Oh boy, where to start...
I called and spoke to a representative (Dorothy) back in November of 2011 to inform her that we may possibly be moving in 6 months (May-Julyish 2012), but it wasn't a for sure thing yet. We set up a cost, an inventoried list that is judged by WEIGHT, and a time frame of the possible move, and finished the conversation with a moving quote. It turns out that we did, in fact, need to move in that time frame of the estimated quote we got from her. So I called her back to let her know that we'd like to use that quote that I previously set up with her 6 months before, which was $1,800. She then told me we needed to re-do the estimated quote because rates have changed, gas prices have changed, etc. Hestitantly, I said ok...even though I thought the $1,800 was already locked in.
She then said our new moving quote was now raised up to $2,300, and it was based on 2,000lbs. I told her we probably didn't even have 2,000lbs worth of household goods, but either way, we needed to lock this in and continue this process, because we were already notified on short notice and needed to get this done. She emailed the contract ($2,300 with 2,000lb weight) that we needed to sign, so we did, and sent it back to her, along with the required deposit of $970.
We got a call from her a couple days later and she informed us that she, yes, SHE, entered our information into the wrong data base, and because of HER mistake, we then had to pay an increased price of $300 and we had to have a minimum shipping weight of 3,000lbs. After arguing with her that we shouldn't be held responsible for HER mistake, in the end, we gave in and just settled with the new quote because like I said, we needed to have a truck come out and pick up our stuff ASAP.
Four days before the move, she called again to tell us that there was no moving truck scheduled to come pick up our household goods and we will be notified if and when they found a truck to come out. After going back and forth with this woman about how a contract is a contract, and they need to stick by the contract THEY wrote, that they better have a truck come out on the scheduled date, because thats what we're paying them for, and we've scheduled everything else about our move (financially and physically) around the time the truck was supposed to arrive.
The next day, another call came through. The representative informed us that our household goods could be picked up the next day, and thats the only option at this time, until they found another truck that could pick up our things...and who knows when that would be. After already being completely irritated with everything about this company, we said fine, and they said they would have the trucker call 24hrs in advance to let us know when he would be arriving.
The next day, the trucker called us and said he would be at the house in an hour. So much for a 24hr notice. When the trucker arrived, he opened the back of the trailor and we noticed there wasn't much more than 1/4 of the truck left for all of our stuff. After expressing our concerns about this, the trucker pulled out paperwork that the moving company had given him that was an inventoried list, and it wasn't going by weight, like we've been told it would this WHOLE TIME. In the end, all of our household goods wasn't able to fit on the truck, and we've had to transport them across the country ourselves. Since the trucker came early, our last days of work had to be cut short early as well, because the trucker said he would arrive in CA in 7 days....way sooner than our expected delivery date range. All because he picked up our stuff 2 days early.
After driving across the country towing another truck and all our belongings that couldn't fit on the moving truck, we finally arrive in CA a day before the moving truck was planned to arrive. The driver said he would call within 24hrs of when he should be arriving with an expected delivery time. Once again, he called and said he'd arrive in 2 hours, so be ready. 6 hours pass, and no truck has arrived. The trucker then called and said he is in town, but he doesn't feel comfortable driving his truck to the location of our house, so he would have to rent a U-haul to bring our belongings to us. It is now 9pm and U-Haul is closed, so it would have to be done first thing in the morning. After stating that there are 18 wheelers all over this town, with 4-6 lane roads, we don't understand how he is not comfortable about driving his truck to our house, but we agree to have HIM pay for the U-haul in the morning to bring us our stuff.
Morning comes, and we cannot get a hold of the trucker. We call dispatch to see if they can get a hold of him or see if they have heard from him. Hours later, he calls and informs us that instead of 10 minutes away from our house, he is now an hour away in Nevada, because he got a ticket for where he was parked. So apparently he felt the need to drive an hour away into a different state instead of pulling into an appropriate parking lot or rest area.
After hours of going back and forth with this guy, he finally rents a U-haul from Carson City Nevada and drives our goods to our house in California. Why he didn't rent a U-Haul right there in our town, we have no idea. We figured it was his way of trying to rip us off even more.
Upon delivery, they have damaged some belongings and furniture, and continued to do so as they reassembled our belongings inside the house. He then told us that we owe him nearly $2,200 (even AFTER our $970 deposit...) and that our total weight of our belongings was 3,600lbs. NO. WAY. We barely had 2,000lbs. By this time, our anger and disappointment with these people was beyond through the roof, and no matter how much we argued with these people, we came to the conclusion that it is better if they leave at that moment before things got much worse. We made sure to get a receipt for what we paid this trucker, and made sure it says "PAID IN FULL" before he left. On top of that being a complicated, irritating issue....the trucker was the only person who barely spoke english. His Russian accent made it extremely hard to understand him. With him was his girlfriend and coworker, who both didn't speak a word of English.
During this entire moving process, there have been many, many angry phone calls made to the company about everything we've been put through. On the day of the first expected delivery (which didnt happen), I had a heated conversation with another representative at the company about how upset we are that they are charging us all this extra money, and how they aren't sticking by their own contact that they wrote, and how its bologna that it's our responsibility to do their jobs. She then informed me that ALL of our phone calls have been recorded and a person in upper management has listened to them all and summarized them. She read back to me every single conversation we've had with every person at that company. I then asked her "if you have all this proof that you guys are screwing us over, why isn't that incentive enough to give us our money back for all the bogus charges? Obviously you're taking back every single word you guys are promising us-contract and all, and it's sad that you have proof that you're doing it, yet you still have excuses why you're charging us up the a*s..." and as expected, there was an excuse for that as well.
It is also clear in the recorded conversations that NOBODY is on the same page as far as times, cost, everything. The dispatch would tell us our weight of goods was 3,200lbs, then she said it was 2,400lbs, and the cost was this much, then it changed to this much. The trucker obviously had different weights and cost balances....GRR! So irritating! How do these people run a company!?!?
I cannot believe everything we've gone through with these people, and it's amazing that they're still in business. I guess ripping people off is how they're surviving, but hopefully not for long. This company doesn't care about your belongings, your money, your time, or anything to do with you. They care about money and how they can rip people off, and trust me, they will find every single way, and every single excuse on how to do it. And this is a summed up version of our horrible service.