All My Sons Moving and Storage of Murray, Utah defrauded us by coercing us into moving a large portion of our own belongings (contrary to the "professional" moving services they agreed to provide) and further defrauded us by using two (2) homeless people (one of whom was a convicted, recently-paroled felon) to unload the rest of our belongings in Chicago, resulting in damage to our property in excess of $6,600 ($8,400 if you include the alarm system we installed as a result of our experience). This company grossly misrepresented themselves and their services, jeopardized my family's safety, security, and welfare, and caused us and our property egregious damage.
In May 2005 we contracted with a company called All My Sons Moving and Storage out of Murray, Utah to move us from Park City, Utah to Chicago. A representative of the company named, Dan Cassidy came out to our home, estimated the cost of our move (including picking up from our Utah storage unit and depositing a portion of items at our new Chicago storage unit, as well as delivering the balance to our primary residence at in downtown Chicago.) Mr. Cassidy provided us with an estimate stating that the move would be based upon final weight of all of our goods, to be billed at $0.47 per lb., not to exceed $6,000. Mr. Cassidy established a pick up date of June 8th in Park City and a drop-off date in Chicago of June 15th.
On June 15th the driver, Mike arrived nearly two hours outside the promised delivery window without any helpers. I contacted All My Sons and was told by the man answering their phone (Justin?) that they had an affiliation with a moving company in Chicago who was supposed to provide a team to help off-load the truck and that there had been a snafu, but they were getting it straightened out.
Over the next two hours, I made several calls back to All My sons (they never bothered to keep me up to speed on what was happening) and was told they were working on the problem and would have it sorted out soon. Meanwhile, the driver, Mike, who claimed to be having trouble with his cell phone, disappeared for a while to find a payphone. For some reason, he had no desire to use my cell phone. It wasn't until later that I discovered why.
With his truck parked on the street behind our house, Mike walked approximately two blocks away to the local grocery store where he solicited two homeless men in front, who we'll call Jimmy and Dante who he found selling the Streetwise homeless newspaper and the other who stands in front of the store.
Mike returned and told me he had spoken with All My Sons and the problem was fixed, and that the company was sending helpers over within the hour. About 45 minutes later, Jimmy an African American man in his late thirties to early forties, and Dante another African American man in his late sixties arrived.
At that point, Mike presented me with a document to sign requiring the balance of payment. The document showed that I had given All My Sons a $1,500 deposit on my American Express card when they had loaded the truck in Park City, Utah which I had, and now All My Sons wanted a balance of $4,500.
Immediately, I demanded to see weight bills because our deal was based on $0.47/lb not to exceed $6,000 and here they were telling me I owed them the very highest amount possible. I asked Mike what my load weighed and he not only couldn't tell me, no one at All My Sons could either when he this time used my cell phone to call his office. At $0.47/lb I wanted to know how many pounds of goods I had as maybe our load was under Dan Cassidy's estimate.
Mike had a very heated conversation with the owner of All My Sons, Hector Pineda in which Mike threatened several times to quit as Mr. Pineda was ordering him to drive the truck to the nearest weigh station in Indiana, get it weighed with our goods aboard and then would have to go back and weigh it empty. Looking at my watch, I noticed it was now past 5:00 pm, five (5) hours after the window I had been told the team would arrive to start unloading the truck.
Throughout these five (5) hours as I had called All My Sons to express my frustration, I was repeatedly told by (Justin?) not to worry as the unload would take half the time the loading of the truck had at our house in Park City, which had taken approximately nine (9) hours with a team twice the size of the one that was unloading our goods here in Chicago.
I explained to Mike that instead of paying a balance of $4,500 I would agree to a balance of $3,500 and call it even and done. Mike spoke with his employer, Mr. Pineda yet again and then angrily had Jimmy and Dante climb into the cab of his truck as he told me he was going to Indiana to get it weighed. This now left me post-five o'clock in the evening with no goods moved into my house and now no moving truck and me standing in the street chasing cars away from the spot that I had saved for the truck.
Half-an-hour later, Mike and his helpers returned, parked their truck and Mike told me that All My Sons was willing to accept my offer of paying a balance of $3,500 rather than $4,500 bringing the total of our move to $5,000 instead of the maximum it may have cost of $6,000. I signed the paperwork and watched as Mike's helpers, Jimmy and Dante began unloading the truck.
At this point the time was somewhere around 6:15-6:30 pm. *Note that as of this writing All My Sons claims Jimmy and Nate were provided via a company called Two Minute Movers. According to the IL Sec of State no such company exists. I can't find them in the phone book, on line, via 411 - nowhere. Not that it matters, Dante told me himself how the driver found him outside the grocery store.
Jimmy and Dante were taking small amounts of goods by hand into the house as opposed to loading up dollies or hand-trucks. When I mentioned this to Mike the driver who was in charge, he told me not to worry about it, that this was how things got done and that if I wanted it to go faster, then I should pitch in myself. Considering the late hour, the amount that needed to be moved, the babysitter we were paying, etc. I began to pitch in and help move.
