My story:
Let me ask, if this happened to you & your family what would you do? How far would you push to make sure it was heard? Rogue Moving Companies: Stop these Criminals from holding our belongings and extorting our money.
So it all starts out that I secured a new job position and transfer with my company. Should naturally be an exciting time in our lives (with the purchase of our first home as well). So we prepare for the move from CA to AZ. We decided to put in for a price quote for the move over the internet (seemed easy enough). National mover's contact us right a way with a reasonable quote (they pack, deliver and unload). So we contracted the move with them (apparently National Movers are a broker sub-contracting to others & we get AY Transport) to pick up our belongings Tuesday, June 2nd and set the deliver for this past Monday, June 7 (paperwork states: 3-5 days delivery those exact words).
First they show up with a truck that is too small. Of course with the phone estimate, we told them a lot for a 4-5 bedroom home size (my fianc had just shipped & received his belongings from overseas-landing bill stated 4000lbs, adding mine would double the weight but not more).in all fairness, all but a few items fit into the initial truck (some boxes, 3 bikes & base to the basket ball hoop-maybe a pickup truck load). Well anyways, my fianc tried to stay in contact with them (both companies AY & National) for not only the initial delivery for Monday but the pick up of the additional stuff that was left in our garage.
Due to this coordination, they (AY) indicated that they'll need to push out delivery until Wednesday, Jun 9th. We figured, what are a couple extra days (no big deal right). Well, Wednesday comes and goes & currently we still do not have our belongings. We have tried several times to contact someone at either AY Transport or National Movers & no one couldn't even give us a specific date & time of delivery (they've only verbally said, sometime this weekend).
If that's not bad enough they also tell us that we need to call them back tomorrow & they might have a better idea. We've heard this line several times during this entire process. Matter of fact, I get told (being a bit upset I decided to call these companies myself my fianc very sweet and doesn't normal make waves) that this is the Busy Moving Season and they couldn't possibly promise to call us back, so we would have to do the calling. This little insight came straight from a dispatch manager (Miguel Andrade @ National movers).
Needless to say this type of customer service isn't acceptable & I wanted to escalate the matter up through his management chain. He indicated that the CEO of the company (Randy Goldberg) was that person and he does not have an office telephone & wouldn't take care of these types of matters anyways (what? The CEO doesn't care about his customers???). So, with all said, I'm not only left with an unsatisfied feeling (ok I'm really quite upset) but to make the matters worst I still don't know when my belongings will arrive & my children are to arrive Saturday, June 12th (without their beds & other belongings to take care of them). It just seems since I'm paying good (hard earned) money that I would assume Good Service' Would NOT be in question.
So, a bit upset by this I started to composed an email in order to forward to everyone I knew not to use these companies. With that I was going to copy the two companies as well I was still believing that they were legitimate business'. So I went to look up AY Transports URL for their email address (as I already had Nationals). And low and behold want I came across my screen next came as a complete Shock to say the least, Rip off report: National Moving Network AY Transport ripped off all our belongings*Consumer suggestion* Update'.
Well with a bit more research (instead of concentrating on my new job) I found out that this type of Scam has dramatically increased in the past few years since the ICC abolishment in 1995 due to Government Downsizing'. Hardly seems right that the government would allow such a loop hole to open up for these criminals to take advantage of unsuspecting consumers.
Additionally, leaving minimal resources for the victims to turn to (DOT-FMCSA dramatically under staffed the police force doesn't even have adequate knowledge on how to handle the situation). There must be more that can be done other than simply filling a complaint at Better Business Bureau, the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Some how it seems right (to me) to have not only a wider publicized venue to educate and warn the general public, as well as the state & city police departments, of these rogue movers but to enforce tighter and tougher regulations to prevent them from these unlawful behaviors.
At any rate, these companies still have not delivered our belongings, they won't tell us were the truck is physically located (they refuse to give the companies physical address) and we keep getting passed off from person to person within their offices. So, this only leaves one Question: How long does our belongings need to be not delivered (i.E. Missing) before they are considered stolen???
Continuation June 15
New Question: How many consumers need to be victimized before regulations are changed for shipment of household goods' & criminals are put out of business??? AY Transport driver called at 2:30pm to indicate they were in Blythe, CA & were a few hours out from arrival. When they didn't show up by 7pm we began to wonder if they would show at all (researching others stories that their normal delivery arrival is late at night or early morning hours).
