I am writing this letter to inform the consumers of extremely unsatisfactory practices of the moving company Xpress Movers and Storage (in further text Xpresss), 605 Eight Street, San Fernando, CA 91340, US-DOT#1035080, MC#434571. I engaged Xpress to transport my household goods from Metairie/New Orleans/, LA to Westminster/Denver/, CO from April 14th - April 21st.
This company made many promises and broke virtually every one of them, from the quoted price of the transport to the unloading of the goods. I have moved several times with the moving companies before, and was prepared to experience some frustrations and damages - however, this is by far the worst experience in my life, and I feel mislead and taken advantage of. I feel that the public should be aware of malpractices of the above moving company.
In early March I have called Xpress Mover to obtain a quote to move household items from a house in Metairie, Louisiana to a house in Westminster, Colorado. I spoke with relocation specialist Ms. Shani Sabban, who explained their services and provided me with a spreadsheet that my husband filled in with all the items needed to be moved, and also noted the approximate weight of our previous move from Virginia to Louisiana as a reference.
Based on the information on the spreadsheet, Ms. Sabban came up with the cost for transport of $4,550.00. After consulting with my husband, we decided to request the packing services as well, and were given a verbal quote of $6,500.00. Since this estimate was lower by a few thousand dollars than other estimates I received, I validated with Ms. Sabban, asking her if that was a correct price, and if any other costs were included, but I was assured that the cost of my move would be $6,500.00.
When the movers arrived on April 14th, the driver inspected the household goods to be transported and the packing and loading started. Despite the fact that I have been promised a crew of professional packers (and charged $2000 for that), only the driver and one helper completed the load. When the truck was loaded, the driver presented my husband with the contract in amount of $13,000.00.
Have we known that the price of the transport may deviate, and have a driver even hinted, either prior or during the load that the quoted price was too low, we would have declined the service on the spot. However, the driver informed my husband of the price increase when all our possessions were loaded on the truck, which left us with no choice but to accept this, for the lack of better term, pure extortion. Please note, the move was from New Orleans, an area still heavily affected by the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, and we were unable to find another truck immediately and meet the scheduled timeline.
Furthermore, since this was happening on Sunday evening, I was unable to contact anyone at the Xpress Movers and Storage office to discuss these issues.
I have contacted the Xpress office early Monday morning, explained the situation to one of the dispatchers, and asked about the price difference, and if the new price is correct, would the company work a payment plan or give me an extension to pay the balance (after all, we are talking about thousands of dollars I had to come up with in a matter of days). I was promised a call back as soon as they look into this.By dispatcher's own admittance, such big difference between the estimate and the cost of transport was unusual.
I have not received any calls, nor have I received any answers when I called the company back. Finally, a day before the unload (Thursday 4/20) I was able to speak to another dispatcher who informed me that my load was much bigger that anticipated, that they could not pick up some other load and that also increased the price, and suggested two options: one was to accept a discounted price of $11,000.00 or Xpress will send the truck back to New Orleans, unload half of the items and bring the rest back for the quoted price of $6,500.00.
I was again left with no other options but to accept the higher price, because my husband departed New Orleans, the house was closed and there was no one there to accept the goods and organize another transport. I was also afraid that, if I do not accept the price, my items will be put in storage and kept there until I come up with the money.
The truck arrived at the unload site on April 21st despite the driver's own statement that he will be at the house at 7 AM, the truck arrived after 7 PM. Needless to say, I lost a day of work since I stayed home to wait for the truck. I called Xpress office several times during the day, but the status of the truck was not disclosed assumingly the driver's cell phone was out of service, and he was unreachable. Even though I was, once again, promised the crew to speed up the unload, once again only the driver and one helper appeared.
The driver demanded the payment before he even opened the truck, and informed me that my husband told him to unload everything into the garage. I could not accept this, noting that, per Xpress' own service agreement, they will unload, unpack and reassemble the furniture, and the house will be ready to move in. Reluctantly, the driver agreed to bring the labeled boxes into the respective areas in the house (in example, kitchen, bedrooms etc). Unfortunately, majority of the boxes, labeled and unlabeled, still ended up in the garage only about 10% of the boxes actually ended in the areas they needed to be.
I had to ultimately do the Xpress' job and move the boxes into and around the house myself. The driver also declined to bring the sofa upstairs, stating it will damage the walls. However, my husband and I were able to bring the sofa to its designated place ourselves, with minimal effort and no damage.
During the unload, I have noticed that many furniture items were not disassembled, thus taking more space than necessary on the truck and attributing to the increased cost of transport. I also noted that many items were not wrapped or protected, and also numerous scratches and dents were visible on pieces of furniture.
I pointed those to the driver and was informed to call the company and file the claim. He did not want to acknowledge that the damage was caused by improper packing/handling of the items. During unpacking, I have noted further damage due to improper packing many items were not wrapped but just shoved in the boxes, the shirts were not hung in the wardrobe boxes but just shoved into them, which caused extensive wrinkling, and I ended up washing and pressing every single item to correct this.
On Monday 24th, I have called Xpress Movers office and spoke with dispatcher who identified himself as Jack. I stated the amount of damages to my items, and also noted that the furniture items were not disassembled properly thus attributing to the price increase. I was told that disassembling the furniture would increase the cost of labor, however, the disassembling, wrapping and packing was supposed to be included in the price!
This was just another in the line of bad excuses/lies Xpress employees told me. On our next conversation, again initiated by me since Jack did not call me back as promised, he told me he spoke with the driver who declined causing the damages, but I simply said that, since no damages were noted on the loading papers, I am correct to assume that the damages occurred during the transport, to which statement Jack ultimately agreed. I asked how would I file a claim for damages, but Jack asked me to send him the pictures and he will help me to resolve the issue and call me back. Of course, I have waited for a call back in vain, so I called Jack back after a week.
This time, he asked me to send him the detailed description of the damages, and he will call me back the same day with the solution. Another week passed by with no phone call, so I finally called Jack again on May 15th. This time he told me he had faxed my letter and pictures to Anthem Claim Management, their insurance company, to see how much the insurance would cover and that the company will reimburse me for the rest. Suspicious that this may be just another in the string of excuses (or better said lies), I have called Anthem the next day, just to find out they have not received anything from Xpress regarding my claim at all.
I called Xpress back and asked to speak to someone who can explain the claim process and was connected to the supervisor. I was once again promised that they will look into my claim and contact me; however, as of the date of this letter, once again, no one from Xpress has called me back. I have also discovered that Anthem Claim Management is not an insurance company, but organization infamous for delaying and denying claims.
I finally realized that the company is not willing to work the issues out in a professional manner, and have resolved to report their malpractice to DOT, BBB and here.
G.
Westminster, Colorado
U.S.A.
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