Debarelli
New Jersey,#2Consumer Comment
Tue, June 14, 2011
We contracted with Prime Van Lines to move our furniture and stuffs from New Jersey to Southern Illinois, Carbondale. The fee was approximately $1100 + to store the furniture after pick up and then deliver our belongings to Carbondale, Illinois at our specific address within a 7-10 day period.
The movers arrived yesterday afternoon. However, it wasn't Prime Van Lines that showed up. It was Hercules Movers, with a logo depicting Atlas holding up something. Almost immediately the movers advised my bf that they weren't going to move our furniture into our 3rd floor apartment as contracted because it was beyond their 100 ft restriction. They demanded $500 to rent a shuttle that they would move our stuff into then we could take to a storage unit. They told my bf they wanted the money right now. Then relented a bit and told him he had an hour to come up with the money or they were gonna leave with our stuff. Then they demanded $380 for another option and so on and so forth, and they wanted the payment in the form of a money order. They would not allow access to our furniture without the money order and laughed when my bf tried to reason with them telling them that he can only take $300 out of the ATM at a time.
My bf called Prime Van Lines immediately to tell them that these movers were demanding an extra $500 on top of the approx. $1100+ that he already paid. Hercules Movers held all of our property hostage in lieu of payment and Prime Van Lines facilitated Hercules movers' extortion of us inasmuch as they took no action to rectify the issue, or help us to get Hercules Movers to relinquish our belongings if not move our things into our apartment which is what we contracted for with Prime Van Lines. When the Hercules Movers went back to finally get the money order, after they took an hour lunch, they were laughing and joking and yukking it up. Guess they got over . . . What else could we do though? They were threatening to leave with all of our stuff if we didn't pay them that extra $500.
So, now our stuff is in a storage unit and our apartment is empty. We have to find movers to get our stuff from the storage unit to our apartment. What a nightmare! We have computers, expensive bikes, and all types of furniture,etc. our entire lives that they would only release to us for payment. Hercules Movers are a bunch of seedy extortionists, and we still can't get any satisfaction from Prime Van Lines. Talk about a bad day.