Of course we tried calling them several times but wasn't able to get through. They finally called at 9:30pm and said they were 10 minutes out on I 10, so we decided to call the local police as we anticipated a struggle (that being normal as well). Well, local police showed up but the movers did not. However, we took the opportunity to update the officers to what had been happening and what was about to take place (that is if they showed up at all). Of course, the officers indicated that they would only be present (when the time arrived) as a civil stand by (being this was merely a civil dispute matter and they had no authority).
After waiting several minutes & afraid that with the police cars out front of our house, we agree that the officers should go and we'd call them IF the matter escalated. At any rate, AY Transport finally showed up at 11:07PM.By the way, the driver & the assistant didn't give their names (not even sure if the officers asked for them either but if you get pulled over by the state or local police for a routine stop they always ask for identification) so their identification will simply be as such, driver & assistant'. I asked the driver to go ahead and back into the driveway. He's assistant got out of the truck to help guide the truck into place.
Meanwhile, my fianc pulled up as he had gone to move our mini van out of the way. The assistant then reached over and started to open the back of the truck & the driver yelled back to him (speaking in a foreign dialect). The assistant then closed and latched the back of the truck. My fianc walked up as the driver reached the back of the truck. He asked if there was trouble on their drive from Blythe & then asked to see the weight station documents. The drive instantly started yelling at us and saying he was too tired to put up with any attitudes. He also added that he didn't weight the truck and was going to weight the truck at this late hour. The driver also said that they would not open the truck until we paid them the amount owed.
Of course my fianc replied to him that we were not paying until they showed us the weight tickets, they also needed to open the back of the truck and complete the services we had contracted for (meaning; they needed to unload the truck then and only then should they expect to get paid). As the discussion got louder, my fianc told me to go ahead and call the police again.
After the officers arrive & calmed the situation down, the driver said he would need to call his dispatcher' to get approval regarding the 110% rule (I had a copy on hand for the local officers) Title 49, (49CFR375.3) part d states the following: "Maximum charges required to be paid at time of delivery on collect on delivery shipments subject to non-binding estimates of approximate costs. At time of delivery of a collect on delivery shipment, except when such shipment is delivered to a warehouse for storage at the request of the shipper, on which a non-binding estimate of the approximate costs has been furnished by the carrier under the provisions of paragraph (b), the shipper may request delivery of the shipment upon payment, in a form acceptable to the carrier, of an amount not exceeding 110 percent of the estimated charges. The carrier shall, upon request of the shipper, relinquish possession of the shipment upon payment of not more than 110 percent of the estimated charges and shall defer demand for the payment of the balance of any remaining charges for a period of 30 days following the date of delivery."
Even though the driver finally got approval from the dispatcher he kept trying to convince the officers that they were tired and they should go to a local hotel to rest for the night. Then they would return in the morning. Of course, with our resent research of the stories we read, all had indicated that once the movers left with your belongings they won't return.
So, with that we were determined not to let the truck leave our driveway. We maintain our stance since they decided to deliver the truck at that hour then they were not leaving without unloading the truck. One of the officers finally submitted and told the AY employees if they weren't going to unload the truck as contracted then to stand aside and let us do it. And of course, the driver still refused to comply but after a half hour or so the assistant decided to help unload our belongings. With that my fianc, my teenage daughter, twin 10 year boys, our new next door neighbor and I started unloading.
The driver kept arguing with the assistant (in a foreign language so we couldn't understand) in not helping us, although he did continue to help. One of the first pieces of furniture to be unloaded was my wingback chair (that matches my coach) which had not only a broken leg but the leg was smashed. It's safe to say that every piece of my furniture that was taken off of that truck had been damage to some degree or another. The list of missing items is long (a few of the items are: 6 man army tent $1500, Dish Network receiver this isn't even our property, ironing board why would this be missing). The truck was full, we could only surmise that they simply left items behind because they didn't have any room on the truck.
Anyways, during the middle of us unloading the truck the driver still wanted to go over the paper work and receive the postal money order for a 110% of the estimate. We decided that I would read over the documents and give them the postal money orders (even though National took our initial deposit on a credit card they demanded that we pay them with either cash or postal money order questionable I'd say).
The driver started to show me the weight tickets (remember he said that he didn't weight truck and wasn't going to at this late hour). He lays out 4 blue documents from Forty-Niner Truck Plaza; one being the first truck (initial truck sent was too small for all of our belongings), next slip was for second truck (picking up the remaining of our belonging in our garage - complex manager verifies pickup), third & forth (cc: of 3rd slip) slips were the final weight of all our belongings.
