Complaint Review: LITE MOVING AND SONS INC - FRANKLIN SQUARE New York

          I URGE ANY CUSTOMER, WHO'S INTERESTED   IN USING                 TO READ THIS LENGTHY RESPONSE.  This response is in regards to Carol J's claim against myself Anthony L. and my company Lite Moving and Sons Inc. Carol had called our office sometime in late November early December of 2015 to schedule an estimate for a move from Great Neck NY to Boston MASS. Our Secretary had taken the call and scheduled the estimate for a separate day so my father could go physically look at her items and provide Carol with a written estimate. The day to visit Carols apartment comes and my father head's from Freeport NY to Great Neck NY.  He walks into the building where he is met by the Super that will let Carol know my father is downstairs to let him up. Our phone rings at our office, and coincidentally it's Carol on the phone. Carol tell's our secretary that her computer is not working, and she has to cancel the estimate. Our secretary then tells Carol that my father is in her building as we speak. Carol then says she still will not be answering the door because of her computer not working. I would say that's not a serious emergency and pretty inconsiderate first RED FLAG.We are not happy about wasting a trip to Great Neck, but we have no choice but to leave. Carol calls back at a later date and sets' up another estimate for my father to visit her apt.  This time, he goes, and Carol allows him upstairs to the apartment to provider her with a written estimate.

       He provides her with an hourly estimate for a total of 23 hours plus fuel and tolls with six men. These 23 hours contains the time to load, unload travel to and from Boston Mass plus gas and tolls. Carol also says she may need us to pack certain items into cartons for her but will determine that within a few days which was no problem. Carol makes a call back to say she will need some partial packing done which was two china barrels and fifteen pieces of artwork which we did pack and no damage occurred. When she called about needing those items packed, she also stated she did not want to pay by the hour and would like a set price. We proceeded to tell her we could provide her with a set price on the move and not by the hour by charging her by the shipments weight. The set price is determined once the truck is weighed once the shipment is on the truck. She agreed we then took her cubic foot volume inventory which was taken when my father visited her apartment and translated it from cubic feet into pounds. The formula is every one cubic foot of household goods is equal to seven pounds. This part is critical because this is where Carol claims we price gouged her $3000.00. COMPLETELY FALSE! Carols estimated weight was 8,442 pounds. At 65 cent's per pound with a 12% fuel surcharge equals a price of $6,145.77. The fuel surcharge is mandated by the Federal DOT and there for sets the rate for fuel surcharges. No trucking company decides that.  Carol was made aware which was on the estimate tolls were additional; full coverage insurance was additional also along with a 2.5% credit card fee surcharge if she was to put the payment on a credit card. After Carol had been made aware of the additional charges to the weight, she agreed to take $50,000 additional coverage with a $500.00 deductible with a cost of $208.00 plus to put the payment on the credit card with a 2.5% surcharge. This brought Carols total estimated cost to $6,696.32. When the truck was weighed, it was determined her weight was higher than 8,442 pounds and had come to 10,560 pounds. This brought her weight and fuel surcharge from her estimate of $6145.77 to $7687.00. Carols  difference of 2,118 pounds on her shipment increased her job $1541.23 NOT $3,000.00 as she claims. Carols total cost of her job which I can provide the credit card receipt totalled was $8277.57 but remember the tolls, full coverage insurance, fuel and 2.5% were additional to the weight charge. After Carol has received the final weight price she called me on Saturday, January 09th 2016.  To give me the credit card info to make the payment and also asked if she could go back to paying by the hour my reply was no. She could not because she already signed the paperwork that bound her to the contract of paying by the weight. We were the ones who originally offered it by the hour and then switched it to the weight based job for her convenience and now she wants to switch back again.

      The second claim she makes is that I the owner provided her with false weight tickets, and I refused to stop in a state-mandated weigh station another complete FALSE claim.  We weigh our shipments when local at Gershow Recycling Centre. They have full platform truck scales that are capable of providing exact weights for any shipment no matter what the contents are. They are certified and monitored by New York State Department of Weights and Measures to ensure accuracy. This company has nine locations located all over Long Island and has been in business since 1964 so being a scam weight ticket as Carol claims is inaccurate. The part where she states that we refused to stop at a state mandated weigh station is completely unacceptable and would never happen. When a state mandated weigh station is OPEN no trucker has the choice to By-Pass it. When that weigh station is OPEN, the truck driver must pull in. Passing a weigh station intentionally would be equivalent to not stopping at a police checkpoint. I think we can all pretty much assume what would happen if a driver of any vehicle was not to stop at a police checkpoint. Now let me explain what a state weigh station is there for to provide. If you have ever driven on a big interstate highway in any vehicle, you will see big commercial vehicles such as trucks, trailers, etc. pulling into them when the are OPEN. State weigh stations are there to check truck drivers hours of operation, mechanical operating standards of the truck and to make sure the truck is properly balanced and not overloaded.  The weight they take is to ensure the safety of the truck, trucker and other motorists on the road. The DO NOT provide weight tickets for customers. If anyone would like to check this out, please call the New York State Department of Transportation at 1800-786-5368 to verify this.

