know what time they will be here. Jose didn’t call on the 28th as it was promised. 

The 29th came and went....we were waiting for them to show up and nobody came. We attempted to call Jose several times to see what is going on. He finally answered the phone on the fifth time. He answered right away that he is very busy and he will now come on the 30th early morning. So we once again, adjusted our schedule according to that. On the 30th we got up 5 AM thinking they will come early. Again, we waited and waited nobody came. When we called him, he now said he will be here between 9-11am. So 11am we called again. Now changing the time again, he said he will be here by noon. at 1:30PM.....He finally showed up with a truck and 2 people! He explained to us that the plan has been changed and now the shuttle is our truck for the whole move! Whatever that will fit on the truck they will take. 

At that point, we were very frustrated, we were ready to tell him to forget the whole thing! His reply..... he demanded payment earlier saying that if we don’t pay at front, they will not deliver our personal things. So forced, we paid everything in full already the day before. We had to call United about how unprofessional the representative was. So when Jose came back he apologized and around 2pm the packing finally began. 

We were told that every box will be marked detailed with what's in the boxes and all artwork will be crated. Started out with two people packing and within 10 minutes of starting....Jose had to leave, why? Because he needed supplies. He had no markers, no cutting knifes, not enough boxes and wrapping paper. One of the workers he left there did not listen to the instruction to which containers and boxes are going. Along with which ones are staying from the garage. So by the time we noticed, 4-5 boxes were in the wrong group and all mixed up. We had to re-open them to see whats in them (no markings) to make sure that we don’t take somethings we didn't want to. The other two workers then showed up later and one of them started to pack the kitchen. Putting our pots and pans in boxes without any paper between them. Throwing smaller items in boxes blending seasonings and silverware... etc together in big boxes. Right away, we could tell that he was not an experienced packer, and he had no idea what he was doing. Not only that....because they didn’t have any tools, they used our personal expensive chef knife to cut tapes and boxes. Some good news, one of the workers was very good at what he was doing! He wrapped our furniture very well and we could tell he was a professional. It was another younger worker who did a great job. 

We have to add that.... I asked the crew several times to put something down on the floor to protect the floor and the carpet. Mostly because it was raining and it was very muddy outside, but that was ignored. I am sending pictures to show you how the carpet looked after they were done. They were bumping the furnitures to the walls, scratching the hardwood floor, loosing parts of our furnitures. Just to be nice we had bottled water for them in the refrigerator and we ordered pizza for them. However, before we even had a chance to tell them, Jose already asked for drinks and to order food for them, while sitting down to do paperwork to talk about tip. Then Jose asked for snacks in the meantime from the pantry, used our phone charger and well to us it felt disrespectful.  About 3 hours later Jose told us that he ran out of the inventory stickers. He had only 200x, so he will need to continue without them to load the truck. Then said they did not have enough wrapping paper, so my husband had to go to the store to buy some for him. Because the crew came so late, of course, the packing didn’t get done before dark. They then started to speed up by not wrapping our furniture anymore, not marking the boxes and blending everything together. Whatever they found that needed to be packed they put in boxes without marking them or doing inventory for them. Not to mention....they had our furnitures and boxes sitting outside in the rain. 

So the truck wasn’t big enough. This lead to a lot being left behind. We had the coffee table on the truck, but the glass top wasn’t. They took 4 chairs, but 2 left etc.. The expensive and fragile artwork he promised to be crated, was just wrapped in cardboard boxes, some parts of the art piece was taped with packing tape, as you can see it in the pictures attached. Some of the pieces he inventoried in the beginning, were left in the garage as well. So because of the left behind items, we had to rent our own trailer to take the parts of our furniture to our new home. And not only that...we only had pieces of the furniture...so not even usable. Close to the end, Jose started to have an attitude again. He mentioned that they were very tired and it is getting dark, so they really have to go now. We replied with, if the schedule was maintained as promised, we wouldn't have to be working past dark. He got mad/frustrated, so they didn’t even clean up after themselves......Leaving our things that din’t fit on the truck outside on the ground, leaving a big mess inside and then they took off. Again to be nice, before they left my husband even gave him appreciation money, because some of the guys did work very hard and it wasn’t their fault to have Jose that unorganized and unprofessional. 

Honestly, we are scared to even write these things down and send this to you. Mostly because we don’t have our things yet and for some reason, Jose said now it will be his cousin delivering our furniture. Who knows what they would do?Nevertheless, we are still scared to see what has moved with damage of our precious possessions, which we worked very hard for. 

Please see the pictures attached that we took of the things that were damaged so far. We are certain that more will come. 

We really feel like we paid a lot of money to get a professional service from you and what we got so far is terrible and unprofessional! The extra money we had to spend to clean the house, paint the walls, clean the carpet after them, to rent a trailer, use extra gas because of the trailer, and took extra time to get to California from Minnesota with the trailer.....all of this was/is unacceptable !!! Jose should not be able to go to families homes to disrespect everything that are important and valuable for them as he did with us. 

Please let me know if I can talk to someone in charge. I'm very disappointed, tired and frustrated about this whole experience!

Thank you for your time and contact me when you can. 

Kind Regards, 

Rozalia