As I was looking at these slips I noticed that something wasn't quite right. I asked him to clarify the slips since it was so late & maybe I was unclear on what he was explaining about these slips. He stated again, pointing to the slips, 1 for 1st truck, 2nd for 2nd and so on.
I then asked if he could explain why the completely full truck was dated on June 2nd (they picked up the first load-too small of a truck on the 2nd) and they didn't even have all of our belongings as of that date and the empty trucks were on June 8th. I also asked how each truck was identified (which truck was which truck) on these pieces of paper. He then indicated that he would need to call his dispatcher back (all night any time he needed answer he would need to call his dispatcher) again.
Well, while he turned away to talk with his dispatcher I took the documents inside the house and took digital photos of each one. I also, took a photo of another piece of paper that was supposed to be the current truck they were using to deliver our belongings. I then took the documents to one of the officers and asked if he would look them over as well.
He agreed that the dates seemed out of synch and also noted that the white document, which was to identify their current truck, did not have the same license plate numbers. The driver returned and indicated that we could go anywhere we wanted to make photo copies of the slips but I was not allowed to keep them. The driver became very quiet and cooperative when I told him that it was ok we already got digital photos of the documents & didn't need to go anywhere. However, he was still requesting the payment. I did eventually hand over the postal money order for the predetermined 110%.
My fianc did sign there Bill of Landing for acceptances of delivery however, we did note on the bottom that the signing was under dourest & we were not acknowledging what was delivered or in what condition it was in. Also noting that we have a certain amount of time to assess the damage and file our claims.
We did finally finish unloading at nearly 3:30 in the morning. Needless to say we needed to take the next several days to filter through the huge disarray.in addition, I need to mention that due to all of this I had to take off several days of work. Our hiring a moving company was to easy the stress of moving not add to it.
If it's not bad enough this continues, adding insult to injury, with a phone call last Thursday from someone identifying themselves as AY Transports attorney & that they wanted our side of the story and wanted to settle the matter.
I told them they would need to correspondence with us through writing only. We did receive a certified letter; dated 2 days after AY finally delivered most of our stuff, from their Attorney Michael A. Garcia. Where he indicated we need to pay the balance of the bill'. Even though Appendix A, CFR Title 49 Part 375 TRANSPORTATION OF HOUSEHOLD GOODS IN INTERSTATE OR FOREIGN COMMERCE states: Bills for charges exceeding 110% of a non-binding estimate, and for additional services requested or found necessary after the shipment is in transit, will be presented NO SOONER than 30 days after the date of delivery.
Never the less, I'm now finding out that this tainted industry will stop at nothing. I found that they have even implanted one of their own into the legal field as attorneys to collect on bogus debts from their victims. Ye'Ela Haggai is the CEO of AY, wife to the owner Amit Ezyoni (aka: Ezoni) & the law partner to Michael Garcia at Garcia Haggai Law Group.
In Summary: We are not only looking to gain rightful compensation (our portion of a mere civil matter replace damages or missing items) from both National & AY (they both need to be held accountable) but we would like to help prevent this from happening to others. It is completely surprising that this issue (rogue movers) has been a problem for many years. There is a serious loop hole left by the abolishment of the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) in 1995. Since then the laws regulating the moving industry are written in civil code (49CFR375) that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA).
In addition, Carmack Amendment (49 U.S. C section 14706 et seq) preempts State Laws, so any state legislation is not applicable. HR 1070 would address these flaws within the Carmack Amendment. Currently Carmack prevents consumers from suing in civil court for fraud, extortion (hostage-freight), negligence, and breach of insurance contract, breach of contract of carriage, conversion, intentional misrepresentation, negligent misrepresentation, and negligent infliction of emotional distress.
In my shared opinion with other victimized consumers a change is needed to re-written this civil code to be reflected as criminal code instead. This will allow consumers the protection of the law enforcement community to protect their belongings from being held at ransom at whatever price these carrier decides to charge. Our representatives/government officials need to know that carriers are often (and very much Still) extorting thousands of dollars from single consumers every day (& millions of dollars every year). Penalties need to match their crimes!!!
(cited references removed by usacomplaints.com)
Susan
chandler, Arizona
U.S.A.
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