          Carols next claim is that we provided her with false insurance urged her to buy it and damaged a large number of furniture and boxed items. First off we don't force any extra coverage that is not needed for someone's move. When Carol said she would be packing most of the items herself, this is when we would least tell someone they should consider a large amount of insurance. Why someone might ask would this be the case. When a customer decides to pack their cartons, the mover is not liable for any contents packed by the shipper within the box unless there is significant damage to the outside of the carton. Carol had a  large amount of items that were damaged from items that were packed by Carol herself. When my packer who is 67 years old and has 36 years of experience in the moving and storage industry told Carol what she packed was improperly packed her reply was IM NOT WORRIED but now damaged has occurred from her negligence and she is worried. Carol packed china, books and other heavy objects into large cartons. Large cartons such as the ones she used are used for blankets, lampshades, pillows and large items that are light in weight hence why we needed two men to pick up each box to put on a dolly.  Ridiculously overloaded! When we load a job for long distance, a detailed inventory is taken for the number of items coming in the truck and the condition they are in before loading. Their are two different types of inventory sheets, one with a seventy item count and one with a forty item count. Now each sheet that has seventy item count when filled out typically has a weight of 1500 pounds per sheet give or take a few pounds. So if Carols job had a weight of 10,560 pounds she should have 7 pages of seventy item count inventory sheets. We had a total of 2 seventy item sheets and 2 forty item sheets which is equivalent to 3 seventy item count inventory sheets. That's 4 sheets shy of items of what it typically takes to have a weight of 10,560 pounds. Instead of packing items in smaller boxes and having a larger number of boxes, the items were placed in larger size boxes completely overloading them resulting in damage inside the box from Carol's packing. She saved money by packing herself but  improperly packing the items creates a loss, so there is no gain from that. Even though my company did not pack 95% of Carols items, we don't want to see any customers items damaged whether it was from the customer themselves or us it still leaves people unhappy. When we provide a customer with an estimate whether packing is involved or not we still explain what we are liable for and not. We do this by verbally explaining it and also by providing the shipper with a blue booklet written by the New York State Department of Transportation called "SUMMARY of INFORMATION for SHIPPERS of HOUSEHOLD GOODS."

          The last claim she makes about me yelling, screaming, avoiding phone calls from her, I find to be the funniest. On 01-11-2016, one day after Carol was unloaded we receive and email about items being damaged and hidden behind boxes. My secretary replies asking for an email with pictures of the damage, inventory sticker numbers so we can cross reference it with our original copies. So Carol takes photos and send's them. As a small company, we try to be personable with our customers and work first hand with them if a situation arises so we can resolve it quickly. After countless emails and phone conversations with Carol, we would not come to what she felt, or I was a reasonable agreement. After we couldn't agree Carole threatened me by saying she will ruining my company's name and reputation on social media. Each customer has every right to voice their experiences with our services, but please be accurate and factual. I then told Carole my Insurance company would be stepping in to handle the claim. They would send an adjuster to her apt to look at the damage she claims we made. Jennifer, who works with York, claim services and Debbie who works with Baker International Insurance has been trying to call and email Carol with no response from her. We have received 46 emails from Carol from January 11th 2016- February 08th 2016. She continues to contact me and not the insurance asking what I intend to do about it. As I told her in the last phone conversations, we had an answering all her emails the insurance is trying to resolve her claim but without Carole responding to them, the claim will go nowhere. As for yelling and screaming I'm pretty laid back and have no reason to raise my voice.

    Carole has posted 5 reviews on Yelp creating different names such as Peter D, Craig L, Alexander S, Poppy S and last one being herself Carole J. Yelp removed them from the main page because they were all coming from the same IP address/computer. If you are a customer as you claim to be give your full name and address, we moved you from to prove us wrong. Its, all the same, redric from all 5 names. After explaining all this is great detail if anyone would like to see proof of receipts, emails and estimates I would be glad to provide them. Lite Moving and Sons Inc provides a great service locally and long distance. We move over 800 customers a year and ninety-eight percent of the time we get great feedback. We are not perfect we do have minor issues that occur and do our best to resolve them quickly and make right of them, but this much of a bad move. I don't think so. I don't change our ways of how we treat moves or customers. So how could so many other people claim how great we are and one claim we did the total opposite and changed everything we do for one customer. Our reputation is solid. You won't find us on advertising sites or any advertising booklets our work is gained all threw word of mouth. We gain our trust threw great service.

                                     Thank you for your time

                                                Anthony/Owner