Complaint Review: Phoenix Transportation Services - Las Vegas Nevada

This is the letter we sent our bank/cred card company.  The bank ended up not paying Phoenix and we hope they never let their customers use Phoenix.

My wife and I (both holders of this credit card) are requesting a full reimbursement of the $1943.25 charge here to Phoenix Transportation Services, listed as “Moving Services” in transaction history on 12/25. We also would like to dispute the charge of $400.00 from the same company. We are requesting full reimbursement and will delineate the reasoning below.

We would like to dispute the first, and larger charge of $1943.25 due to their clear breach of contract. They guaranteed us a seven day delivery- for which we have proof in the form of email contracts and email correspondence with the sales associate we worked with. This company was selected on the basis that they would be able to deliver our belongings to us within seven days as we were moving to a new city, in the middle of winter, near the holidays, to begin a new job. We planned thoughtfully and in advance to ensure that this would take place and at no point were we advised that this may not happen, or be possible. Additionally, we were at no point advised that the company in fact meant “business” days, as this was never mentioned at any time during correspondence OR in the contract. Our many effortful attempts to communicate with this company to gain clarity or facts with regard to the location of our belongings, the timing of the delivery, the final cost and everything in between was impossible, stressful and overall horrendous. This was the worst customer service experience we have ever had.   Phoenix Transportation Services was dishonest more often than not in the numerous emails, phone calls  and text message correspondences that we had with them, and we are more than happy to provide forwarding copies of any email, or screenshots of any call logs or text message threads as needed. 

Over the past month we have called the company over 40 times (of which they pick up roughly 20% of the time), and emailed them over 15 times.  Throughout this process of chasing them around, not getting calls back, and being ignored, one of their team members/managers named Lauren Leavitt claimed that we were the only customers that were complaining.  This is extremely hard to believe because more often than not while on the phone with one of the Phoenix team members, you can very clearly hear their co-workers yelling at and arguing with clients over the phone in close proximity.

To provide additional context- we have been  in touch with the Department of Transportation and will be filing complaints with both them and the Better Business Bureau- which neither my wife or I have ever done before.

Our belongings were finally delivered 14 days after they were picked up they were picked up two days later than had been contracted, with no explanation, apology or consideration for the fact that we had to vacate our prior residence and ended up having to make alternative arrangements to accommodate their delay and lack of communication).  Which brings us to our second dispute, the charge of $400.00 which was added on at the time of delivery. We were warned about this possibility which would occur only if the truck was unable to deliver based on the size of the street and the height of the trees- given the size of the truck that would be doing the delivery (we were also not advised at any point that our belongings would be taken off of the smaller truck they were picked up in, and placed on a much larger semi-truck- which also happened).  Upon arrival to drop off our things over seven days late, the driver claimed that he could not make the turn onto our street due to traffic. When it was pointed out to him that he was several hours later than the time his company had stated for his drop-off once it was eventually confirmed, and that it was now rush hour which would complicate the turn he was trying to make, he then stated that he could not make the turn but would try from the other direction.  The driver then called back and stated that he was unable to make the turn due to a snow bank and that he would have to put our belongings on a smaller truck in order to deliver them to us. He informed us of the additional $400 charge at that time (we were told that it would be $500.00, but that they were going to “give us a discount” and only charge $400) at which point we agreed, as we felt we had no choice and needed to ensure that we received our belongings.  Upon the driver pulling up to our home in the U-haul, two 18 wheelers drove by his truck on Harrison Blvd where our house is.  Harrison Blvd is the main artery into Boise from the mountains and therefore is a thoroughfare for 18 wheelers with many trucks passing by daily.  When the driver was again asked why he was unable to make the turn, given that many other trucks were passing, he stated that he “is not from around here” and “did not know how to get to the road that goes straight onto the street (Harrison Blvd.) and then proceeded to state that his company was in charge, and that he had made an effort.  Therefore, we feel that we were put into a forced position to pay the amount given that he would not unload our belongings without it, but that it was completely unfounded.

We will be receiving our things over 9 days later than the company initially pitched to us (including the delayed pickup days), the pickup was two days later than they had initially scheduled, and throughout the entire procedure we have needed to remain prepared and ready for both pickup and delivery between the dates they initially promised and the dates the pickup and drop-off actually happened.  We were moving from one state to the next, and left with an empty house on one of the coldest winters Boise Idaho has seen in years- which is why we asked for the 7 day delivery in the first place.  If the company had been honest with us and explained that they would not be close to the 7 day window previously discussed, we would have worked with another company (likely Eden’s Moving Services whom have actually been a good sanity check through this process- through Eden’s we found out that Phoenix removing the estimated delivery date from our final estimate is actually against the rules of DOT).  Furthermore both of us are working and have been forced to modify our work schedules for over 10 days based on the potential of pickup and delivery on any of those days, with the estimates changing on a daily basis. 

We have been kicking ourselves the past three weeks with ‘what ifs’ and questioning why we went with Phoenix, but the reality is that we had searched online for reviews before agreeing to work with Phoenix Transportation services but were unable to find any.  In our current review-a-plenty culture where reviews of most companies are readily available we are not sure why reviews for Phoenix are nowhere to be found online.  We will write reviews in addition to filing the complaints mentioned above, but if your team knows of any other online destination for reviews on transportation companies, please keep us posted. 

There are roughly 15 different dishonest and contradictory things the company has said or promised to us, but to avoid taking up more than 15 more minutes of your time, a few of the standouts:

• Not only did they not deliver our belongings within 7 days, 6 days into the delivery window they changed their definition of 7 days to be “7 business days” rather than “7 days”.  We have proof via email of 7 business days never being mentioned in the numerous times that we clarified in writing (happy to provide forwards).
• Being told that what one team member had told us over the phone was “unfortunately wrong”, and the higher up we were currently on the phone with outranks the initial person who had told us one thing, therefore we as customers needed to deal with the fact that we were promised one thing and would be receiving something less.
• Being told by Lauren/the manager that she (based on her fifteen or twenty years of experience in her industry) would never leave out the word “business” when describing the 7 day window which was suddenly being changed to be business days rather than 7 days.  When we then pointed out that we had emails where we clarified with her directly about the 7 day guarantee and she never mentioned “business days”- she said that it was our fault to be confused and she would talk to her owner and call us back with negotiation.  No call back….
• Being told over 8 times that we would be called back or receive an email with updated information and never receiving calls back or emails.  
• Being told by the young men doing the pickup that they have never done a pickup that didn’t go above the estimated cost that the Phoenix team had pitched a client.

We are angry, disappointed, and throughout the entire process felt unbelievably powerless because we were dealing with a company that we could not trust.  We could not trust that they were telling the truth, we could not trust that we were speaking to the right person, we could not trust that their trucks were on the road when they said they were, and we could not trust that the entirety of what we shipped with them would be delivered.

Our final “estimate” with them (before agreeing to use their company for the move) which had been conveyed as as high as it could be ended up being more than $1,000 less than the price the company asked us to agree to once they had over half of our stuff packed on their truck and the other half of our stuff sitting on the sidewalk outside of our apartment in Oakland California (at time of pickup).   

We would highly recommend *the bank* not accepting payment for Phoenix Transportation Services in the future in order to protect *the bank* customers.  If there is anything we can do here to help protect *the bank* customers from having to deal with Phoenix Transportation services please let us know because we would like to help out. 

Thanks for your significant amount of time,