Moving my large floor safe into the house, Jimmy (who I would later learn was a recently convicted felon on parole) asked repeatedly what I had in the safe, why I needed such a big safe, and that I wouldn't ever have to worry about someone trying to take the safe out of my house. No, but as I write this account of that horrible two days of moving, I still live in fear that Jimmy or someone he has told about me is going to show up at my house in the middle of the night and point a gun to my head or that of one of my children, or my wife, and force me to open it.
Soon it started raining and the already slow-going move slowed even further. Jimmy slipped on the ramp leading from the back of the truck to the street and landed on his back. He laid motionless for several moments and I thought he had been seriously injured. Finally, he got back up and began carrying even less than before. As midnight approached, he claimed he had to leave as he was under curfew. I would not understand exactly what curfew meant until the next day.
At that point Mike claimed that was all the moving that would be done that day and took Jimmy into the cab of his truck to pay him. I wondered why Mike was paying him cash and why the moving company All My Sons was supposedly affiliated with in Chicago, and who had supposedly sent Jimmy and Dante to help (as I had been told) did not have a direct billing relationship with All My Sons in Utah.
The next day, no one was there to help Mike unload the balance of our items off the truck. Mike said he expected Jimmy to be a no-show, but he figured Dante would be around sometime later. Now it was just me and the driver. I was furious. I had paid for professional movers to load and unload that truck and move me into my new home. Had I wanted to move myself, I could have rented a U-Haul and done it for a lot less.
Now we were in day two (2) of the move and Mike the driver simply looked at me and told me he could unload by himself, but then subtly said, I just can't promise you how long it will take.
Once again, I pitched in, angry as hell and very much wanting to have the job finished. Later that day, Dante showed up to help.
We had an armoire that was intended for our upstairs bedroom which now resides in our living room because Mike and his untrained, non-professional helper were not able to get it up the stairs.
Once all of the goods were unloaded at my primary residence, Mike and Dante drove to the storage unit where I met them and once again helped unload as they were so interminably slow and inefficient.
Finally, after two days of moving, the hell was finally over. Little did I know it was only just beginning.
As Mike wanted to get on the road and drive his truck back to Utah, I agreed to drive Dante back to my house from which point he could make his way home. In the car I asked Dante how long he had been moving. That's when he told me he wasn't a mover, but a homeless man who lived in the park near our house. He told me about Jimmy being a convicted felon on parole and that Mike the moving van driver had found them both panhandling outside the grocery store near my home.
Upon hearing this, I was enraged. These people were in my home! Among my possessions and family! This is not what we had contracted with All My Sons for. How dare they!
In the All My Sons brochure which was part of Mr. Cassidy's solicitation of our business, the first lines read, Trust All My Sons to move you and your belongings with care. We are committed to customer satisfaction and our well-trained professional movers will make your moving experience as pleasant and hassle-free as possible.
I fail to see how two homeless panhandlers count as well-trained professional movers, nor how the hiring of such people will make our moving experience as pleasant and hassle-free as possible. I have found the experience to be agonizingly to the contrary.
In addition, their brochure and their representative, Mr. Cassidy guaranteed us that, All My Sons, now one of the nation's top residential moving firms, is an independent company with offices around the country. Really, offices of homeless and panhandlers?
They further state in their brochure and Mr. Cassidy repeatedly reinforced this statement, we promise you a fair and competitive price and will provide you with an experienced, courteous and careful team of professional movers. I think not.
They also highlight on their brochure, Only the best moving professionals will do. All My Sons hires seasoned moving professionals with real training and experience in all facets of the moving, packing, storage and transportation of your belongings. We hire quality employees, and it shows in our work. I think we have seen that to be anything but the truth.
Immediately, we began to find things broken and even missing! All my sons had never shipped us our beautiful plants, which they more than willingly took from our home in Park City. They claimed they were not allowed to ship plants across country. They never told us this and had we known this, we would have found homes for our plants with friends, or sold them at our moving sale. A handful of the planters/ceramic pots were eventually "found" in their warehouse and shipped to us and it came as no surprise that when we opened the box, they were all broken.
Also, my children's two (2) FAO Schwartz life-sized, stuffed reading bears (valued at $200 apiece)also "disappeared" during the move.
The list of broken/damamged/missing items is too long to list here. Suffice to say that company is horrible! All My Sons is a fraudulent company that brought homeless criminals into our home, lied to us, coerced me into doing a large share of their work for them and have been utterly distasteful to work with.
The owner, Hector Pineda even had the nerve to tell me to calm down when I called to complain about his company bringing homeless criminals into our home! We have since installed an extensive alarm system due to our sincere fear that our home and family are at risk because of All My Sons actions.
STAY AWAY FROM ALL MY SONS!
Brad
Chicago, Illinois
U.S.A.
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